Ubereats vs Deliveroo vs FoodPanda – Which is the Best food delivery app?

I can’t believe how many choices we have these days when it comes to food delivery. It seems like it was just yesterday that the only decent food delivery choice we had was our good old 24hrs McDelivery during those late night mahjong sessions.

I’m a big fan of UberEats because when I first started using it, there was no delivery charge at all. After abusing using it often enough, it’s now a habit for me that I do not even check out what’s on FoodPanda or Deliveroo and simply order via UberEats.

 

I know this can never be a fair test because at different order locations, the food choices are going to be different, different food vendors might prepare food at different pace, and you know sometimes you might get a better rider but that one rider does not represent the whole company.

But well, life isn’t always fair like this (like you know, even in the World Cup, sometimes you end up getting drafted into the group of death) but we try our best to make things as fair as possible.

So here we go!

Delivered by UberEats from Teppei Syokudo.

Delivered by Deliveroo from Pezzo

Delivered by foodpanda from Soup Spoon.

All the 3 apps have relatively similar learning curve for their app. The setup is pretty much intuitive. All you have to do is to key in the delivery address and you are ready to go. Payment options wise, it’s is pretty much similar as well once you key in your credit card details. However, foodpanda is the only app that allows cash payment.

Aesthetically, to me, foodpanda is behind both UberEats and Deliveroo because the lack of food images.

One of the biggest differences for all 3 apps is the delivery charge:

• UberEats charges a flat fee of $3 per delivery without a need for minimum purchase.
• foodpanda charges a fee of $3 per delivery but with a minimum purchase of $18.
• Deliveroo  also charges a fee of $3 per delivery and has a minimum purchase of $X (depending on vendor) BUT if it’s under the minimum sum, you are still allowed to order as long as you pay a surcharge of $Y (which depends on distance I’m guessing). So it’s either you order more food or pay the penalty.

 

We were pretty lucky that day as all 3 vendors actually managed to deliver their food on time. In fact foodpanda was way ahead of time. Not from this test, but from personal experience, I feel that the foodpanda delivery guys are generally more polite and punctual.

I guess one of the biggest deciding factors on choosing which delivery app to use falls back to what are the food options. I would say that both Deliveroo and foodpanda offer rather similar options. Their food are mostly food that we are familiar with from established F&B chains. For example, Subway, Burger King etc. On the other hand, UberEats offer interesting options such as Guzman Y Gomez, Tanuki Raw, and even Bee Kee Truffle Wanton Noodle.

So which is my go-to app? I will use UberEats when I am in town and craving for something interesting, and foodpanda/ Deliveroo if I’m stuck at Punggol with my broken ankle. LOL.

Not sure about you but I am a big fan of such food delivery apps. It changes the whole F&B game so much. Anyone who has the slightest understanding of retail business would know that the retail business is dying no thanks to online shopping (and expensive retail spaces and how hard it is to hire retail staff) but is it the same for the F&B industry with such “online dining experience”?

We can argue that with such apps, fewer people are dining out but that doesn’t actually mean that people stop eating. In fact I believe that with such apps and delivery options, it actually helps F&B vendors. I am no F&B tycoon but I once met this owner of a buffet chain when I was very young and he told me this:

“Smith, do you think F&B is simply about cooking good food and earning money? F&B business is about managing time and space. If you only have 20 seats and they are all taken during your peak hour dining, how much more can you make? How many rounds of diners can you allow during each meal time?”

I mean he said a lot of other things considering the fact that he might not be too sober when he was telling me all these, but from the short conversation above, you should pretty much get the idea of what he is saying. You can only earn as much as your restaurant can take during that period of time.  The good news is that now you are no longer limited to the number of seats your restaurant can offer with such delivery apps. Which means it’s potentially 20 seats plus the infinite number of people ordering from the application! (I mean yes, obviously you have to take into consideration of how much food you have in the fridge, how fast the chef can cook as well as how many riders you have, which is technically not your problem now if you are working with delivery app partners.)

Such technology not only improves sales and productivity from a business point of view but it also increases productivity in terms of end users like us. We no longer need to drive our cars out, pay parking, pay ERP, pay petrol and then wait for an available table - all these are being done by other people on our behalf at a very low cost.

On top of these benefits, it also helps to create more jobs. Not just for the riders but also jobs in the organisation ranging from marketing, to app development or even customer service.

Disruption sure sounds like nothing but trouble for current businesses. Can businesses fend off such challenges and stay relevant? I was at the U Future Leaders Summit 2016 where Shane Owenby, Vice President, Asia Pacific Amazon Web Services shared some pointers on how Amazon innovates and stay relevant. Amazon didn’t simply stop innovation and celebrate their success with just online shopping but they also went on to develop their business into multiple platforms.

Apparently businesses ain’t the only one that is innovating and changing to catch up with the times. Even the Labour Movement (LM) are disrupting and evolving itself by challenging the traditional model of only serving unionised workers, especially from rank-and-file, to today's model of reaching out to PMEs, SMEs, and also FSEs (Freelancers and self-employed). This only make sense since more than half of our workforce are now make up of PMETs. And also based on recent retrenchment numbers, about 70, 71 per cent affected are PMETs, so that’s one group that LM really needs to pay attention to.

Under this more inclusive model that includes new worker segments like freelancers and self-employed, the Labour Movement has widened its reach and enriched its network of services to better support the different worker groups. This includes establishing a whole new department, Future Jobs, Skills & Training (FJST) from 1st Jan 2017, which will be headed by Labour MP Patrick Tay. Premised on the idea to help the ‘future unemployed’ take on ‘future jobs’.

If you didn’t read the last article and also too lazy to even click the link above ah, let me share with you briefly again. This FJST capability will carry out ‘sensing’ to provide information on jobs lost and new jobs available and which businesses are hiring in the one-to-three year horizon. FJST will also signal the skills required so that we know what the workforce will need and start re-skilling, deep-skilling or second-skilling them now, even before the future jobs become available.

Are disruptive technologies really bad for us? Far from it, I say.