World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) Foundation, through its WIEF Businesswomen Network (WBN), successfully organised its #iEmPOWER webinar series on 4 May 2021, via Zoom platform. 97 participants attended the webinar from 12 countries, including Singapore, Ghana, UAE, Bangladesh and Philippines. The speakers were:
- Bryan Loo, founder of Loob Holding Sdn Bhd & CEO of Tealive, Malaysia
- Stephen Francis, co-founder and CEO of MyGroser, Malaysia
- Sayantan Das, managing director of Foodpanda, Malaysia
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The three speakers focused on the topic Digitalisation Trend Creating Opportunities in F&B. The one-hour virtual session was moderated by wealth strategist and coach, Jashidah Kamal.
‘During these 12 to 18 months, we noticed behavioural changes in consumers. Mainly, consumers seek trust in that the goods they ordered are delivered on time, in good condition as well as fresh.’ Stephen said.
There is a steeper gradient in terms of adoption rates, in the recent year, new customers, active users and returning customers are purchasing more frequently, demanding convenient and fast delivery. Acceptable speed of delivery has decreased tremendously since the past two years, from 60 minutes to 30 minutes now.
Bryan noted that there is a vast contrast between outlets in Petrol Stations and malls, where the latter were badly impacted due to mall closures during the Movement Control Order (MCO). ‘We also observed a change in consumer buying behaviour during the pandemic. For example, before the pandemic, college level consumers only make up five to eight per cent of our total sale, now they make up 30 per cent.’ Bryan explained.
Straight forward delivery service is abundant of late, businesses need to be creative in offering niche service. For MyGroser, they not only offer normal and organic products, but they have also ventured into offering ready to cook meals kit. ‘Every meal kit has actually been tried by co-founders of MyGroser before it’s sold. Obviously, we eat a lot, it’s part of the job!’ Stephen said. ‘Basically, every product we sell has been used by someone on our team. This gives a measure of confidence in that we know what we’re selling.’ He explained.
Entrepreneurs are operating in a different realm now. The mindset and business model have to change with the trend. ‘The moment entrepreneurs raise funds or have a little or a lot of liquidity, they fall into this trap of thinking they need to spend a lot on acquiring customers. While there’s some truth in that, it’s not all true. You want to acquire the right kind of customers and doing it blindly without a strategy will cause your ROI to not be anywhere near what you expect.’ Sayantan explained.
‘Focus on the basics, know what’s the worst-case scenario, how much is your safety margin and what’s the best-case scenario. Ensure that you have a really great team.’ He added.
When answering a live question from audience, Stephen said, ‘the market for delivery business is tremendous, that we don’t see other online supermarkets as competitors. This is because if all supermarkets decided to go online, the demand is going to be much greater than we can cater for.’
A participant, Perlita Mallari from Philippines said, ‘the webinar was very helpful in addressing the competitive landscape of online food platforms, the benefits of the digitalisation of food business as well as promoting positive impact of online food delivery while maintaining sustainable profit growth.’
The COVID-19 lockdown restricted the movement of people and drastically changed consumers’ habit in terms of online food and grocery shopping. The online F&B delivery service market is at the tipping point of rapid digital transformation to manage the sudden surge of delivery demand due to stay and work from home order.
For more information or interview requests, contact Faizah Jaafar at +6019 399 7746 ([email protected]) or follow WIEF Foundation on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter for regular updates on future events and happenings.