Loqma for grocers and minimarkets
Your problem is dates, not batches. Stock leaves the shelf while it is still perfectly good, because the shelf has to stay ahead of the label.
Why good stock comes off the shelf early
A grocer’s surplus is written by a printed date. Yoghurt, labneh, milk, bread and packaged goods come off days before they are actually a problem, because nobody reaches for the item closest to its date when there is a later one behind it. The stock is fine. Its shelf position is not.
Produce is harder, because it is judged by eye. A crate that has been picked over is not less edible, only less attractive, and the pick-over is done by mid-afternoon.
Most of this is already booked as shrink. The comparison for a bag is not against full price — it is against zero, plus what it costs you to get rid of it.
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Short-dated is not out-of-date
You set the collection window, so you decide how much life is left when the customer walks out with it. Nothing should be listed that will be past its date at collection.
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Cosmetic culls are still food
Bruised, odd-sized or picked-over produce sells perfectly well to someone who came looking for exactly that and is not comparing it to a full crate.
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It brings someone through the door
A collection is a visit. The customer is in your shop, at a quiet hour, holding a bag they already decided to buy.
What grocers usually put in
You choose the mix on the day and describe the type of bag — produce, mixed, bread — rather than a fixed list.
- Short-dated dairy, labneh and yoghurt
- Bread and packaged bakery near its date
- Picked-over or cosmetically off produce
- Chilled and ambient lines pulled from a shelf rotation
The money, plainly
Loqma never holds your money or your customer’s. You owe us one thing — a monthly fee for each branch on the platform — and it arrives on one invoice a month. Shops joining now do not owe it until their first ten bags are sold.
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Nothing to pay until your first 10 bags are sold
Loqma is opening up, and shops that join now pay no monthly fee until their first 10 bags have been collected. Not a reduced fee — no invoice at all until then. A bag counts on the day the customer picks it up, not when it is reserved. Everything below describes what happens after that: the fee starts the day the 10th bag is collected, and your console counts the bags sold so far, so nothing arrives as a surprise.
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You take the cash
The customer pays you, at your counter, when they collect. Loqma is not in the payment path — we never receive, hold or forward any of it. There is nothing for us to pay out to you, and nothing to wait for.
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Loqma takes no cut of what you sell
There is no commission and nothing charged per bag. The price you put on a bag is the money you take. A busy month does not make your invoice any bigger — and, so you hear it from us first, a quiet one does not make it smaller.
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The fee is monthly, and it is per branch
What you pay Loqma is a recurring fee for each branch you have on the platform, charged for the calendar month. Shops joining now pay nothing until their first 10 bags are sold. The standard fee is $25 per branch, per month. It starts the day your 10th bag is collected, and your console shows how many have sold so far. A branch that opens part-way through a month is charged from the day it opened, not for the whole month.
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One invoice a month, in arrears
On the 3rd of each month we invoice the month that has just ended: the fee for that month, plus VAT at 11% on it. Payment is due within 14 days. Those are the only two lines on the invoice — no listing fee, no per-bag charge, and nothing to pay to apply.
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And if the invoice goes unpaid
Worth stating here rather than leaving you to find out: if you owe more than $50 and an invoice has been outstanding for more than 30 days, your shop stops publishing new bags until it is settled. Orders already placed are unaffected.
Prices are set and billed in US dollars. Any Lebanese lira figure shown to a customer is a guide at a rate Loqma sets; what the customer owes you is the amount recorded on their order when they reserved.
How it works
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Apply
Four short steps in the browser — your business, your shop, your pin on the map, who to call. Answers are kept as you go, so you can stop and come back. A person reads every application and we answer within 48 hours.
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Describe a bag once
In the console you write the bag up once, then say how many you will have and between which hours it can be collected. The price is yours, with two rules: at least $1, and the contents worth at least 2× what you charge. That second one is the whole product.
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Customers reserve
A reserved bag is held for a named customer inside your window. You see the day’s orders as a list, each with a 4-digit code against it.
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They collect, you take the cash
They show the code, you hand over the bag and take the money, and someone taps Collected. If a collection is marked that never happened, you can reverse it until the end of the service day.
Apply to sell on Loqma
Four steps, kept as you go, so you can close the tab and come back to where you stopped. We answer within 48 hours and we call you when we do.
Nothing to pay to apply, and nothing to pay until your first ten bags are sold. After that Loqma charges a monthly fee per branch, and you will know exactly what yours is before you list anything.
Questions grocers ask
- Can I list items close to their best-before date?
- That is most of what grocery bags are. You set the collection window, so an item goes out with as much life left as you are comfortable with. Nothing past its date should go in a bag.
- How do customers know what they are getting?
- In outline, not in detail, and they are told so. You describe the kind of bag — produce, mixed, bread — and the contents vary by day.
- What about chilled items?
- Flag the bag as chilled and the customer is told to bring a cool bag before they set out, so the cold chain is not broken on the way home.
- Can I run more than one shop?
- Yes. One account can hold several branches, each with its own address, opening hours and listings, and they all appear on one monthly invoice. The fee is charged per branch, so a second branch is a second fee — and a branch that opens part-way through a month is charged only from the day it opened. Opening a branch is a request Loqma approves, so the count never moves on its own.
Questions shops ask
- Who takes the customer’s money?
- You do. The customer pays cash at your counter when they collect. Loqma never receives, holds or forwards customer money, so there is no payout to wait for and no balance sitting with us.
- What does it cost to sell on Loqma?
- A monthly fee for each branch you run on Loqma, plus VAT at 11% on it, on one invoice raised on the 3rd of the following month and due within 14 days. Shops joining now pay nothing until their first 10 bags are sold. The standard fee is $25 per branch, per month. It starts the day your 10th bag is collected, and your console shows how many have sold so far. There is no commission: Loqma takes no share of the bag price, so the fee is the same whether you sell one bag in the month or three hundred. There is no listing fee and nothing to pay to apply.
- What happens if nobody collects a bag?
- You keep the food, and it costs you nothing. An order that nobody confirms settles as collected 12 hours after the window closes — that is the default, and because your bill is a monthly fee rather than a cut of each sale, nothing is charged on it either way. If the bag genuinely was never handed over, report it from the console within that same 12 hours: we ask the customer, and if they do not contradict you the order closes as a no-show and a strike is recorded against them, so somebody who keeps reserving and never turning up stops being able to. It does not change what you are invoiced. Reporting is free and quick, but we watch how often each shop does it against the rest of the market, and past a monthly allowance a report stops carrying a strike.
- Do I have to install anything?
- No. The shop console is a web page. Open it on the phone behind the counter and add it to the home screen if you want it to behave like an app. There is no card machine and no hardware.
- Do I have to promise what is in the bag?
- No, and you should not. Customers are told before they reserve that the contents are a surprise, change daily, and cannot be chosen. You describe the kind of bag and decide what goes in it on the day.
- What about allergens?
- Because contents vary by day, customers are told allergens cannot be guaranteed and to ask you before they collect. You declare which allergens your bags may contain or have been in contact with, and that is shown on the listing.
- How long does an application take?
- A person reads every application. We answer within 48 hours and we phone the number you give us.