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Anonymous

{audio:0:00:02} Could you please share some insight into your role and responsibilities at Just Eat?

{audio:0:00:11} I started working at Just Eat eight months after it was launched in Spain. The commercial structure consisted of a sales director and then four people – myself included – who were in Madrid, Valencia, Seville and Barcelona. We were selling directly to the restaurants, in those cities, as well as launching new cities, such as Bilbao, Palma de Mallorca, Murcia. After a year and a half, and with a stronger commercial structure, the company decided that there should be a regional sales manager for half of Spain, managing a team of seven people, organizing the launch of new cities and also selling directly to medium-sized restaurant chains, who had 20 to 30 restaurants.

{audio:0:00:57} In January 2017, the company appointed me as head of sales, managing a team of 14 people in the field as well as people in telephone positions. We managed to increase the offer of restaurants, launched in new cities and implemented new processes and established the company growth strategies.

{audio:0:01:20} What was Just Eat’s strategy, when they entered Spain?

{audio:0:01:27} During the launch, it was to achieve the largest possible offer of restaurants, with mixed cuisine. The offer brings the demand. It was very concentrated in large cities. At the same time, the other strategy was to make the brand as visible as possible. As there was no large marketing budget, part of the visibility was achieved with the stickers on the doors of restaurants, with the stickers being as large as possible. 25% of new users we achieved was due to the stickers on the restaurant doors.

{audio:0:01:27} At that time, the quality of the restaurants didn’t matter so much. The important thing was to attract new restaurants, that had their own delivery and the more motorcycles they had, the better. That meant that they were able to cope with a greater volume. We paid special attention to Chinese restaurants which were the ones with the most orders. At the same time, we began to scale, in various departments, depending on the needs. This was particularly relevant in the area of operations and customer care.

{audio:0:02:41} The commercial department looked for small delivery companies to deliver to restaurants who didn’t have their own delivery service. Finally, we started to think that Just Eat needed to have their own riders, in 2016. In the first years we had a big problem in Spain, because the Spanish restaurants don’t tend to have their own bikers. Eventually, the commercial department realized they had to find small companies to help us to contract with restaurants who don’t have their own delivery service.

{audio:0:03:22} So only a very small proportion of the restaurants in Spain actually had drivers themselves?

{audio:0:03:30} Yes. I can give you the example of Barcelona. When I joined Just Eat, in Barcelona, there were 150 restaurants making deliveries. Now there are more than 1,000 restaurants making deliveries in Barcelona. When we entered into the market, the big problem was that the restaurants were a bit fearful of Just Eat, because they thought we would steal users. They were used to receiving their orders by phone and they thought that we would steal these customers, so it was a bit difficult. The best way that the sales department could do it was to find a small delivery company that could help us to contract with restaurants who were not making their own delivery.

{audio:0:04:38} You mentioned how 150 restaurants in Barcelona actually delivered. Is that just a Spanish cultural thing?

{audio:0:04:46} Today, it’s more than 1,000.

{audio:0:04:50} Historically, it was 150 and is that just because of the Spanish culture, where delivery wasn’t really a thing, back then?

{audio:0:04:59} Correct. At that time, in Spain, the only restaurants that were making deliveries themselves were the pizzerias particularly, and then the Turkish and Chinese restaurants and the offer was very poor.

{audio:0:05:18} When you mentioned 1,000 in Barcelona who deliver today, for example, are they mainly delivering through courier services, rather than delivering themselves?

{audio:0:05:29} Currently, in Barcelona, for example, at least 600 restaurants are making deliveries and the rest are restaurants that are using fleet companies or they are using Just Eat.

{audio:0:05:55} Taking a step back, when you joined in 2011, who were the major players in the Spanish food delivery market?

{audio:0:06:08} Just Eat’s main competition was a Spanish company, called SinDelantal which operated in Spain and Mexico, which appeared in October 2012. This company had a philosophy and business strategy very similar to Just Eat. Another competitor was later acquired by Resto-in. They had a different business model from Just Eat. It only had high-quality restaurants, with a very high average ticket and they managed delivery. It was the closest thing to Deliveroo or Uber Eats. They operated in Madrid and Barcelona. Then there were small companies, like Food 2 U, which was acquired by Just Eat, but they were very local companies.

