HONG KONG, July 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- One of the U.S.'s leading online ordering platforms, delivery.com has expanded internationally for the first time with a Hong Kong debut. Soft launched this past spring, delivery.com Hong Kong (hk.delivery.com) is now publicly available to corporate customers to satisfy a hungry demand amongst corporate employees who wish to order meals from their favorite restaurants to their offices. The platform offers a user-friendly, online ordering experience that aggregates a curated selection of high-quality restaurants for corporate customers looking for high quality and healthier options for daily meals or large corporate meetings. In addition to restaurants, hk.delivery.com features a wide range of products, from desserts to cold-pressed juices, organic groceries and more.
With the strongest online selection of premium and popular local merchants in Hong Kong, hk.delivery.com is rapidly expanding its merchant portfolio. The site makes menus from quality restaurants, such as Harlan Goldstein's Comfort, Doppio Zero and Locofama, a few simple clicks away. During the workday's peak hours, healthy and freshly prepared food is delivered to offices, serving as an excellent solution for team meals or boardroom meetings.
Selecting Hong Kong as its first international market was part of a strategic decision by delivery.com to establish a strong presence across Asia. According to a January Euromonitor study, there is much room for growth in Hong Kong's delivery services sector; currently only 3 percent of the HK$65 billion revenue generated by full service restaurants comes from food delivery. Independent businesses face enormous overhead costs due to the premium real estate market and sky-high rents.
While food delivery is a logical way to maximize revenues, the technological investment is often beyond smaller independent operators' means, making hk.delivery.com's platform an attractive, investment-free and economical way for merchants to increase revenue. "delivery.com has been a great way for us to grow our customer base and explore a new market opportunity. Since joining delivery.com, our lunch orders have increased significantly and we expect to grow further by 20 to 30 percent. I also really love their user friendly website which makes our food look super yummy and enticing," says King's Taste operator Lily Hung. Many of delivery.com's current restaurants in the U.S. can make up to 40 percent of their overall business from takeout and delivery, allowing them to generate significant income without having to increase their brick-and-mortar footprint in high-rent areas.
Furthermore, the Hong Kong corporate work culture mirrors New York and is well suited for major growth in online ordering. Hong Kong employees worked an annual average of nearly 2,300 hours at the office, the fifth-longest number of hours among all global cities according to a Price and Earnings Report by UBS in 2012. Time-pressed employees prefer home delivery/takeaway as a convenient, efficient and time saving way to enjoy meals.
delivery.com Hong Kong's President (from hk.delivery.com), Didier Bensadoun said, "As a financial hub with a highly concentrated corporate center and residential footprint, Hong Kong is ripe for hyperlocal e-commerce. Long working hours, the growing popularity of team lunches, and an increasingly tech-savvy consumer support the need for a local online marketplace where customers can order high-quality, healthier delivery options, particularly during lunchtime's peak hours."
Bringing delivery.com's decade of e-commerce expertise to Hong Kong, hk.delivery.com is serving a customer base of some of the leading corporate entities in key business districts. The two-sided marketplace allows merchants to list as many or as few dishes on their page, and create new offerings or meal sets according to their service capabilities. The merchant partner just needs to prepare and deliver orders received. "Since joining the delivery.com platform here in Hong Kong delivery.com has brought us plenty of new clients. They get the F&B business and understand how to make online sales work for us," says James Fisher of Little Burro, Burrito restaurant in Causeway Bay and Sheung Wan.
To become a delivery.com merchant, the only requirement is a fax machine or phone with no upfront fees or investment needed. delivery.com is an attractive, economical and trouble free solution for restaurants looking to capture a larger share of the HK$65 billion food service market in Hong Kong without increasing their spend or square footage.
Initially available for corporate customers, but with future plans to expand into residential areas, the company currently focuses on serving the needs of Hong Kong's financial and legal industries workers, which are its most active customer base. Hong Kong will have more than 260,000 such positions by 2016, eclipsing New York and London, according to London's Center for Economics and Business Research.
delivery.com is currently adding more and more of the city's corporate leaders as ordering clients every day. They can create an account online, enter their location and receive a list of merchants and services in their immediate area. They can then browse selections and order their meals.
About delivery.com
delivery.com empowers the neighborhood economy by enabling customers to order online from their favorite local restaurants, grocery stores, wine and spirits shops, and laundry and dry cleaning providers. Every day more than one million delivery.com customers explore their communities and order from more than 10,000 local businesses while at home, at work, or on the go. With headquarters in New York and a growing presence throughout the U.S. and internationally, delivery.com makes e-commerce an integral part of local daily life, helping customers shop, businesses grow, and neighborhoods thrive.
Notable delivery.com Hong Kong Merchants
Doppio Zero
Happy Cow Ice Cream
Harlan Goldstein's Comfort
Koh Thai
Little Burro
Locofama
Maya Cafe
PizzaExpress
Noodlemi
Sugo Sushi To Go
Source: delivery.com
