One interesting and confusing phenomenon is now happening around the globe, that is, there are food deliveries everywhere. You must have seen people with green or pink uniforms riding motorbikes on the roads, but have your ever wonder why? According to the survey conducted in 2019 by Kantar and LifePoints｛4｝, about one in three Taiwanese have used it for at least once. Strangely, food delivery services like McDelivery has been in many places for years, and then what’s the difference or cause of the new-form delivery service? To get into the question, we can simply focus on two aspects, individuals and industries.
From the individuals’ aspect, convenience and cheap prices are the main factors. The primary as well as the most obvious factor is convenience. In the past, customers are required to call the sellers or find their websites to order food. Once there are issues such as websites errors or busy on the phone, that would be a huge problem. In order to save their piecemeal time in this fast-pace world, people need to find more efficient methods. The new delivery platforms gather all kinds of food providers into one single platform, and thus customers now can have tons of choices at one time. (See Picture 1 below)
It just needs to take merely a few seconds, and then customers can order all kinds of food at all-time anywhere via smartphones; sellers can make money simultaneously. Precisely, new-form food delivery platforms are convenient for both customers and sellers. In terms of cheap prices, there are no longer lowest price limit. Take KFC for instance. In the past, one can only order a meal without fee with the price over NTD450. Now, even if you just order an egg tower, you only need to pay the lowest fee. Moreover, frequent discount provision (see picture above) also encourage customers to order more often. Overall, the convenience and cheap prices of new-form food
delivery platforms has been the crucial factors for individuals to use new-form food delivery platforms. It enables many people, even students use app frequently without worrying about the cost.
Regarding industrial aspect, the most significant factor is the “mutual-benefit effect”. It’s the least obvious but one of the most decisive factors. Customers use app to get food with low fee in short time. Sellers sell out products quickly and make fortune in short time. Food delivers get more bonus when receiving more delivery requirement. Many people won’t notice this factor, but the mutual-benefit effect in fact brings lots of goods to everyone. Here are two examples for you. First, in the past, if a store wants to run food-delivery system, they need to have transportations, equipment, delivers and online platforms. With the prosperous food delivery service everywhere, the difficulty has greatly decreased. From McDonald to small sellers, many people start cooperating with the service to lower the cost. I’ve notice that some McDonalds have allowed Foodpanda and Uber eats into their original delivery service. (Picture 5) With the combination of other delivery service, Sellers no longer need to afford all the expense and even can expand more customers at the same time.
Second, food-delivery service is an extraordinary medium to promote and to achieve industrial integration. In Taiwan, it’s estimated that over one of three Taiwanese have used food- delivery service at least once. If sellers and restaurants promote their product with these platforms, the economic efficiency will be astonishing. Because of that, not only do the sellers crowd into the service, but the third-party companies like banks or mobile payment companies will provide discounts in the services to promote their payment methods. By paying with their credit cards or payment apps, customers are able to get money rewarded and companies are more likely to make money.
Nowadays, as long as the seller cooperates with the service, there will be eye-catching stickers in the actual selling place to remind customers that they have the service. On the other hand, sellers will be shown on the service app. If we look at these phenomena from higher lever, we can see the concretization of industrial integration. Food sellers cooperate with delivery platforms to save expense and get more consumers. Platforms provide discounts with payment services. Discount and bonus eventually return to consumers, and that is a win-win situation and a positive cycle. In terms of industry, the mutual-benefit effect really contributes to the growth of food delivery a lot. Food delivery service is now everywhere in our life. In the news, we can usually see delivers’ motorbikes in many cities. From the customers’ aspect, we can conclude that people nowadays tend to order food via these new-form food delivery platforms because of convenience and cheap prices. In contrast, these platforms have gone viral because that food order now can utilize the mutual-benefit effect and let different industries benefit each other. These crucial factors have made food-delivery service unprecedentedly influential. Food delivery not only brings double-sided goods to sellers and buyers, it also let some beginners and companies to lower their costs and maintain their price. The benefits of food delivery everywhere are actually much more than we thought. In general, the creation of new-form food delivery has flipped the world that we know. Therefore, maybe the food delivery service will become prosperous better than ever.
References
Christoph Blumtritt (2020). Revenue forecast for the Online Food Delivery market worldwide until 2024. Statista (2020). Retrieved from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/891078/online-food-delivery-revenue-by-segment-worldwide/
徐紹芸,黃啟豪 (2019). 揭密外送平台「賺這麼多」！商家曝必合作原因. FTV (2017). Retrieved from: https://www.ftvnews.com.tw/news/detail/2019C03F06M1
Steven Melendez (2019). Special Delivery: Food Delivery Apps in New Orleans. Where Y'at (2020) Retrieved from https://www.whereyat.com/special-delivery-food-delivery-apps-in-new-orleans
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