{audio:0:07:07} In 2012 and 2013, Just Eat tried to acquire these small competitors. Later, other companies appeared, such as La Nevera Roja, who were later acquired by Rocket Internet and, one year later, Just Eat acquired them.

{audio:0:07:31} How has Glovo got such a large market share when they joined relatively late to the market?

{audio:0:07:50} I’m going to tell you something about Glovo that almost no one knows. Glovo started as a delivery company, a fleet company, and worked for Just Eat at the beginning, delivering food from Just Eat restaurants that didn’t have their own bikers. Glovo’s success is based on several different factors. Firstly, product diversification; you could buy food, magazines, drinks, flowers. They carried many different kinds of products. At the same time, when Just Eat bought La Nevera Roja from Rocket Internet, Just Eat couldn’t sign restaurants exclusively and opened the market for Glovo.

{audio:0:08:37} Additionally, they have a good offer of restaurants. They signed up quality and well-known restaurants and they had a very interesting offer for users. The Glovo app is very friendly, probably more than the Just Eat app. Then, finally, McDonald’s. McDonald’s is the key to everything. Glovo was the first aggregator to work with McDonald’s. The rest of the competitors started to working with McDonald’s much later. In addition, McDonald’s did a lot of publicity with their app, in 2018, with the McDelivery service, which relates directly to the Glovo app. They got a lot of new users, thanks to McDonald’s and other top restaurants. That was the main reason as to why Glovo have this market share at the moment.

{audio:0:09:36} Why is McDonald’s so important in the market?

{audio:0:09:40} I remember, very well, that Mox, the company that I am currently working for, was working with McDonald’s in medium-sized cities, like Almeria, in the south of Spain, in 2018. During the first month, and without advertising, McDonald’s was creating 800 orders a month. It was incredible. McDonald’s, in Spain, is more important than Burger King and is preferred by users. Probably another reason is that, in Spain, all children want the Happy Meals. This is probably the reason why McDonald’s is the top player.

{audio:0:10:57} Who has the relationship, today, with McDonald’s?

{audio:0:11:05} Currently, McDonald’s are working with Glovo and, over the last year, Just Eat has started to work with them. Now, Deliveroo and Uber Eats are also working with them. I understand that the main reason why the rest of the aggregators started to work with McDonald’s later than Glovo, is probably because McDonald’s signed up for a certain period of exclusivity. This is probably the reason that Deliveroo or Just Eat started to work with them two years later.

{audio:0:11:57} I remember that around series B, McDonald’s put some money into Glovo. This is another reason that McDonald’s only worked with Glovo for the first two years.

{audio:0:12:20} What are the structures of the relationships with McDonald’s, today? For example, the way that Glovo work with McDonald’s versus the way Just Eat works with them. Is there any difference in the exclusivity or the terms or how they actually work together?

{audio:0:12:35} No. There are some restaurants, like McDonald’s, who are working with all the players at the same time. There aren’t any types of exclusivity deal. Perhaps, there is the possibility that, in some cities, McDonald’s have some terms of exclusivity with one of the aggregators.  But for example, in Barcelona, you find that all the marketplaces are currently working with McDonald’s.

{audio:0:13:10} How did you approach onboarding those typical, smaller Spanish restaurants, in the early days of Just Eat?

{audio:0:13:33} Probably in the first two years, we didn’t receive any hot leads and we needed to organize the route. We were making cold calls and spoke with the owners to try to convince them to contract with us. When we launched in new cities, it was a little bit different, because we organized blitzes. Just Eat would send two, three or four people to one city, to try to get as many restaurants as possible, over a one or two week period, because Just Eat only launched in new cities when they had at least eight restaurants, with a mixed cuisine. It was difficult for one person to launch in a new city, especially if you didn’t know the city. This is the reason that Just Eat sent two, three or four people for a limited period of time.

{audio:0:14:58} Later, in 2016, Just Eat received a lot of hot leads. We received 150 leads, every week. This was the reason that Just Eat organized a telephone partner position department. We received too many leads for the field and territory managers to go and sign the restaurants. Then, for onboarding restaurants, when the sales person signed a restaurant, we signed it with them or we signed it on the phone. When we used the phone, we used a system used by telephone companies, such as Vodafone, for example. The restaurant would then give us all the documentation, all the ID and bank details and the food menu.

