At a time when the coronavirus is keeping most of us locked in our homes, only one word comes to mind when we need some takeaway food.
Reader: McDonald’s.
Uh yes, but I’m talking about the food delivery platform most of us use to order McDonald’s meals.
Reader: Ah, FoodPanda. Yes I use it that app often.
No no, it’s the food delivery app almost everyone uses here.
Reader: Deliveroo?
GRABFOOD, I’M TALKING ABOUT GRABFOOD!
Reader: Geez, looks like someone needs some bubble tea
I really do.
More and more people are turning to food deliveries after dining out was banned and the circuit breaker was introduced.
One of the more popular apps, GrabFood, has seen a huge spike in orders since the Covid-19 pandemic, but they’ve also received several complaints, especially about their high commission rates.
GrabFood hit back at the criticism levelled against them, but now one Malaysian restaurant has a bone to pick with the food delivery app.
Restaurant Claimed GrabFood Marked Them As ‘Unavailable’ As Restaurant Pays Lower Commission
A Malaysian burger joint has taken to Facebook to vent their frustrations about their partnership with GrabFood.
In a post on 4 June, Burgertory, a restaurant in Selangor, accused GrabFood of discriminating against small businesses or businesses that have menu items with lower prices.
Why?
Well, it all started with a complaint.
Burgertory said they received complaints from customers saying they couldn’t find the burger joint on the GrabFood app.
Burgertory initially thought that this was because their stores were too far away from their customers, but checks showed that other restaurants in the same area were available on the app.
When the burger joint contacted GrabFood via live chat, they were told that their restaurant availability was turned off “due to the differences in commission rate by different restaurants”.
GrabFood explained that restaurants that signed a higher commission rate would be prioritised and available in more places.
So, GrabFood put the restaurant back online, the burger joint was satisfied, and everyone lived happily ever after.
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Turned Back Off Again
Despite being put back online, Burgertory was still upset with how Grab treated them and demanded to speak to their manager.
The manager explained that restaurants with a larger “sales bucket” will appear in more places.
Burgertory said that this is unacceptable, and the manager promised to get back to them.
But a week has passed and nothing has happened.
Not just that, the burger joint discovered that their availability on the platform was turned off again on 4 June after checking the app.
The complained to GrabFood yet again, and they claim that the “same cycle” of events ensued; they were put back online once more.
A Form of Discrimination?
Burgertory accused the food delivery platform of of discriminating against small businesses or businesses that have menu items with lower prices, and said that they were disappointed with Grab.
“These occurrences have broken the trust, we don’t know when their system will discriminate against us again and only switch back on after we found out and reach out to them each time.”
“This is totally unfair to small and medium businesses.”
GrabFood’s Response
GrabFood actually responded to the accusations, but not officially.
Replying to a few comments on Burgertory’s post, GrabFood denied that food outlets get “turned off” based on their commissions, claiming the burger joint simply received the wrong information.
In case you can’t see it, the comment reads: “Hi all, so sorry. The info shared to them was inaccurate and we will personally reach out to them to get this sorted immediately. Outlets do not get switched off based on commissions, however sometimes radius might be reduced especially during crunch times. Hope this explains.”
They did say, however, that the “radius might be reduced especially during crunch times”, whatever the heck that means.
GrabFood replied to several other netizens who criticised the food delivery platform using the same exact response.
So, Burgertory says that a GrabFood employee told them that food outlets with lower commissions get ‘hidden’ from the app, while GrabFood says that’s not true.
Who do you believe?
Here’s the full post:
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