How many times have you used a restaurant or food delivery app? There is a plethora of them out there—Zomato, Swiggy, Uber Eats, Grubhub, the list goes on and on. Over the last few years, there has been rapid growth in the demand for food delivery services as consumers increasingly turn to convenience when it comes to their meal options. To keep up with the growing demand, these companies are rapidly expanding around the world.
The brilliant thing about this business model for the customer is that you can peruse hundreds of restaurants and their menus from the comfort of your home or office. And, almost like magic, your desired menu items are delivered at your doorstep within a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, getting all of those restaurants to work for a delivery company doesn’t happen like magic.
We have found that food delivery companies are facing a number of challenges as they grow, some of which likely wouldn’t even cross your mind. One of the most critical challenges is locating restaurants and getting them to participate.
A few challenges that restaurant delivery companies face:
- Contacting restaurants pre-launch
- Establishing their brand
- Discovering what cuisine type is trending
- Understanding neighborhoods in a new market
- Mapping the restaurant ecosystem in a market
- Gathering data about the location restaurants, type of cuisine, contact information, hours of operation, menu items
As these businesses expand to new cities and neighborhoods, there is a significant amount of work that needs to be done to launch. If a company doesn’t have a network in the country, how do launch with a substantial number of restaurants in that area? It takes a lot of time and effort for these food delivery companies to get the lay of the land in a new region and understand the restaurant landscape. Of course, all the other questions, such as, do they deliver food, would they be willing to deliver food, what type of cuisine do they serve, what are their hours of operation, where exactly is the restaurant located (geolocation), is it located in a safe neighborhood, are still needed as well.
Screenshot of a Premise dashboard of restaurants collected.
In order for these companies to collect this data, they need to send their employees out on the streets to answer these questions which is time-consuming and expensive. However, with a networked approach to data collection, this process will be more efficient and cost-effective. Our global network of Contributors (people who live and/or work in the area) can complete tasks through the Premise app and collect ground-level data. This data can include identifying restaurant locations, contact information, hours of operation, menu items and much more.
We recently collected data in Nairobi to demonstrate how we can help our customers identify new restaurants to add on to their network. For many of the areas where our Contributors were collecting data, there was no existing data available. Our Contributors know more about the area than anyone because they reside and/or work in the area. Therefore, it is with great confidence that Premise can deliver this near real-time data to our customers.
A sample Premise photo wall of restaurants in Nairobi. You click into each photo and learn details about the restaurant including cleanliness, location, cuisine, hours of operation, etc.
Click into a photo for more information about the location.
As competition in the food delivery space grows, your company needs to be on top of any changes in the restaurant space; otherwise, how can you beat out your competition? In addition to that, what are your customers thinking? Do they require more restaurant options for Northern Thai or traditional Ethiopian fare? Premise Contributors are people like you and me who can answer a series of questions about what they truly desire when it comes to food delivery, which in turn will benefit your company in how you attract and bring on board new restaurants.
To make sure your food delivery service succeeds it is crucial to know when a restaurant has changed location, closed down, changed their menu, or a new restaurant has opened. Ground-level location data provides valuable business intelligence your company needs to succeed.
All this food talk is making me famished. If your business is hungry for accurate data and wants to chat about how Premise can help, feel free to email me at [email protected].