SW: What is the differentiator between this and similar apps?
KZ: First, BlueCart is free for both buyers and suppliers. Every other app out there is either charging restaurants a monthly fee, or taking a cut of every order from suppliers.
On top of that, BlueCart was built to help both sides of the equation — buyers and suppliers — do better business. The few other apps that have tried to help manage ordering have stumbled because they tend to favor one side over another.
For instance, some work only for the restaurant and bar side, playing a heavy price-comparison card at the expense of established relationships with suppliers. Others build apps that work only for one supplier, which means the restaurant now has to download a dozen different apps instead of one. Some even highlight price comparison and charge suppliers for the privilege of joining a race to the bottom.
SW: How popular are alcohol apps? What are their future?
KZ: We can’t speak to the alcohol-delivery apps that handle deliveries to people’s houses, but mobile apps for the industry are just going to get better.
People always talk about how the younger generation coming up is going to usher in more and more tech, but the older generation will resist. We actually found that if your app is simple enough, age isn’t an issue. There are people in their seventies using BlueCart just as happily as young reps in their twenties.
The limiting factor used to be that not everyone had a smartphone. Now, apps like BlueCart work as easily on smartphones as they do on laptops.
SW: How does your app work within the complex network of alcohol laws?
KZ: As a communication service, we don’t buy, sell, deliver, take payment for, or touch alcohol (outside of personal consumption…). We just streamline communication.
SW: What has been the response to BlueCart?
KZ: Overwhelming. In our first month, our goal was to get 16 restaurants on board. We got over a hundred. At a year and a half in, we have over four thousand restaurants and suppliers on the platform. And almost all of this has been word of mouth. We’ve done basically no advertising.
Kyle Swartz is the associate editor of StateWays Magazine. Reach him at kswartz@epgmediallc.com, or (203) 855-8499, ext. 225.
