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Jakartans on food delivery service frenzy
Innovative: A Go-jek driver delivers food ordered by a customer via mobile app
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Innovative:: A Go-jek driver delivers food ordered by a customer via mobile app. Go-jek recently launched a new feature called Go Food. Another food delivery service that has been in the business for two years, Klik-Eat, claims to have been receiving hundreds of food orders every day. (JP/Ricky Yudhistira) (JP/Ricky Yudhistira)
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span class="inline inline-center">Innovative: A Go-jek driver delivers food ordered by a customer via mobile app. Go-jek recently launched a new feature called Go Food. Another food delivery service that has been in the business for two years, Klik-Eat, claims to have been receiving hundreds of food orders every day. (JP/Ricky Yudhistira)
Stefani Tarasistha, a 28-year-old advertising freelancer, needs only to swipe and tap an application on her smartphone to fulfill her cravings for all her favorite foods while relaxing at her home in Blok M, South Jakarta.
'I once ordered three times in one day from three different restaurants,' she told The Jakarta Post recently.
Stefani said that day she ordered cereal milk from Jerry's in Pasar Minggu, kue cubit (raditional baby pancakes) from Santa Market and nasi uduk (coconut milk rice) from Nasi Uduk Radal in Kebayoran Baru, all in South Jakarta.
Stefani said she could not enjoy the luxury of relaxing at home if she had to go to the restaurants or vendors by herself.
She said that to get the kue cubit in Santa market, for example, she would have had to wait in a long line, and it was difficult to find a parking space at Nasi Uduk Radal. 'It is easy to buy the food with the delivery service,' she said, adding that the application was user friendly.
As a result of her good experiences with the app, she often promotes the service to her friends and colleagues. 'They even call me the Go Food ambassador,' she said.
The newly launched Go Food, which does not require a minimum order, is holding a free delivery promo from April to May. Taking advantage of the free delivery, Stefani ordered a much talked about corn porridge all the way from Margonda, Depok in West Java.
She said the only problem she found with Go Food was that the driver sometimes did not know the location of the restaurant and kept asking her.
The application also, in some cases, does not provide complete menus. Martabak (pancake) Orins, for example, has various sizes of martabak but the application only quotes one size. Apparently this is because too many portion sizes confuse drivers and customers.
Due to traffic and busy lifestyles, food delivery service companies have been enjoying increasing demand for their services in Jakarta in recent years.
Michaelangelo Moran, the co-founder and brand director of Go-Jek, said the new application and service, Go Food, which the company launched in April, had gone viral.
'We are receiving around 3,000 orders per day during the free delivery promotion period,' he said.
He said Go Food was a product extension after the success of the company's instant courier, transportation and shopping services. Michaelangelo said the company started the application by researching menus, opening hours and locations of restaurants.
'We feature around 15,000 restaurants in Greater Jakarta,' he said.
Michaelangelo said that in order to lure more customers, the company did not restrict the food vendors featured in the application.
'They are not only well-established restaurants but also street vendors and other small-scale food corners,' he said, adding that the customers could even suggest the restaurants they wanted
to order from.
Similar growing demand is also being experienced by another food delivery service website klik-eat.com.
Klik-Eat co-founder and CEO, Michael Saputra, said he had not expected that the business would grow so rapidly. 'I saw the potential but I never thought it would grow this fast,' he said.
Michael said he and his friends established the company two years ago. 'The idea came up when we wanted to order food at night but found that only fast food restaurants provided a delivery service,' he said.
According to him, the company only received three to five orders per day when it first launched but now they could take hundreds of orders. 'Most of our customers are office workers,' he said.
He added that besides digital advertisement, the company also often cooperated with banks, restaurants and credit card providers to offer promos and discounts. 'We provide many methods of payments ranging from credit and debit cards to cash and even online banking,' he said.
Michael said their company had been acquired by a Japan-based company.
As well as the companies, the drivers are also enjoying the increasing demand. Handy Thoe, a 43-year-old Go-Jek driver, said he could take home between Rp 200,000 (US$15.20) and Rp 300,000 a day after joining Go-Jek.
'I used to earn only around Rp 100,000,' he said, adding that most of the orders he took now were food deliveries.
