foodpanda Indonesia Reveals New Plans and Partnership, Including Online Payment Support

It's been a while since we gave latest update on leading online food delivery service foodpanda Indonesia. Last year we spoke with then-Managing Director Juan Chene. Recently we spoke with his successor Sander van der Veen, who's at the helm by the end of 2013, about foodpanda Indonesia's current state and several plans that will be unveiled in the coming months. One (long awaited) new feature is the ability of using online payment instruments to pay the bill.

van der Veen opened the conversation by describing current condition of foodpanda Indonesia. After two and half years, it now has 70 employees (30 of them are motorcycle riders for delivery service), more than 600 restaurants as partner in four areas in Indonesia. Globally it has already available in 45 countries and securely funded by more than $100 million investment. foodpanda is proud to call itself a mobile app service, as more than 60% traffic are coming from both Android and iOS apps.

When asked about why foodpanda made partnership with food chain that already has its own food delivery service, like Burger King, he said, "foodpanda is not focus on being delivery service, but on being online marketing platform or marketplace where hungry customers can find food for home delivery. And doesn't really matter if the restaurant delivers it or if we deliver, but for us we are the connecting chain. Therefore our mobile app, we launch new mobile app recently, is all aimed for the convenience of the customer."

Regarding online payment, van der Veen confirms there's no online payment supported so far and it plans to reveal online payment support next week. He said that it has already partnered with banks and mobile operators to support payment with credit cards, mobile wallets (Dompetku, XL Tunai, and T-Cash), and also several Internet Banking payments. foodpanda won't offer the possibility of doing bank (ATM) transfer though.

Online payment promotion will be the main highlight for foodpanda's marketing strategy. He stated, "In near term now we want to push on online payment. We'll have very big promotion with (several) different banks, like discounts, if we pay with their (credit) cards in the coming months. We think it's very important channel to develop further."

In term of expansion, van der Veen wishes to grow foodpanda's service to 10 top cities in Indonesia, including Surabaya, by the end of next year. Furthermore, foodpanda want to enhance their presents in the cities where it's already operated, like in Jabodetabek, Bali, Medan, and Makassar.

Earlier this year foodpanda built collaboration with OpenRice. Now foodpanda will focus on partnership with banks for marketing promotion. It also has joint promotion with restaurants for online order.

As one of foodpanda's partner, Erdona Pangsri, Pancious' Marketing Manager, added, "Pancious and foodpanda have been collaborated since last year. Regarding the rising trend of food delivery at Jakarta, it’s actually our plan to be able to deliver Pancious to our customer, more than just dining in outlet. So along with foodpanda delivery service, we are expanding our customer’s base on that area and quite happy with the great result. This year we try to penetrate online segment by giving 20% discounts for food delivery that can't be found in any retail store."

Beside marketing and sales promotion, foodpanda tries to be more social by collaborating with a social media platform that's yet to be revealed. It also ties partnership with Indosat for several promotions.

While retail customer is still the main focus, van der Veen reveals foodpanda is now targeting corporate customer by launching "corporate order". Companies will have the opportunity to open corporate account on foodpanda and create special arrangement and employees can be added into those accounts. van der Veen agreed that this is the right time to target corporate clients as foodpanda has already setup online payment infrastructure. This new feature is scheduled to be launched next month.

van der Veen confirmed there's still plenty room to grow for food delivery business in Indonesia, something his predecessor also said last year. He stated, "In Jakarta and Bali I think the potential is super big. There's actually room for multiple players and I think we only capture like one percent of the market. We can be 10, 20, maybe 100 times bigger than we are now, (so) there's plenty of opportunities for online food delivery. For me, it doesn't really matter who does the delivery. We are here to bring the delivery orders as the connecting chain between the customers and the restaurants."