Food Delivery Apps are the medium to promote local restaurants by offering special discounts and deals to the users who download these apps and the best way to make strong relationships and serve both customers and restaurants in a well-mannered way. The quick service restaurant (QSR) makes it easy for the food lovers to order their meal in a single click and all thanks to the large number of smart phone users.
Rehan Yar Khan is a partner in Orios Venture Partners who invest Rs 300 crores to raise his maiden funds at the start of this year. His main motive is to invest in the food space by adding more to technology-focused fund. He said, “Both food and QSR has its own competitive space and the main focus will be on food delivery and order, both adjacent spaces.”
He said,” Smart phone has made online customers and hyper-local strategy popular in a very short time as it is wise to invest in food and grocery delivery business to take the concept pan-India further”.
According to Crisil report of Fast Food on the Fast Lane, QSR segment will rise up to Rs 7,00 crores by 2015-16.
Food delivery apps like Foodpanda and JustDial follow the concept of pan-India market. They believe to adopt strategies and position themselves in a different manner like servicing their dedicated clients and concentrate on corporate offices rather than tying up with local businesses.
Shachin Bharadwaj, CEO of Tasty Khana says, “Depending on the demand of local market, we have different categories of restaurant partners and QSR e.g. Eatsome, a famous restaurant in Pune, here QSR is famous for its rolls and wraps as it attract large number of students.” Shachin Bharadwaj is the person who signed Domino’s Pizza as a partner across 158 cities. He said,” We have divided our customer’s profile region-wise and provide offers like BOGO (Buy One Get One) which does not affect the margins of the restaurant.”
One of the founders of Hyderabad-based start up Localsecrets has invested $1.5 million just to offer limited duration coupons only to the customers using their food-ordering app.
“To ensure customers loyalty, time-frame coupons for next two hours are provided to the customers depending upon the nearby location and restaurant.” says Raj Prikala, CEO of Localsecrets, which is just six months old and create its impact on food lovers of Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. He said, “We have launched separate corporate version in our website to target IT professionals and people working in Hitech City-Gachi Bowli area and for IT employees who come in restaurants for team meetings and corporate lunches and offer specific promo codes on some of their special food items. These promo codes when used at the time of payment and offer some discount to the customers.”
Marketing remains the top priority to run any business and the common challenge face by the local businesses is to sign up and deliver orders at the very time.
Sandipan Mitra is a sales and marketing director of JustEat which is baked by Axon Partners located at Banglore, target 10 lakh food deliveries in this year. She says, “The local heroes-restaurants are popular among the local population almost in every city.”
“We at JustEat, try to incorporate identified players who lack due to their brand name. We co-brand with them to promote their original brand to make them more popular among the local customers.”
Build and maintain demand among the public will be tough for food delivery platforms to scale up in a convenient manner.