Last year’s food delivery industry trends that will define this year.
Below is a list of my observations. Would be happy to hear your thoughts or see you adding the trends you noticed.
- Consumers are not giving up on food delivery. In the US, consumer credit card debt hit new records in 2023. But while the public may have slowed down on visiting restaurants, many kept ordering in treating themselves to restaurant food at home. As delivery apps invest more and more into driving order frequency and user retention, the trend should continue.
- Delivery apps are becoming profitable. Depending on the player, the profitability story is narrated with different terms, nevertheless, for the first time in 2023, we started to see black and green on the charts. 2024 will expose the real growth story.
- Brands are doubling down on digital. McDonald's and Yum! Brands kept reporting fantastic digital sales results and both set ambitious goals towards further digitalization. With the growing affordability of software products for restaurants, smaller brands will follow suit.
- Loyalty is taking a lead. From UberOne and DashPass to McDonald’s loyalty - the most advanced industry players understand the value of retained customers. In 2024, we should see more clever Loyalty offerings and Subscription services powered by AI.
- Courier regulations are complicating everyone's life. Globally, in 2023 governments kept dealing with regulations trying to protect the workforce. Not always do the initiatives yield actual benefits for couriers, so we shall see the motion continue and play out differently in different countries.
- Fleet as a Service category is expanding. Many major marketplaces decoupled their ordering and delivery services, allowing restaurants to deliver marketplace orders by themselves and also use marketplace fleets to deliver non-marketplace orders. I expect this trend to continue into more geos in 2024.
#restaurants #fooddelivery #deliveryapps #loyalty
