Foodpanda.com, tastykhana.com, justeat.in are few of the names of online food ordering companies that operate out of Bangalore. However these names make me wonder:
What is the USP of these companies?
What is the service that they provide?
How do they make money?
What hooks they have to ensure that they are irreplaceable?
Can they ever be profitable?
To me a food delivery ecosystem has the following elements
- Customers: Without a market no business model reach
- Order taking: Includes ability to influence user behavior by switching restaurants, trying out new food items
- Chef: Ability to actually cook food in time
- Delivery & logistics (including reverse logistics of a wrong order, item missed etc.)
- Billing & promotions
- Feedback & customer delight
All the 3 websites that I mentioned are giving 50% off on billing to attract the crowd, but the question is what is the unique thing they are doing? Attracting crowd via discounting is neither sustainable nor builds us the right customer expectations.
Food delivery is really in infancy in India. Basic elements like packaging, warming the food, On-Time delivery or Customer satisfaction is too much to expect. The tech-geeks with their online models could do a lot, but I am still struggling to find one that has done anything commendable. Do you know of any such website?
Tomorrow: What are the gaps and how can they be bridged.
4 replies on “Online food ordering industry”
Sumit can actually help you out on this one. He has worked and is still closely associated with this industry.
From a layman’s point of view, all i can think of in terms of difference between the various companies is –
1.the clientele (hotels, restaurant and chains etc)
2. the reach in term of cities and locations of the end customer
3. the offers given to the end customer.
Skabeesh
I am asking a totally different question… What is the USP & customer benefit for “an online home delivery portal for food”? zomato is a different ball game.. they run reviews (which people seek, because fine dining is often associated with an evening experience… and is more than just food.
Without a clear cut positioning & benefit, there is nothing these chains are bringing to the table in the 6 major components of the eco-system listed below. hence making them redundant and frivolous. distraction
Ok, they do one important thing – they help the restaurants reach a slightly wider audience. The restaurants don’t have to invest in a delivery side supply network, in lieu of which these guys can get a small percentage of the order value from the restaurant. Some part of this, they pass on to the customer as a discount (plus some offer from the restaurant specially directed at the customer).
From the customer point of view, he is getting food at home from restaurants which don’t deliver.
what I am saying is that there are 3-4 different portals and none of them have an exclusivity arrangement with any restuarants. whats the differentiator? what is the value add? are they developing the eco-system (for their benefit and growing pie through changing consumer habit)?