Digitalization of the offer of products from public markets

Innovation methods

Data sources

Scaling

Cost

SDG(s)

Sustainable Development Goal(s)

9Industry, innovation and infrastructure

11Sustainable cities and communities

17Partnerships for the goals

Disclaimer:

Please be aware that the content herein has not been peer reviewed. It consists of personal reflections, insights, and learnings of the contributor(s). It may not be exhaustive, nor does it aim to be authoritative knowledge.

Overview

Prepared by (Name of the experimenter)

Betty Chemier

On date (Day/Month/Year)

14/02/2024

Current status of experimental activity

Completed

What portfolio does this activity correspond to? If any

Iniciativa Mercado Basura Cero - Zero Waste Market Initiative

What is the frontier challenge does this activity responds to?

Digitalization / Solid Waste Management

What is the learning question(from your action learning plan) is this activity related to?

Can the digitalization of public market offerings through a public-private alliance boost sales and reduce surplus food waste?

Please categorize the type that best identifies this experimental activity:

Quasi Experimental (Analytical, observations, etc)

Which sector are you partnering with for this activity? Please select all that apply

Public Sector, Private Sector

Please list the names of partners mentioned in the previous question:

Mercado San Felipe Neri Pedidos YA (delivery app)

Design

What is the specific learning intent of the activity?

Understand if the digitalization of public market offerings through a public-private alliance can boost sales and reduce surplus of food that goes to waste?

What is your hypothesis? IF... THEN....

If the product offering of two public food markets is digitized across of the PedidosYa platform, then the sales of products will increase and then the food surplus will be reduced.

Does the activity use a control group for comparison?

Yes, the same group but before the intervention

How is the intervention assigned to different groups in your experiment?

Random assignment

Describe which actions will you take to test your hypothesis:

PedidosYa joined the project in February 2022 and through several coordination spaces, a digital piloting was defined for the market offer in 3 phases: (i) relationship, (ii) affiliation and on-boarding, (iii) expansion to other markets.

What is the unit of analysis of this experimental activity?

Number of new clients, volume of surplus food, income and profits

Please describe the data collection technique proposed

It is proposed to monitor the cost-benefit with financial and operational data.

What is the timeline of the experimental activity? (Months/Days)

12 months

What is the estimated sample size?

10-49

What is the total estimated monetary resources needed for this experiment?

Less than 1,000 USD

Quality Check

This activity is relevant to a CPD outcome, The hypothesis is clearly stated, This activity offers strong collaboration oportunities, This activity offers a high potential for scaling, This activity has a low risk

Please upload any supporting links

What are the estimated non- monetary resources required for this experiment? (time allocation from team, external resources, etc) If any.

Time allocation from Lab team, time allocation from Pedidos Ya team (during meetings, visits to tenants, etc)

Results

Was the original hypothesis (If.. then) proven or disproven?

Partially proven.

Do you have observations about the methodology chosen for the experiment? What would you change?

The methodology consisted of 3 stages as it follows: Approach and affiliation of local Seafood Market and other municipal markets (in development). The case study and new proposal consists of (i) strengthening the two tenants who are pioneers in digitizing their offer in the market; (ii) expand the coverage of delivery of the San Felipe Neri Market and (iii) give strength to a commercial campaign-digital specific to PedidosYa and directed to the San Felipe Neri Market. This strategy is will develop during the last quarter of 2023 and first quarter of 2024 and will seek expand to other markets in the peripheral network of municipal markets, especially to Seafood Market, which will be part of phase 3 during the first quarter of 2024. Affiliation and on-boarding, with a minimum goal of 8 affiliated locations (locals fruits, vegetables, groceries and meat). The number of 8 affiliated locations has not yet been reached, at the moment there are only 4. However, these four affiliated stores have undergone a personalized induction so that they can start receiving orders through the platform. Given that at the end of almost 1 year of continuous visits, only 4 affiliations of businesses, we had a series of documentation and reflection sessions on what we learned, visits to the premises, as well as 6 in-depth interviews with sellers of the market to better understand the limitations, motivations and incentives that facilitate or limit affiliation to the platform. Based on these inputs, a new case study has been proposed to develop a new membership strategy at the San Felipe Neri Market. Approach with the tenants and presentation of the proposal for membership. When starting this process, it was decided to develop this pilot for fruits, vegetables, groceries and meat, since with these, PedidosYa was able to offer them a subscription model with competitive incentives for the profile of market sellers. Since the beginning of this pilot in October 2022, the PedidosYa team made 12 visits to 31 market stalls to make the approach, of which 6 confirmed their interest in subscribing and 4 have started operation since August 2023. In follow-up sessions with PedidosYa, the list of market sellers was reviewed to update your status based on conversations; by identifying the low number of person that were interested, we sought to energize and approach the sellers of the market through activities such as mondongada, a food rescue experiment which was also part of the approach to tenants and those who were invited to a special session to inform them of the opportunity, which was attended by a group of 10 tenants.

