Foodpanda launches 15-minute grocery-delivery service

Singapore food-delivery service Foodpanda has officially rolled-out its instant grocery delivery service, Pandamart, in Hong Kong after a trial commencing last November.

Partnering with 1000 retailers and selling more than 14,000 items, Foodpanda has expanded its service from restaurant take-outs to the delivery of groceries and daily necessities such as beauty and baby-care products. Local partners include Li & Fung’s convenience chain Circle K, snack store Okashi Land, Heroes Beer and kitchenware store I Love Kitchen. So far, snacks and alcohol are the most popular categories, comprising two-thirds of all orders. During its promotional launch, delivery is complimentary with a certain minimum spend.

During testing, Pandamart was been able to deliver within 25 minutes of orders and the service aims to maintain an average delivery time of 15 minutes. During Chinese New Year, which coincided with the coronavirus lockdown, takeaway orders on Foodpanda tripled and the number of new visitors to the platform doubled week on week.

Jeremy Wong, head of Pandamart Hong Kong, said the company hopes to expand its partnerships to 3000 retailers including supermarkets and to increase product selection to 550,000 items by the end of the year. In an interview with Unwire.HK, Wong said launching Pandamart was not for profit margin, but as “a new business direction and utilizing our existing fleet of drivers to meet more of customer’s demands”.

Currently, Foodpanda has 4000 drivers and aims to double its fleet size and increase the number of partner restaurants room 7000 currently to 12,000 this year.

Foodpanda has also announced that for the next month it will help partner restaurants by offering free-delivery discounts in the city to encourage more customers to buy via the app, and compensate for some of the lost walk-ins to restaurants.

“Over 76 percent of people in Hong Kong are forecast to have used online delivery within 2020. We would like all of them to try Foodpanda for either groceries or food delivery,” said Arun Makhija, CEO of Foodpanda Hong Kong.

At the same time, Foodpanda has joined Deliveroo in offering a relief fund of HK$25 million, allowing partners to delay commission payments for up to three months to ease their cash flow. Local small-scale restaurants will be given first priority with assistive support from Foodpanda.