Food Delivery Services of the World
The most famous food delivery service in Korea is “Baedal Minjok”, and “Uber Eats” has also gained popularity after their successful marketing with coupons. In Korea, due to the well-developed food delivery industry, food can be easily ordered and delivered to people’s homes through a variety of simple apps such as “Yogiyo” and “Baedaltong”, just to name a few. Food delivery companies are also part of many other communities. For example, in New York, food delivery companies include “Grubhub”, “DoorDash”, and “Caviar”, and in Bali, Indonesia, people mainly use “Gojek” (GoFood).

When we look at the distribution of online food delivering services globally, we can see that many companies are distributed throughout Europe and are competing. Moreover, we can see that “UberEats” and “DeliveryHero” are actively participating in the global market.
Experts predict that the initial 82 billion dollars online food-delivery market that started in 2018 will grow to a 200 billion dollar market by 2025.

The Growing Food Delivery Market
Due to the “COVID-19” outbreak, most restaurants have temporarily closed or are only open for takeout, as quarantine was deemed a necessary method to stop the spread of the virus. As a result, the current demand for online food-delivery has been, and is, dramatically increasing.

Food Delivery Service Companies in New York Sued
Southern New York consumers filed a lawsuit to the U.S. District Court stating that Online Food Delivery Service companies, such as “Grubhub”, “DoorDash”, and “Caviar”, have violated The Antimonopoly Act. As a result, the New York City Council introduced a new bill in February, restricting the commission fee of each delivery to under 10%, and requiring transparency of restaurant service fees.

The Problem in Korea
Last month, “Baedal Minjok” announced that they would change their monthly “fixed price” system to an “open service” policy, where each delivery is charged. In the “open service” policy, restaurants are commissioned 5.8% for each order made through the app.

Due to this change, there has been an increase in the commission that companies have to pay to “Baedal Minjok”, but the company pretended to be making the change for the good of users, which upset small enterprise owners. Even though their sales have increased through the app, their net profit has not experienced much of a change. As a response, restaurant owners asked consumers to make orders directly to the restaurants, rather than using the app, which many consumers advocated for.

Due to the criticism posed upon them, “Baedal Minjok” announced that they will be returning to their original “fixed-price” system while apologizing to their consumers and restaurants. However, as the over-advertising problem of several restaurants has not been fundamentally resolved with this solution, an alternative solution is needed to satisfy both the companies and restaurant owners, and we can get a hint from NYC’s case for this.

박지호 강남포스트 학생기자  webmaster@ignnews.kr

<저작권자 © 강남포스트, 무단 전재 및 재배포 금지>