From design to results, how long did this activity take? (Time in months)

12 months

What were the actual monetary resources invested in this activity? (Amount in USD)

Does this activity have a follow up or a next stage? Please explain

We are currently iterating the methodology as explained in the previous section

Is this experiment planned to scale? How? With whom?

Yes it is planned to scale to other markets and also with a marketing incentive within the platform when and if the target amount of affiliates is reached.

Please include any supporting images that could be used to showcase this activity

Please add any supporting links that describe the planning, implementation, results of learning of this activity? For example a tweet, a blog, or a report.

Considering the outcomes of this experimental activity, which of the following best describe what happened after? (Please select all that apply)

This experiment did not scale yet

Learning

What do you know now about the action plan learning question that you did not know before? What were your main learnings during this experiment?

After an ethnographic analysis to generate a series of learnings about this digitalization experiment in the market to understand the barriers and opportunities of digitalization, resulting in three key learnings: Trust and human contact simplicity and immediacy in transactions 1. Public markets are in themselves a meeting point in the cities and the San Felipe Neri Market is no exception. The people that sell in the market have history, tradition and a large network of contacts suppliers and customers who buy with trust in the market, some of these relationships have existed for decades. Due to this social capital and the abstract nature of talking about a 'digital market'. Digitization requires becoming more human and closer to facilitate openness to join a delivery platform. 2. Opening to a digital market also requires human contact and the simplification of the language of platforms or technological tools, a good exercise has been not to see only the barriers to digitalization that have the people who sell in the market, but also look at the barriers that technologies or processes generate, focusing solutions on people who seek to open the digital door. 3. Most people who sell on the market are already banked through a banking app of Banco General (Yappy), which in itself represents an important element of digitalization in the market. One of the main success factors is that the app, despite being digital, is usually use face-to-face, something valued by people who sell. Simplicity and immediacy in transactions 4. Market people depend on the daily flow of income for sustain your daily life, the platform of PedidosYa doesn't allows immediate payments, but every 8 days, people those who sell in the market do not see sufficient value since they cannot cover daily financial commitments. 5. PedidosYa platform is quite intuitive, however, the requirements to be able to use it (lease contract of the people who sell in the market) feel burdensome on the part of the tenants. 6. There is an important generational element in the willingness to join the platform or not. Young people who tend the stalls have the openness and interest in joining. However, these are not the people who sign the lease contract, so despite their interest, it is not in their hands to decide. The people who sign the contracts are normally older adults who prefer human contact and have low trust in technology. In visits and interviews, feelings of reluctance and distrust towards the digital environment were recorded. Increase in sales and income 7. The main concern of people who sell in the market is the income generation to sustain their operation. Micro businesses predominate, which tend to have very limited access to credit and financing, for so the daily flow of resources is key. 8. Although the digital platform may represent a new ´digital’ market for people who sell on the market, the uncertainty of the cost-benefit of joining a platform generates apprehension. Especially considering that affiliated businesses currently do not have a large sales volume at through the delivery platform. 9. People in the market feel much more publicity is needed and give visibility to the market and its offer so that the influx of people increase. There is a lot of concern since the people who sell in the market perceives a low clientele and this has an impact on their income and ability to maintain their positions in the market.

What were the main obstacles and challenges you encountered during this activity?

Distrust in technology, generational gap, lack of control of timings from our private sector counterpart, low trust from tenants towards the market administration.

Who at UNDP might benefit from the results of this experimental activity? Why?

Team working in digitalization efforts who could be interested in qualitative insights on barriers and challenges to implement a digital solution/transformation.

Who outside UNDP might benefit from the results of this experiment? and why?

Private sector and other multilateral organizations working on digitalization solutions.

Did this experiment require iterations? If so, how many and what did you change/adjust along the way? and why?

Yes, it has required several rounds of iteration. Currently working on the one described above in the methodology section.

What advice would you give someone wanting to replicate this experimental activity?

Despite being a digital solution, you must give a lot of value to human touch throughout the process. Start with a small group of champions / liders that can then support the scaling to a wider group.

Can this experiment be replicated in another thematic area or other SDGs? If yes, what would need to be considered, if no, why not?

Yes

How much the "sense" and "explore" phases of the learning cycle influenced/shaped this experiment? In hindsight, what would you have done differently with your fellow Solution Mapper and Explorer?

This pilot is one of four experiments part of the Zero Waste Market Initiative, which builds from a year long process of sensing, exploring and co-creating solutions.

What surprised you?

Despite the fact that most of the tenant already use a digital wallet, and having several cases of affiliates with considerable increases in their sales, friction persists.