Food and The Internet!

The activity of offering restaurant at home is undergoing rapid changes while new online platforms compete to conquer markets and customers across the globe. The metropolitans in these days has started to witness a multitude of people who deal with food delivery on motorcycles labelled with Swiggy or Zomato. In today's urban structure, it has become convenient for consumers to order food online instead of cooking at home or going out in search of food.

While telephone orders dominated delivery only few years ago, the balance between food orders placed by telephone and online orders has almost changed, with Internet orders aimed at exceeding telephone orders at any time. Services such as UberEATS, Swiggy, Zomato, Domino’s, FoodPanda and many more new start-ups provides delivery services to restaurants that do not have one, enhancing customers' meal options from typical pizza, fast food and Chinese food to include more traditional and freshly prepared food.

Since most of the customers use or trust only few food delivery services, but out there many start-ups spend majorly on marketing to get hold of the market. Because immediate satisfaction is what customers, especially young people, order food online through portals or applications. Not only does it provide clarity on price, it also offers a wide variety of options and an easy-to-use interface that consumers love. There has been an aggressive growth in the number of online food delivery applications. Observing this trend, almost all the restaurants, cafes and even the city's dhaba leaders have joined these food distribution portals to generate more revenue.

So, the customer’s need and expectations cannot be avoided as the offline market is also setting up new means and deals to satisfy their customers. The prime factor which differentiate between the service providers could be the speed of delivery. Some owners of new restaurants skip tables and chairs and rent only kitchen spaces to prepare food for the customers. These are called virtual restaurants because they do not have canteens or service staff and sell their meals via the Internet and mobile applications such as UberEATS.

 

But there are still some challenges towards online food delivery services.  Customer loyalty is largely linked to the food company, not to the delivery service. Many food providers already have their online collection operations and can offer themselves delivery services. Restaurant delivery services have reduced restaurant profits by offering free delivery in an effort to weaken competitors. 

Can food delivery work? The Indian economy grows by 7-8% a year and with it the number of people who can afford it. The number of smartphones and Internet access is growing even faster. Therefore, profits could come, but probably not fast enough for all investors. On the one hand, the middle class is still relatively small, as well as rather stingy. If Swiggy and others stop subsidizing their customers, customers can stop buying. And if the profits come, there is nothing to prevent companies like Amazon, which already have a large distribution network, to join them too.

-Rishabh Niranjan (1801140)