Sea Group Serves Food Delivery in Vietnam through Delivery Now

Shopee’s parent company, Sea Group, provides food delivery services such as Gojek’s GoFood and Grab’s GrabFoods, in Vietnam. In Indonesia, this digital company serves orders for food and ready-to-eat food through Shopee Food. Sea Group acquires Foody Corporation to provide food delivery service under the name “Now” in Vietnam.

However, Shopee Indonesia Director Handhika Jahja did not answer whether a similar product would be present in Indonesia. He only said that Shopee has provided Shopee Food, which has been selling F&B products since last April. “This is the result of the curation of brand and seller partners,” he said, yesterday (12/10).

The company curates more than 500 fast F&B sales partners. They are also committed to increasing sales partners and expanding the scope of Shopee Food outside Jakarta. Shopee noted that the repeated sales of culinary products in July increased fourfold.

“We highlight a big change from the shift in the habits of Indonesian people who prioritize buying food online,” Handika said. Meanwhile, the food delivery service made by Shopee’s parent company was only discovered after hundreds of partners demonstrated in front of the Foody Corporation office, in Hanoi, Vietnam, last August.

F&B Sector Transactions Increased since April

Foody was founded by Minh Dang in 2012. Initially, the company recommended food and restaurant lists. In 2015, the startup received funding from Garena and Tiger Global Management. Then turned his business into food delivery and restaurant reservations.

Garena is a subsidiary of Sea Group which is engaged in entertainment, especially online games. Quoted from local media, Vnexplorer.net, Sea Group entered the B Foody series funding round. Based on Statista data, revenue from food delivery services in Vietnam is estimated at US$ 302 million this year.

The value is far less than Indonesia with US$ 1.9 billion and Singapore with US$ 464 million. Quoted from Tech In Asia, the margins from food shipments are thin. This is reflected in some players such as UberEats and DeliveryHero who haven’t made a profit. However, operating costs can be reduced if the volume of orders is high.

Based on a study by Facebook and Bain and Company entitled ‘Digital Consumers of Tomorrow, Here Today’ released in August, around 35-43% of digital consumers in Southeast Asia bought packaged food ingredients, fresh food ingredients, and non-alcoholic drinks during the corona pandemic. Transactions increased by 8.4 times during April-June.

Google, Temasek, and Bain in a report entitled e-Conomy SEA 2019 also estimated that the transaction value (gross merchandise value / GMV) of the ride-sharing sector in Indonesia reached US$ 6 billion or around IDR 83.8 trillion last year. The value is predicted to increase to by 2025.

In Southeast Asia, transactions were projected to reach up to US$ 12.7 billion last year. It’s from food delivery and transportation. Google, Temasek and Bain estimate the share of food and transportation delivery to be 50:50 by 2025.

Shopee Indonesia Holds Big Discount at 10.10

E-commerce companies are busy holding online shopping promotions of 10.10 this year. Various brands of goods were invaded by consumers. At Shopee, a number of brands were even awarded for being the most sought-after and favorite brands in the 10.10 online shopping promo.

“We are also happy to be able to provide access to various needs according to the personalization of Indonesian society,” said Head of Brands Management Shopee Indonesia Daniel Minardi in a press release, Jakarta, Monday (12/10/2020).

Shopee gave awards to brands that managed to become the best-selling and most favorite brands in this promotion. Daniel hopes that this award can help businesses in improving their marketing systems, business performance, and industrial development.