{audio:0:16:02} The menu was then sent to an external company that would register this menu into our system. Once we had all the documentation, we sent the order pad, to receive the orders, within 24 and 48 hours. When the restaurant had everything, we made a welcome call to verify all the data and we started working. A month later, we would make another follow up, to make sure that everything was going well. The marketing department creates a website for every restaurant who is signed up and we brought 10,000 flyers for this restaurant. This the process of onboarding restaurants.

{audio:0:16:52} Are you offering them delivery, via a courier service, or was the restaurant mainly delivering? Let’s say you onboard me, as a restaurant, in the early days. If I don’t have a driver to deliver the food, are you delivering via a courier service, like Mox?

{audio:0:17:22} In 2011, we didn’t have companies like Mox. But in 2012, we began to find some companies that wanted to join last mile delivery for food. When we signed restaurants, it was a bit difficult because we had to say to the restaurant, you will pay the 12% or 13% or 14% to Just Eat and then you will have another invoice from this delivery company. Additionally, every time you have an order from Just Eat, you have to call this delivery company by phone. It was difficult and very, very different from today. Currently, all the marketplaces are working with only commission and the restaurant will only receive one invoice. Seven years previously, the restaurants received two invoices; one invoice from the marketplace and another invoice from the delivery company.

{audio:0:18:46} Nowadays, Just Eat, in this case, has a relationship with Mox and so it is not necessary that the restaurant calls the delivery company. But in 2012, every time that they received a call, they would have to call the fleet company.

{audio:0:19:10} Before we get on to discuss Uber and some of the recent disruption to the market, how important was the top placement product for restaurants?

{audio:0:19:25} I think that the top placement is very important. It is one of the keys to everything. This is because, for many years, Just Eat has preferred to sacrifice the position of good restaurants, in exchange for restaurants that pay significant amounts of money to be in the first position. For example, they pay between €400 or €500 per month, by zip code, to appear among the first eight positions.

{audio:0:20:06} Who pays this money? Obviously, restaurants where deliveries represent perhaps 80% or 90% of their orders, especially Chinese, Turkish and Italian restaurants. This strategy is totally different in Just Eat’s competitors, which puts restaurants with the most recognized brand in the top positions. The impact of this is not only to gain a number of new users, but the average tickets are higher than those that could obtained with Just Eat. This is because if you put a Chinese restaurant in the first position, the average ticket is €12 but if you put a big famous brand there, the average ticket is probably €30.

{audio:0:20:59} In addition, this had commercial impacts for Just Eat. Some years ago, there were some restaurants that told us they didn’t want to join Just Eat because Just Eat was the platform for Chinese and Turkish restaurants and other restaurants that they didn’t think were of high enough quality. Currently, the situation is totally different. Within the Covid situation, I can tell you that all the platforms have the same restaurants. In Spain, there are a lot of Michelin starred restaurants that are working with marketplaces, including Just Eat. In the short term, I think that is good for Just Eat, because they get a lot of revenue from the top placement.

{audio:0:21:55} I remember, some years ago, Just Eat earned, globally, €50 million. In the short term, it’s very good for Just Eat because they are earning a lot of revenue. But it’s bad in the long term, because they are not winning new users. When a new user sees Just Eat’s offer, they will probably see one big famous brand in the first position. However, they will see Chinese or Turkish restaurants. But if you look at the rest of the competitors, the user will see a very attractive offer. So the top place is very, very important.

{audio:0:22:59} Historically, you are saying that Just Eat would allow restaurants to pay €400 to €500, per month, to be at the top of the search?

{audio:0:23:14} That would lead to smaller Chinese and Indian takeaway restaurants being at the top of the search, which actually gives you a lower order value for the customer because, typically, it is cheaper food. Whereas, Deliveroo or Uber or Glovo would have very well-known brands at the top, which gives a higher order value?

