VietNamNet Bridge - In addition to the three largest cities of Vietnam, including Hanoi, HCM City and Da Nang, GrabFood - one of the most popular food delivery applications in Vietnam - has been available in 12 other provinces.

At a bank office located in Son Tra District in the central city of Da Nang, Ngoc An is working on her financial review. Ngoc An is very busy and she totally tied up with her computer because this is the year-end time. She has to sacrifice the habit of preparing lunch at home due to running out of time and energy for shopping, cooking, and cleaning. There are not many restaurants around her office, sometimes having lunch has slipped Ngoc An’s mind.

Thanks to a colleague’s suggestion, Ngoc An finds out a destination for delicious meals through food delivery app. Just a few steps with her smartphone, she is able to enjoy a nutritious, various and affordable lunch.

"Every afternoon, it is a regular basis that my colleagues begin to hunt promotions and choose the food they want," Ngoc An said.

It can be said that Ngoc An is just a fish in the ocean in the food delivery market. For many people, this becomes the very first choice thanks to its convenience, compared to cooking. From mid-2018, many domestic and foreign enterprises launched a food delivery applications, making food delivery a vibrant and attractive market.

Most recently, GrabFood - one of the most popular food delivery applications - has officially extended its market from the three biggest cities (HCM City, Hanoi, Da Nang) to 15 provinces in total.

With this move, GrabFood has made a breakthrough. "The latecomer" has caught up with its opponents, even surpassing other outstanding ones, not only on the speed race but also on the race of expansion, to become the fastest growing food delivery service in Vietnam.

With the expansion, of course there will be happy people, besides there are many people worrying about significant changes of the online food ordering and delivery market.

Grab driver-partners in a restaurant.

Those who are pleasant

Customers all over the country are the first beneficiaries with this expansion. Not only big cities like HCM City, Hanoi or Da Nang, but also neighboring provinces will experience Grab's convenient food delivery service.

Landing new markets means that Grab plans to launch many incentive programs, discount codes, or deliver "reward" to its users.

The second beneficiaries here have to be the merchant-partners in these 15 provinces. They have more opportunities to grow, increase profits without investing in consulting staff, online marketing and delivery teams. Thanks to GrabFood, restaurants from affordable to luxury ones can stand more chance to access huge number of users from Grab.

“As estimated, my profit margin increased by 300% within 2 months from the date of joining GrabFood network”, said a milk tea shop owner in Hanoi.

The partners also have the opportunities to participate in GrabFood's special programs, such as "GrabFood Signature" that cooperates with strategic merchant partners like Gong Cha, Meat Fresh to create exclusive dishes which provide customer more various choices.

Driver-partners in many provinces will be the third beneficiaries in this race. In the new provinces having less customers compared to big cities, the joining of GrabFood will help driver-partners to increase their income. Currently, each driver earns VND600,000 - VND700,000 a day by combining a variety of scopes.

"Early in the morning or at break time, I drive GrabBike to pick up customers. Meanwhile at noon, I often take on food delivery. Thanks to the flexibility of changing service, it is much easier for me to earn money,” said Minh Dat from Nha Be District, HCM City.

FoodPanda - a successful service in many markets - has officially withdrawn from Vietnam in 2005.

Those who bothered

GrabFood’s expansion to a total of 15 provinces also created a lot of pressure for the other players in this race, making online delivery market more intense than ever.

When competitors are still struggling to find their ways to develop a network of drivers, as well as improve their speed, Grab affirms its position as the fastest growing service in a very short time. This gets other brands to be cautious and quickly change their moves.

Recently, a big name LaLa has officially stopped operating after a year of joining this market. GrabFood's expansion, farewell to LaLa or the previous sale of FoodPanda, has proved that money is not everything. Just relying on discounts, promotion... to attract customers is not enough to prevent online delivery business from stopping at a dead end.

GrabFood is known to focus on the core element which stands for creating resonant value for customers, merchant and driver partners. This "resonance" here means the development of one aspect will result in the raising of the remaining two aspects. Customers generate income for driver-partners.

The extensive driver network will help to deliver food to customers as soon as possible. Meanwhile, GrabFood also uses behavioral data of million customers to support for restaurants’ marketing and growing strategy.

In addition, having many exclusive dishes through “GrabFood Signature” with well-known restaurants also helps Grab impress its customers. These dishes are constantly in the top 3 most ordered within a month since its first launch. On average, one out of every 10 people chooses dishes in this program every week.

"We provide a mock platform for restaurants to test new formulas, create exclusive menus to boost sales and further customer satisfaction," a representative of Grab said.

PV