GrabFood eyes expansion in East Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR: GrabFood, Grab’s food delivery service, is expected to be rolled out in Kuching and Kota Kinabalu soon.
According to Grab, in its statement, as GrabFood enters its second year, Grab will be taking the food delivery service simultaneously to other cities, namely Penang, Melaka, Johor Bahru, Kuching and Kota Kinabalu.
Therefore, foodies can just sit back, relax and have their favourite quick service restaurants delivered straight to them.
This is in line with the migration of GrabFood app into Grab’s main app, which begun yesterday (April 17). GrabFood service will be rolling out in the other five cities beginning April 22, 2019.
“The migration and expansion to the other cities should complete by mid May and customers can look forward to continuous updates and improvements.
“We welcome feedback and suggestions from our customers, especially in our new five cities of restaurants they want to see on GrabFood,” said Grab Malaysia Country head Sean Goh.
Meanwhile, on GrabFood’s migration to Grab’s app, Grab explained that the move would see a more convenient app experience for partner restaurants and delivery partners whilst GrabFood customers no longer need to have a separate app.
This milestone which is timely with GrabFood’s first anniversary of delivering Malaysia’s local and favourite delicacies right into the hands of food lovers, further strengthens Grab’s position as Southeast Asia’s leading everyday super app.
“The early days of GrabFood was challenging, but we embraced the challenges and lessons learnt. Together with our partner restaurants, we organised uniquely localised campaigns like The People’s Pick, BubbleTeatime and BokBokBokBuster that was aimed at delighting GrabFood customers with their favourite food, and soon, earned our way to Malaysians’ hearts.
“Since our launch last year, our orders have been steadily growing by 30 per cent on a monthly basis, and to-date, we have completed more than two million deliveries! This is a testament that our food delivery service has undoubtedly provided another layer of convenience to our customer’s everyday experience. Therefore, the move to integrate the GrabFood app with the Grab app will bring more value and opportunities to all who are part of GrabFood’s ecosystem,” said Goh.
Goh shared that this move would have a positive three-prong effect on customers, partner restaurants and riders alike, offering an overall intuitive app experience.
Firstly, Grab explained that customers would have more food options as GrabFood partner restaurants have grown from a modest hundreds over to thousands of customers’ favourite restaurants today.
Restaurant partners on the other hand, would have direct access to the millions of Grab users in Malaysia. This is important especially for small and homebased establishments who prior to this, do not have the means to grow their business beyond their current store front.
“With access to a much wider customer base, they can no doubt expect more orders! And whilst that may be daunting for those in the food service industry, they will have the flexibility to manage their own ‘online restaurant’.
“For example, they can opt to ‘temporarily close’ when the kitchen is busy and therefore, do not want to extend waiting time to hamper their customer’s experience,” said Goh.
Since launch, restaurants on GrabFood has recorded a typical 10 to 20 per cent increase in revenue.
In view of GrabFood merging into the Grab app, their deliveries are expected to increase by at least two-folds.
“More orders for these restaurants equate to more earnings for our fleet of delivery partners. With our thousands of delivery-partners ready to deliver and serve their customers, delivery-partners are excited for the new app experience as it will give them a more autonomous view of their total earnings.”