Online food delivery platforms are expanding. Know the reasons why mobile food ordering apps such as Just Eat and Deliveroo have become so popular in the UK.
Why Food Delivery Companies Like Just Eat Or Deliveroo Have Become So Popular
The food delivery market has grown at a tremendous rate in recent years.
The below chart from Statista predicts that the UK takeaway delivery market value will reach £12.6 billion by 2024.
The hectic lifestyle of the UK residents has contributed to the growth of the food apps such as Just Eat and Deliveroo.
Just Eat generated £4.4 billion in 2021, while Deliveroo reported a gross transaction value (GTV) of £1.79 billion in the first quarter of 2022.
This article will discuss why food delivery companies like Just Eat and Deliveroo have become so popular.
Let’s begin by first understanding how food delivery apps work.
What are Food Delivery Companies?
Food delivery companies let users order their favourite food items from nearby restaurants listed on their web portals and smartphone apps.
The food delivery marketplaces do not have in-house kitchens. Instead, they partner with several restaurants and act as a facilitator between the restaurants and consumers for the business transactions to occur.
How Does Food Distribution Business Work?
Essentially, all food distribution apps have a standard delivery model as below:
- Online food ordering systems partner with local restaurants and create their database.
- When their app receives an order, the restaurant immediately gets the message.
- The order is confirmed, and a home delivery service is issued along with the driver’s details with the contact number to the given drop-off location.
- Every update about the order is notified to the customer by the app.
- The restaurant gives a pre-decided commission for every order placed through the app or website.
- After the delivery completes and the payment is received, the order is closed.
- The app also allows restaurants to advertise on the website or the app to generate more orders.
- Any issue with the order is taken care of by the app’s customer services.
Advantages of Food Delivery Companies
Companies like Just Eat and Deliveroo fulfil the needs of both the restaurants and the customers.
They resolve the issue the eateries and consumers face with a well-structured delivery system.
Here are the top benefits offered by the food delivery platforms:
1- Manages High Demand
When there is a surge in food orders, often restaurants have to decline them due to a lack of food delivery agents.
Therefore, customers cannot enjoy their favourite meals from their preferred restaurants.
Food delivery apps have a strong fleet of delivery executives and the required software to meet the demand for food orders.
As a result, restaurants can accept maximum orders to satisfy their customer’s demands.
2- Offers Access to Varieties of Food Items in One Place
The top online food delivery marketplaces partner with thousands of restaurants in every area.
Hence, they showcase a variety of menus from different restaurants selling all kinds of food items.
With a plethora of restaurants, food items, and offers, customers have the choice to order a variety of food from a single platform.
Hence, the customers don’t have to visit each restaurant’s website individually to place an order.
3- Builds Trust and Saves Time
Popular food delivery apps ensure that the food gets delivered to the given location within the stipulated timeline.
It builds trust among the consumers and encourages them to order again and again. On the other hand, restaurants get the confidence to fulfil more orders.
4- Attracts More Customers
Food delivery apps attract more customers for the restaurants because people have the option to compare and choose the dishes of their choice.
Moreover, food delivery services often run ongoing marketing campaigns offering discounts and deals on every order. Customers are often attracted to these offers leading to more sales.
Best Restaurant Marketing Ideas To Get More Customers
Now that you have understood the advantages of food delivery companies let us look at the unique features that made Just Eat and Deliveroo the most sought-after food apps.
How Just Eat and Deliveroo Became So Popular?
Here are the top reasons why Just Eat and Deliveroo are loved by the people:
1- A Great Online Ordering System
All successful food delivery marketplace has one thing in common – a great online ordering system.
Just Eat and Deliveroo, uses the best online ordering system to make food ordering super easy.
A well-structured online ordering system streamlines the entire ordering process, from selecting the cuisine to delivering it to your home to make food ordering a pleasing experience.
The Just Eat food ordering system allows customers to enter their delivery postcode to see the nearby restaurants.
The menu for each and every restaurant is given in detail with attractive images of the dishes.
Customers feel the ease and confidence of online ordering when the product information is clear and complete.
The food ordering system enables customers to customise their orders. For example, they can choose extra ingredients, select toppings, or leave ingredients out.
Once an order is placed, the system provides the contact details of the delivery executive to the customer so that the customer can establish communication in case of any issues during the delivery.
The app also includes a real-time order tracking system to easily track the status of their delivery.
Deliveroo’s order tracking system looks like the one below:
The payments are made easy by incorporating different payment options, such as PayPal, iOS Wallet, Stripe, Credit Cards, Internet Banking, etc.
Moreover, customers are given the chance to share their ordering and eating experience via reviews and ratings.
Thus, the company gets the opportunity to learn about any weaknesses in their current delivery system to provide the best experience to the users.
2- Powerful and Flexible CMS (Content Management System)
Successful meal delivery apps incorporate powerful and flexible content management systems (CMS).
It allows restaurants to manage their menu options and provide customers with the latest menu to enjoy their favourite meals.
The food delivery companies provide the access of CMS to their partner restaurants so that they can optimise their menu and other related information displayed on the portal.
Every restaurant is instructed to optimise their details on the restaurant marketplace in the following ways:
- Add a variety of food categories to the menus so that the market place can display more options to the customers.
- Remove items that are not in demand and make no sales to serve customers only the most popular items.
- Supplement the food items by offering add-on options to make more profits.
- Setup restaurant’s opening and closing hours to keep customers well informed about the meal serving time.
