According to Alvee Khan, the Commercial Director for Foodpanda Malaysia, there are times when there is “a delay in the payment provider processing” which in turn delays the order getting to the restaurant and the food being delivered on time. Also listed as a cause was the weather. “As our delivery is done with motorbikes, our riders are not able to deliver food when there are heavy rains,” explains Alvee. Right, fair enough but we then asked him what if the payment method of choice was cash and that said order was made on bright sunny day. Why do delays occur then? Because as far as we know, they still do.

This, he said, is attributed to the times when they “have an overwhelming number of orders.” Foodpanda forecasts for orders, however as orders are very volatile, it can be difficult at times for them to be 100% accurate. Foodpanda’s orders are growing week on week, hence their forecast must be reviewed on a weekly basis.

Shri Chakravarthy, the General Manager of UberEATS Malaysia and Singapore addressed two main issues they often face: delivery rescheduling because of heavy downpour and multiple food orders. The first was pretty understandable and is the same problem other food delivery service providers have to deal with too. But again, we asked what if the weather was alright? As in… no heavy downpour. Because let’s be honest, it’s not like it rains every darn day throughout the year in Malaysia. There were some delays was no one who managed to get back to us in time for this article to be published, so we’ll just update it accordingly if and when we do get a response. 

As for the latter, apparently the app allows you to order as many times as you want from the restaurant of your choice, but “it would be a separate delivery as it is handled by a different delivery partner depending on the availability and location.” To tackle this problem, UberEATS is “looking into improving and upgrading the algorithm within the app for better user experience” and will “definitely keep us updated” once they have an update on this.

A little uncertain of what this meant, we made a call to the PR agency that handles UberEATS for some clarification. The explanation was that you can place as many orders as you'd like from one restaurant, but not from say, other restaurants that are along the way or are on the route to your location etc. That's totally fair, in our opinion. 

“I think the opportunity we have with dahmakan that is different to traditional food delivery marketplaces or restaurants doing deliveries as an afterthought is that we can build a really amazing food delivery experience for the customer. That is, food delivery is our core business, the food quality and the delivery guarantee are at the heart of what we do. 

For example, we design the menu and packaging with delivery in mind, meaning you will not get soggy fries or a spilled curry. And we pride ourselves on training our in-house delivery riders daily which reduces a lot of the friction that comes with using a third party logistics provider (which is typically what food delivery marketplaces do) .  

The result of this is a very holistic food delivery experience for the customer. With the added bonus that we can serve the same restaurant quality food to the customer at a much lower price due to the operational and technology advantages we've built up with this business model. This means happier customers who order more frequently than traditional food delivery because it's a great experience and better value. 

At dahmakan, we also recently introduced a 30-minute delivery guarantee for Prime subscribers. So, say if our rider has a flat tire and cannot make your delivery on time, customers who are subscribed to Prime will get a free meal to make up for the delay. Regular customers also get compensation depending on the circumstances. We believe this helps to build trust with the customer that they can rely on us for a great food delivery experience, every time, exactly how it should be.”

2) Domino’s Pizza

To Wrap Things Up…