Online food delivery services have benefitted from the changing business environment resulting from the pandemic. In Indonesia, the industry is led by two on-demand applications: Gojek and Grab.
Recently, market insight think tank CLSA released a survey to compare the two tech giants’ online food delivery services during the pandemic. The survey was conducted online with 450 total participants. These participants were mostly based in the Jakarta and Greater Jakarta area and came from different socioeconomic segments.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been relying more on online food delivery services. The survey shows that 70 percent of respondents order food online more frequently than before. Of all the participants, a plurality of 40 percent ordered food and beverages online one to three times a week, while the remaining ordered less frequently than that.
Therefore, it is interesting to gauge the popularity of the online food deliveries provided by each platform, GoFood and GrabFood. In this case, CSLA’s study results are quite plain to see; GoFood comes on top of Indonesian consumers’ priority lists.
The survey reveals that for online food delivery services, consumers mostly preferred GoFood (35 percent) to GrabFood (20 percent).
CLSA analyst Jonathan Mardjuki stated in his research note that the reason behind GoFood’s superiority was its strength in consumer loyalty.
"GoFood, in our opinion, has more loyal customers, where the top three benefits of using the application are familiarity with the application, dependence on the GoPay e-wallet and user-friendliness," Jonathan stated.
Meanwhile, consumers who preferred GrabFood cited promotional offers as Grab’s most enticing feature.
Aside from online food delivery services, consumers also typically prefer other features from Gojek over Grab. In general, about 54 percent of the respondents said they preferred Gojek as their delivery and ride-hailing application of choice to Grab. The most popular Gojek features among these respondents included GoSend (offering two-wheel logistics and delivery services), GoCar and GoRide.
"We find Gojek customers to be more loyal, while Grab relies on commerciality. We also consider Grab to be more aggressive in securing its tenants (customers). Overall, we think healthy competition between the two giants will have a positive impact on the Indonesian market," Jonathan remarked.
CLSA estimates Gojek's market share is at 58 percent, while Grab is at 42 percent. Based on the survey, CLSA also believes that customers have shifted their focus to aspects such as application convenience rather than faster delivery or lower cancellation rates by drivers, as in the early days.
"This has become a common standard for online platforms," Jonathan said.
