In this era of social distancing and lockdown days, restaurants and other food chains have shut down since the last two months, and people have remained confined within the four walls.
As per the reports published by the Statista Research Department, Columbian restaurant businesses have seen a steady drop in their sales as of March 2020.
The survey shows that there has been a 24.2% decline from March 9 to 13, as compared to the average weekday sales. The sales further dropped by 67% by March 18, 2020. Similar has been the scenario for restaurants around the world.
With such eye-watering numbers, restaurants had to find a way out to cope up with the crisis. They turned to online delivery via delivery platforms like Swiggy, Foodpanda, and Grabkitchen, which started to boost their sales.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, many food chains and other hospitality services have begun to follow the safety guidelines to reach out to a broader audience. They are taking all kinds of precautionary measures in their services to ensure proper health and hygienic conditions for their customers.
Here’s a brief insight into each of the above-mentioned online food ordering services, as to know how they are making profit and what measures they are taking in these times of crisis.
Swiggy
How Does It Work?
Swiggy is one of the leading food delivery services in India and is known for its super-fast deliveries, innovative technologies and an exceptional customer support service. Among the other benefits, including live order tracking, restaurant search, and no order amount restrictions.
Apart from food, Swiggy has also started delivering other essentials like lunch boxes, handmade toiletries, laundry, files, documents and forgotten items through its new Swiggy Go feature, launched in September 2019.
Check: Working of Swiggy Model
Business Model
Swiggy works on an on-demand and hyperlocal food delivery business model similar to the Grubhub in the United States. Operational since 2014, it has expanded across 100+ cities in India. It allows customers to order food via the Swiggy app, which is both available for Android and iOS devices. One can even order from the website version.
How Do They Make Money?
Swiggy, being a food aggregator delivering food from hundreds and thousands of restaurants across the world, makes money by charging commissions from each of the restaurants based on the total order value. This becomes the primary source of income for the food delivery company. The secondary sources of income for Swiggy include –
- Featured Lists: The company charges fees from the respective restaurants for featuring them on the Swiggy website/app.
- Swiggy Access: It is a paid service that allows food chains to open delivery-only kitchens in various parts of the country, and Swiggy will deliver their food orders.
- Delivery Charges: The company charges delivery fees from some consumers in a few locations. The delivery charges help to meet the cost of delivery guys, including their salaries, as well as the cost of fuel, and others.
How Did the Online Food Ordering Service Get Importance During COVID-19?
Swiggy has improved its services in the COVID-19 days by introducing safe and healthy delivery options like –
- No-contact delivery
- Workers are equipped with protective gear like masks and are practicing proper sanitizing and handwashing techniques
- Medical and financial support for every delivery partner
- Restaurant partner advisory to ensure they are following precautionary measures
Foodpanda
How Does It Work?
Foodpanda delivers food from over 115,000 restaurants across 11 countries. It works in a very simple process – you simply need to order your favorite food, and then sit back and relax while your food gets prepared, and then get it delivered right at your doorstep.
Business Model
Foodpanda works on a discovery-based online food delivery business model, as it acts as a middle man between the customers and the restaurants. Also, it follows a multi-sided business model, in which it works with two independent segments of customers – the consumers and the restaurants.
How Do They Make Money?
It gains commission from the restaurants they are serving and delivering food from. Moreover, Foodpanda also generates profit by charging delivery fees. However, since this is only very minimal compared to the costs involved in running their business, they grow their revenue through –
- Bulk purchase discounts at various eateries
- Taking cash from the customers beforehand
- Advertising
- Delivering other essentials and groceries apart from food.
How Did the Online Food Ordering Service Get Importance During COVID-19?
The strategies taken by Foodpanda to beat coronavirus include –
- No COD, only online payment
- Riders are using proper handwashing and hand sanitizing techniques
- Riders are given free hand sanitizers and face masks
- Added 300 hawker stalls by partnering with WhyQ
- Big discounts.
GrabKitchen
How Does It Work?
GrabKitchen is a recent program introduced by GrabFood, an online food delivery platform. In this program, you can place a combined order from two or more restaurants in single order delivery. Grab has also come up with a new self pick-up feature, using which a customer can make in-app orders of meals even before they are brought at the outlet. GrabKitchen is basically a cloud kitchen by Grab that encompasses multiple merchants all in one place. It is powered by data and is designed to fill the gaps in food demands.
Business Model
GrabKitchen, too, works on a hyperlocal and on-demand food delivery module. This cloud kitchen is a shared platform that works on a plug-and-play business model, wherein numerous merchants co-exist at one centralized location.
How Do They Make Money?
Grab receives a commission of up to 30-35% from individual customers for delivering food. Also, most of the restaurants are ready to spend on subsidies for promoting their brands on the Grab mobile app.
How Did the Online Food Ordering Service Get Importance During COVID-19?
Apart from maintaining a clean and hygienic kitchen, GrabKitchen implemented other preventive measures to stop coronavirus spread. These include –
- Regular body temperature checks performed on each staff member and rider.
- Food is well-packaged
- Ensures that riders are wearing masks
- If any staff delivery partner is placed in quarantine by the public health authorities or is tested positive for COVID-19, Grab will make the GrabCare package available for them.
These are some of the strategies taken by these three food delivery aggregators to ensure safe and hygienic delivery of food.
Conclusion
In times of crisis like these, the food chains have devised new methods to evolve from their financial crunch and are successfully beating the aftereffects of the pandemic outbreak.
Are you planning to start an online food ordering service like swiggy, GrabKitchen or FoodPanda?
iScripts NetMenus offers on-demand food delivery feature from local restaurants with the help of a driver. Customers choose menu items from a restaurant, then drivers pick up the food and deliver the food to customers. Using NetMenus you can create an online food ordering system for single or multiple location restaurants.