- Enable option for ‘pre-order’ to continue accepting online ordering even during peak hours.
- Efficiently and accurately manage inventories of food items without any manual interference to keep the menu at the marketplace updated.
Updating the menu, offers, and discounts regularly on the website and app helps customers get the best user experience as they have access to the latest menu, updated pricing, and custom offers.
3- Focus on Brand Development
One of the top reasons for the success of any leading meal delivery company is branding.
Deliveroo reached revenue growth of around 650% every year by focussing on developing a solid customer base through seasonal programs and advertisement campaigns.
Every top food distribution company emphasises brand development by creating an SEO-friendly website to make sure their webpage is easily discovered by Google and other search engines, resulting in more traffic and sales for their business.
They also leverage paid ads on Google, YouTube, Facebook, and other social channels to increase brand awareness among the audience.
Say GoodBye To Empty Seats And Tables – Start Your Facebook Advertising Campaign Today!
4- Leverage Latest Technologies
The leading companies in the meal delivery industry believe in cutting-edge customer practices to improve the consumer experience in every possible way.
For example, Deliveroo has already reduced delivery times by 20 per cent using its ‘Frank’ algorithm.
The algorithm uses strong predictive technology to find out the best way to distribute orders on the basis of eatery locations, riders position, and consumer’s delivery address.
5- Offering Subscription Plans
Deliveroo, Just Eat, and other top meal delivery companies offer subscription plans to attract customers, often through email marketing.
Get In Touch With Digital Restaurant For Food Business Email Marketing
These plans allow customers to receive various benefits such as discount coupons.
Here are some offers and deals provided by Deliveroo:
Similarly, Just Eat leverages email marketing to offer special discounts to its subscribers. Here is an example of a campaign where subscribers were provided exclusive coupons in exchange for a quick survey.
Discount coupons and offers are also major contributors to the popularity of the companies like Just Eat and Deliveroo.
6- Exceptional Workforce for Delivery
The key to an effective delivery system is the distribution of the food in stipulated time and in the best condition.
Hence, the success of a delivery system depends on the workforce available for distribution.
For example, Deliveroo’s delivery network comprises of over 30,000 drivers having motorbikes, scooters, and bicycles. They are stationed within a 2-kilometre radius of the eateries they sign up for, making pickup and dispatch a breeze.
Riders get a message on their respective apps to arrive at the pickup spot at the earliest once the order is placed.
Therefore, they can accept more orders and deliver hot, freshly prepared meals to customers within 30 minutes.
7- Safe and Contactless Food Delivery
The role of a pandemic is significant in the fall and then rise of the hospitality industry in the UK like in any other country.
It is easy to figure out that the outdoor food expenditure that reached over 105 billion British pounds in 2019 went down by 39% in 2020.
However, it showed speedy recovery soon after the impact of the pandemic was minimised by August 2020.
How Has Restaurant Marketing Changed Post-Covid?
This is mainly because the meal distribution service providers like Just Eat and Deliveroo introduced contactless and safe home delivery.
They ensured their riders were under safe body temperature, wore a mask, maintained the required human distance and left the sealed package outside the customer door to avoid any human touch.
Due to the prolonged pandemic and safety assurance provided by the delivery companies, people were comfortable ordering food online.
Millions of people in lockdown ordered food online for the first time, boosting the growth of the food industry.
8- Added Benefits to Restaurant Partners
Not all restaurants have enough workforce to fulfil the customers’ delivery requirements, but every business wants to grow and expand its reach.
Partnerships with companies like Deliveroo and Just Eat have emerged as a solution for these restaurants to grow over time significantly.
There are many other benefits that these small and large restaurants get other than top-notch delivery services, such as:
- Brand Promotion: The listed restaurants get a chance to promote their brand via food delivery websites’ social channels and various growth programs. Besides, restaurants, eateries, bars and pubs can advertise on these platforms through sponsored listings.
Supercharge Your Food Marketing With Restaurant PR
- Cloud Kitchen Services: It is an added benefit that companies like Deliveroo provide where restaurants can rent space in the huge industrial kitchen. Deveroo has started cloud kitchens in France, Dubai, and Singapore in recent years. These kitchens are located off-site from restaurants for the preparation of delivery-only meals. This way, small restaurants can save their capital, avoid administrative tasks, optimise the delivery experience, and meet customer demands.
- Unmatched Customer Support: Partner restaurants are offered adequate 24×7 customer support and specialised account management. Additionally, food delivery companies help their restaurants and kitchen partners with valuable insights collected via advanced analytic programs to evaluate the performance of their business.
- Tech support: Just Eat and Deliveroo have equipped their businesses with fully automated procedures that are easy to understand and use, such as CMS and a food ordering system that partner restaurants can easily use.
- Software Integrations: Deliveroo offers Restaurant Partner API, which builds a connection between Deliveroo and restaurants’ POS (Point of Sale) systems so that partner restaurants can see all Deliveroo orders through their POS system in real-time.
Summary
Ordering food online has never been easier before. Companies like Just and Deliveroo have made the process of online meal ordering even more seamless by leveraging the latest technologies and marketing techniques.
They have ensured that every step of the ordering procedure, from cuisine selection to home delivery, is done professionally, even during adverse conditions such as the pandemic.
Food delivery companies are constantly working to improve the customer and restaurant partner experience. This is the reason their popularity skyrocketed in recent years.
Need help filing those empty tables in your restaurant? Contact Digital Restaurant for full-service restaurant marketing.