{audio:0:23:41} Yes, and at the same time, tickets with an average price higher than Just Eat’s tickets. When I began to speak with large restaurants, they asked why they had to pay to be in first position, if they were a very well-known brand. Just Eat prefers to put another type of restaurant in first position. Nowadays, I think that the strategy is changing a little bit and there is a mixture of well-known, famous brands, with restaurants who are less well-known but who are paying the money.

{audio:0:24:40} But do they still charge for top placement in the search?

{audio:0:24:43} Yes; it’s a big business for them.

{audio:0:24:46} But they are mixing it up between well-known brands and the smaller restaurants that bid for the top positions?

{audio:0:25:10} Correct. When Just Eat signs a new restaurant, during the first month that the restaurant is operating with Just Eat, it appears in the top positions. However, the problem is that, after one month, these restaurants do not appear as a new restaurant. For example, on Just Eat, you might see a Barcelona or Madrid zip code and you would be able to find 300 restaurants that are delivering to your home. When this restaurant no longer appears as a newly listed restaurant and it disappears from the top places, you have to do a lot of searching and scrolling on the app to find this restaurant. This is the reason that these restaurants, sometimes, don’t receive enough orders.

{audio:0:26:16} How did Uber and Deliveroo enter the market in Spain? What was their strategy in attacking Just Eat?

{audio:0:26:37} I think that Uber and Deliveroo are probably the most similar companies; I think they have the same strategy. First of all, they try to sign the most famous and high-quality brands in the market, which appear in the first positions. The second thing they do is to try to get more users, faster. They use the same strategy here, which is to spend a lot of money, in terms of discounts. For example, during the last year, Uber Eats sent users discounts of 50%, 75% of their total ticket amount. It’s a strategy where they spent a lot of money to try to get a lot of users.

{audio:0:27:44} Deliveroo uses a different strategy from Uber Eats which is that they make a lot of arrangements with, for example, La Liga, which is the same as the Premier League in the UK; Deliveroo sponsors La Liga. It spends a lot of money in these type of relationships. However, I’m not really sure if they have a lot of ROI with these type of investments. A report has appeared, over the last week, saying that Deliveroo have 5% of the market share in Spain. I think they have spent a lot of money in these type of arrangements, but I’m not sure that it is the best strategy to have.

{audio:0:28:56} Additionally, I think that, over the last two years, Deliveroo have had a lot of problems with the freelance bikers. A lot of bad news about Deliveroo has appeared in the newspapers, which doesn’t help, when users read it. Ultimately, I think that the strategies of Uber and Deliveroo are very, very similar and they have spent a lot of money to try to get new users. Their strategy is to try to sign up restaurants, in a lot of cases, with exclusivity. They have spent a lot of money on this exclusivity. I spoke with some restaurants and they told me that Deliveroo was paying them €150,000 per year, to keep them exclusive. I know that there are a lot of restaurants that will receive more money. This is a strategy that Glovo or Just Eat have never used.

{audio:0:30:21} What is the market share, today, between the big players?

{audio:0:30:24} Last week, Fintonic, which is a personal finance app, well-known in Spain, published a report about food delivery in Spain. It said that Glovo had a market share of 48%; Just Eat had 32%; Uber Eats had 15% and Deliveroo had 5%. This data does not necessarily have 100% credibility. The main reason is because Fintonic has used data based on a sample of their customers. What is certain is that Just Eat is the absolute leader in the cities that have less than 100,000 inhabitants, where it’s possible that Just Eat is responsible for more than 50% of the orders in those areas.

{audio:0:31:43} These are areas where Glovo, Deliveroo or Uber have not entered because their business model of using bikers is not profitable and is very difficult to scale. At the same time, the option of restaurants that have their own distribution has hardly been exploited by them. For example, currently, I think Deliveroo have, more or less 600 restaurants that have their own deliveries. That’s nothing because, in Spain, you can find more than 10,000 restaurants that make their own deliveries.

{audio:0:32:20} In large cities, such as Barcelona, Madrid or Valencia, Glovo is, by far, the number one, with 50% of the market share. Furthermore, Glovo has the advantage of having started with grocer businesses where they are making a lot of orders. During Covid, Glovo signed with Dia, which is one of the largest supermarkets in Spain and was it was an incredible success and there are a lot of orders being generated.

