An unconventional Birmingham business is providing same-day delivery on "late night essentials," including alcohol and CBD products, through a partnership with local bar Dave’s Pub and Near To Me Dispensary retail stores.
Buzd, which launched in May, is an app in which users can create an order and have supplies delivered in less than an hour. It is currently delivering to Birmingham, Homewood, Mountain Brook, Vestavia Hills, Irondale and some parts of Hoover.
The delivery fee is currently $3. Delivery hours are 10 a.m. to 2 a.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 2 p.m. Sunday.
The idea was born when founders Johnson Parker and Preston Hooten, who have service industry and retail experience, saw an opportunity to leverage an uptick in the use of delivery services during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and discovered Dave's had a special license that allows on and off-premise sales.
"There's only a couple of licenses like like ours in the state, and we're lucky enough to have one," said Buzd CEO Kim Stone.
All inventory is stocked on site. Dave's owns the inventory and Buzd delivers it, charging Dave's a service fee.
"We've cut out an entire aspect of that supply chain model, which means that we do not have to price our inventory on top of somebody else's retail pricing," Stone said. "Because we are not shopping from third-party package stores or grocery stores, that is another aspect of margins and sales prices that we don't have to include, so we are as affordable or low-priced as you're going to see in package stores and in grocery stores."
The company was funded completely in-house, Hooten said.
Buzd is currently focused on expanding its footprint beyond the Birmingham metro and expanding inventory. It is also working to develop partnerships with local bars to start a cocktail kit program.
And Hooten said he is not worried about competing with other delivery services.
"What distinguishes us from a business model perspective is that nobody really is doing it the same way that we're doing it," Hooten said. "So the third-party courier is going to always have to compete with the market as far as what people are charging retail. ... You're going to have to hire people that know product intimately to go in and shop and be able to trust these people that they're going to find the right thing and deliver it to the customer."
Stone said the company has run into advertising roadblocks, however. Because it carries CBD and delta-8 products, it is not able to advertise using traditional streams such as promoting social media posts.
"I would say our biggest hurdle has been trying to get past that, and that is something that we are, to be frank, still working on now," Stone said.
Overall, the reception has been welcoming in the metro.
"We have a smart shopping and consumer base that knows what's out there," Hooten said. "They know what Birmingham could be and they've just shown nothing but absolute shock and excitement as of right now."
