Lazada and Zalora just went live in several countries, but apparently that is not enough for Rocket Internet. You can now add FoodPanda to the list, which aims to help deliver your food through its online site. By using your post-code, FoodPanda helps you to find nearby partner restaurants. After that you can select nearby restaurants, browse the menus, order your food, and then pay using cash-on-delivery.
This is an interesting space since there are not many startups trying to provide this kind of service in Southeast Asia. Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Malaysia are among the list of countries that FoodPanda will cater to, but it has Singapore as its headquarters like its sibling site, Zalora.
According to SGEntrepreneurs, it has to go heads-on with HungryDelivery and Eatit.sg in Singapore, ChefXP and FoodbyPhone in Thailand. I also found Klik-Eat in Indonesia, Delivery.ph in the Philippines, and RoomServiceDelivery in Malaysia when I tried to Google local online food delivery services.
FoodPanda Indonesia has 81 partner restaurants so far in Jakarta ranging from Nobuzen, 4 Fingers, Trattoria Il Sale, and even local foods such as Bebek Goreng Surabaya. I believe it has a good chance to be big in Indonesia, especially since people have grown weary of call centers for ordering food delivery, an experience that often sucks. Ordering through the internet can be frictionless and faster, especially if done via a mobile app in the future.
There hasn’t been any major startup challenging this problem because people believe it needs a lot of capital to handle such an array of restaurants, and to market the service well. FoodPanda clearly has the capital as one of the Rocket Internet’s startups and I believe if it can bring on board lots more restaurants in a short time, and then even more people will consider using it. And use it often.
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