{audio:0:32:57} What is the risk of Just Eat losing market share in those smaller cities?

{audio:0:33:05} For Just Eat, if they lose the market, it will be a big problem for them because currently they are making more than 50% of the orders in the areas with less than 100,000 inhabitants. If, one day, Glovo, Deliveroo or Uber really wants to invest to change their model a bit and to be a marketplace where every restaurant that has their own delivery service can join it, they will have an effect on Just Eat. At the moment, Just Eat is working in more than 1,500 cities in Spain. It is, by far, the aggregator with the most cities. If Glovo or Deliveroo invest in having a telephone partner position and they decide to call all of the restaurants that are working with Just Eat, who are in those small cities, in the long term and they invest money to attract new users, Just Eat will obviously lose market.

{audio:0:34:44} But I have to say, the good thing for Just Eat is that in these cities, it signed the restaurants up a long time ago. Their users in these small and medium cities have got used to using Just Eat and, therefore, it’s a little bit difficult for the rest of the competitors to enter there. Additionally, it’s very difficult for Glovo and Deliveroo to sign with world famous brands, because in some small cities, it’s very difficult to find those types of restaurants.

{audio:0:35:27} In those small cities, is Just Eat using a courier service, like Mox, or one of the fleet companies? Or is the restaurant delivering themselves?

{audio:0:35:40} In the small cities, Just Eat only have restaurants with their own delivery service. This is because, to scale this business is a little bit difficult and it will not be profitable for them.

{audio:0:36:00} I thought that the percentage of restaurants that delivered themselves, in Spain, was very small? I saw some data, from Euromonitor, that said that less than 1% of restaurants in Spain actually deliver themselves.

{audio:0:36:21} Currently, in Spain, there are 10,000 restaurants that have their own delivery service.

{audio:0:36:40} If I’m Glovo or Uber and I go into a small city, where there are lots of restaurants that are working with Just Eat and the restaurants deliver themselves, can I go in and say, use my marketplace and use your own delivery, if you want, as well? How do you think the restaurant would look at that option?

{audio:0:37:19} The most difficult factor when you launch in a new city, especially in the small cities, is trying to convince the four or five restaurants that are making deliveries to enter into a platform. Obviously, you will steal users. But when these restaurants join with one of the platforms, it’s very easy for Glovo or the rest of the competitors to enter with these restaurants; it’s very easy. They don’t have to convince the owners, because the owner of the restaurant thinks, if I am working with Just Eat, why should I not join with the rest of the competitors. The area where they could find problems is if they wanted to launch in a city that Just Eat are not covering.

{audio:0:38:19} But can’t Glovo then go in to Just Eat’s customers, offer a similar marketplace, but point out that they have larger market share? Do you think that is a risk to Just Eat?

{audio:0:38:34} Yes; it will be a risk to Just Eat if Glovo or the other competitors enter into the small cities.

{audio:0:38:42} So why don’t they do that?

{audio:0:38:45} First of all, I remember when Deliveroo or the other competitors first began to enter Spain, they liked to say that they had high-quality restaurants, with high-quality standards. They always told the owners of the restaurants that they were very different from Just Eat. They said that Just Eat was a marketplace for Chinese, Turkish or Italian restaurants and that they were another type of aggregator. Then, over the years, I began to see that Glovo or Deliveroo were also working with Chinese and Turkish restaurants, because the market is the market. Yes, you can find world famous, high-quality restaurants, but if you wanted to have restaurants, with a mixed cuisine, in every zip code, you will eventually have to work with Chinese or Turkish restaurants.

{audio:0:40:04} Firstly, I don’t think they really like working with these kind of restaurants. The second thing that is very important is that for Glovo, Uber or Deliveroo to work with restaurants that have their own delivery service, they are losing their philosophy. The philosophy of Glovo, Uber or Deliveroo is that they control the whole process, from when the user makes the order, until the meal arrives at the customer’s home. When you work with restaurants that have their own delivery service, you can’t control, but you can track the whole order.

