Singapore online grocery service startup RedMart has announced an on demand marketplace called RedMart Relay which promises deliveries within 60 minutes of placing your order.

But there is a catch – at least for now: the service will Initially be available only for customers located in the Tiong Bahru, Telok Blangah, Keppel, Sentosa, West Coast, Tanjong Pagar and Marina Bay neighbourhoods. A citywide launch is planned “by early 2016”.

Under RedMart Relay, customers can order food, groceries, apparel and electronic goods from participating stores – and RedMart will send a ‘runner’ to purchase the items and deliver them. It all works off a smartphone app.

RedMart Relay expands the company’s services beyond its core grocery delivery offer – a natural next step for the company, explains co-founder and CEO Roger Egan.  

“Whilst groceries will always be the foundation of what we do and remains a core part of our business, our new on-demand marketplace allows us to leverage our extensive delivery network and is all part of our long-term strategy to become an ‘everything store’, delivering a wide range of products to consumers across Singapore within the hour,” he said in an interview with the Business Times.

“With RedMart Relay we are now extending this [grocery] marketplace model to be ‘on-demand’, where we collect from retail partners or restaurants and deliver directly to our customers within an hour,” he said.