If you have ordered food bundles from restaurants like Greenwood Fish Market during the pandemic lockdowns, the odds are that you would have ordered from Oddle Eats, the food delivery and takeaway solution offered by Oddle.
Oddle was founded in 2014 by Jonathan Lim to solve the problems he saw as an F&B owner. Riding on the tailwinds of the pandemic and safe management restrictions, Oddle grew its e-commerce platform for food deliveries and takeaways exponentially.
However, in the post-pandemic period, this boom for food deliveries has faded with the return to normalcy, and coupled with the upcoming implementation of CPF contributions for platform workers, the future of food delivery services may have dimmed a little. We speak to Jonathan Lim, the founder of Oddle, to find out his perspective on the future of on-demand food delivery services.
On-Demand Services Are Premium Services
“The days of COVID will never come back again and that was not a normal or sustainable demand,” is how Jonathan puts it. He expects both the demand and supply for food delivery services to decline.
On the supply side, the implementation of CPF contributions and better protection for platform workers will likely reduce the number of platform workers who take on food delivery gigs on a short-term basis (i.e., students or transitory workers). While this will reduce the pool of food delivery platform workers, it will grant better protection to platform workers who are in the industry for a longer haul.
While this is a right move to protect platform workers, many users of on-demand services have grown used to the convenience (and cheap prices) of food delivery services. “The best way is for customers to realise that it is not a cheaper alternative but a premium service.”, Jonathan advocates. “It is only when people are willing to pay for (the premium service), that workers can get whatever margins that would have gone into the protection.”
Playing Matchmaker Between Restaurants And Their Best Customers
As food delivery platforms strive towards profitability, consumers may find that they will pay more for the delivery convenience and restaurants may find their margins being squeezed as on-demand platforms increase their fees.
Oddle does not operate like the typical on-demand food delivery platform. Instead of having platform workers work for them directly, Oddle acts as the middleman coordinating between restaurants and customers.
Oddle’s role is to match restaurants with their best customers. For their e-commerce food delivery and takeaway platform, restaurants have the choice of using their own delivery service or use Oddle’s middleman service which coordinates the delivery with third-party logistics companies. In doing so, restaurants can offer islandwide delivery instead of being limited to a certain radius and customers who are willing to pay the delivery fees are still able to order from their favourite restaurants. By actively coordinating the logistics such as cutting off orders beyond delivery capacity, Oddle also maintains an exceptional level of fulfilment which increases customer satisfaction for the restaurant.
Pivoting Beyond Delivery
In 2021, when Oddle reviewed their projections for food delivery, they realised that they were “10 years ahead of projection”. Instead of expecting to remain 20 years ahead, Jonathan quickly realised that Oddle will need to pivot beyond food delivery service to offer more value to restaurants.
As a restaurateur at heart (and F&B owner of The Lawn), he had built Oddle to put data ownership in the hands of restaurants and food delivery has provided them a rich pool of data to uncover “the latent demand of consumers”.
For example, the multiple and repeated delivery orders from the east side gave Keng Eng Kee Seafood the quantifiable data to inform their expansion plans and they eventually opened their second branch in Tampines.
Putting Restaurants First
To Jonathan, “food delivery is always going to be a supplement to the main business of restaurants which is dining in.” For Oddle, this meant pivoting away from the food delivery and takeaway e-commerce platform to other services that would serve the in-house dining restaurant experience including reservations, QR ordering and payment terminals.
With his “restaurants first” mindset, Oddle focuses on maximising value for restaurants. Using data from the integrated reservation, delivery, takeaway, and in-house ordering, restaurants can optimise their kitchen productivity by identifying lull periods and shifting demand to these periods with targeted marketing. This can be through delivery promos or even in-house dining promos.
Jonathan cites a personal example of his weekend routine. Every Saturday, he would typically only choose a restaurant for family lunch while waiting for his daughter to finish her swim class. “On one Saturday, I saw an email telling of a lunchtime promo featuring one of the Oddles’ restaurant partners”. For him, it was a successful marketing targeting as not only does it solves his personal question of where to eat for lunch, it is a boon to the restaurant trying to fill its lunchtime tables.
Implementing Best Practices To Innovate And Optimise
Jonathan’s drive to innovate and optimise is striking and it is easy to see why he was named EY Entrepreneur Of The Year – Food and Beverage Solutions in 2022.
He questions the status quo and actively pursues better solutions. For example, a common practice for restaurants to reduce no-show rates for reservations is to implement a credit deposit and this is typically set at $50 per table. However, he found that a minimal sum of $8 is sufficient to generate 97% retention and this nominal sum is less off-putting to customers who may balk at a $50 credit deposit. By examining the data and questioning the status quo, he found a solution that both reduces the friction of making a reservation while reducing the no-show rate of said reservation.
With such a drive to innovate and optimise, Oddle promises to be an exciting omnichannel F&B technology platform that will disrupt and redefine the future of the F&B industry.
Subscribe To The DollarsAndSense Business Pass
Enjoy what you are reading and want more? Join The DollarsAndSense Business Pass and unlock access to valuable tools, exclusive networking opportunities, and tap into the wisdom of industry experts to fuel your business expansion!
