Deliveroo has launched a new pickup feature that lets users place an order then go to the restaurant and get the food themselves, according to The Telegraph. The new service is live at over 700 restaurants in the UK, and Deliveroo says it plans to offer the feature in 10,000 UK restaurants within one year.
As features go, this one is pretty straightforward. Users order from restaurants via the Deliveroo app, then simply choose the “pickup” option to collect the food, rather than having to pay a delivery fee and wait for a driver to deliver the meal.
Deliveroo says it will launch the feature internationally in Hong Kong, Australia, Netherlands, Belgium, and Spain this year.
The move will appeal to those consumers looking to shave bit off the overall cost of lunch or dinner — an enticing option for densely packed urban areas where the a person’s restaurant of choice might be as close as across the street or on the next block. More importantly, offering pickup could help Deliveroo appeal to more restaurants who want to offer off-premises ordering but may not want to fork over the hefty commission fees associated with delivery. To be clear: with pickup orders, restaurants still pay Deliveroo commission, just less so than it would be with delivery.
The additional revenue from a pickup service will help Deliveroo remain competitive, particularly in the wake of its massive investment from Amazon being delayed by the Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation. The CMA has until December 11 to decide whether to take Amazon’s investment into the next phase of investigation.
Meanwhile, the market for food delivery in Europe remains a crowded one. Deliveroo faces competition from Uber Eats, who has a sizable presence on that continent and could further expand its own recently launched pickup feature the company launched last month.
Then there’s Just Eat, an already massive food delivery company that’s currently tied up in a bidding war between Netherlands-based food delivery service Takeaway.com and Naspers spinoff Prosus. It’s looking more and more likely that Takeaway.com will win that fight, which would turn Just Eat-Takeaway.com into one of the largest food delivery services in the world, and certainly in Europe.
Diversifying its offerings to restaurant partners seems to be the tactic Deliveroo is using to stay competitive. In addition to offering a pickup program, the company also this year launched a procurement platform to supply restaurants with discount ingredients, equipment, and other supplies. It also started the Restaurant Rescue Team, which turns struggling restaurant businesses into ghost kitchens in an effort to save them.
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