{audio:0:41:05} I don’t know if you know but, in Spain, the government are likely to change the regulation concerning the riders. The government think that all the freelance riders that are working for Glovo or Deliveroo should be employees. If the government obligates Glovo, Uber or Deliveroo to make all the bikers have employees, this will have a big impact. If the riders are your own employees, you have to pay social security, holidays and other costs. My theory is that if the government obligates them to change their model, Glovo, Uber and Deliveroo will probably invest a lot in the marketplace, to try to sign restaurants, in every part of Spain, who have their own delivery service. If they don’t do that, it will be very difficult for them to survive. If they have to make the riders employees, it will probably increase the cost by 30% or 40%.

{audio:0:42:45} Can we just walk through that? Let’s say that the government imposes a regulation that every rider needs to be an employee. If Uber Eats and Deliveroo enter the marketplace, make an offer for the restaurants in small cities and towns, won’t the restaurant just use both marketplaces, because there will be more demand?

{audio:0:43:17} Yes, sure. The thing is that, in Spain, normally, the restaurants in the large cities work with all the platforms, except for some large chains that have signed up to some type of exclusivity, with Uber Eats or Deliveroo, for a significant amount of money. But 99% of the restaurants are working with all platforms. If Glovo, Deliveroo or Uber enters the small cities, Just Eat will probably lose some users but, at the same time, it’s very good for the market and it’s very good for Just Eat too, because Glovo, Uber and Deliveroo will create advertising to make more new users. Just Eat, Glovo, Uber and Deliveroo will try to steal the telephone orders and make them online food orders. That is the most important thing.

{audio:0:44:28} Currently, the 65% of the orders in the delivery market are made by using the phone. 35% are using the online tools for food delivery. Glovo, Uber, Just Eat and Deliveroo have a long way to go and they can steal a lot of phone orders, from restaurants that are using telephone ordering.

{audio:0:45:10} Who do you think is going to win the most market share in the smaller cities?

{audio:0:45:19} As I said before, Just Eats is currently the top one. If, for example, Glovo, Uber and Deliveroo decide to enter into the small cities, it will be a little difficult in the short term, for them to have more market share, because Just Eat started working in those cities four or five years ago, with no competitors. The restaurants and users are now used to working with Just Eat. But I think it depends a little bit on the strategy of Uber or Deliveroo. If they begin to give big discounts as they were doing in large cities, they will obviously get more new users.

{audio:0:46:15} I think that, in the medium term, such as two or three years, Just Eat will be the company that will have the largest market share.

{audio:0:46:30} What do you think of the Just Eat Takeaway and AmRest partnership, in Spain?

{audio:0:46:38} I think the partnership between Just Eat and AmRest will be a very good thing for them, especially for La Tagliatella, which is a world-famous restaurant. I don’t know the terms of this partnership but I think everything depends on the top placement. If La Tagliatella or another brand do not appear in the first positions, they will not have much success. I know of other types of restaurants that have signed up during the last six months and you have to scroll a lot to find them. Therefore, they are not getting a lot of food orders. If I compare this restaurant, in Just Eat, with the same restaurant in Glovo or Uber, they are making hundreds and hundreds of orders, compared to Just Eat.

{audio:0:47:55} As I said, I don’t know the terms of the agreement with AmRest. But if AmRest let Just Eat put some type of button in their app or website that will take users to the Just Eat app, obviously they will earn a lot of new users. But it depends on the tools that they use to attract more new users.

{audio:0:48:35} Is La Tagliatella an exclusive or well-regarded restaurant in Spain?

{audio:0:48:47} La Tagliatella is an Italian restaurant. I don’t know the number of restaurants that they have, but it’s hundreds. The average ticket for La Tagliatella is higher than the other Italian restaurants. It’s very famous and they have a lot of users and customers.

{audio:0:49:22} We just don’t know if this is an exclusive agreement or not?

{audio:0:49:26} No; I don’t know. I only have the information that I have read in the newspapers.

{audio:0:49:36} Can you explain your current role and business today and how that works with the vendors?

{audio:0:49:44} My current role is as a country manager of Mox. Mox is a last mile delivery company, specializing in food delivery. Just Eat is one of our investors. Mox began to work in the final months of 2016. Last year, they invoiced more than €8 million. The main difference between Mox and the rest of our competitors is that we have all the bikers as salaried employees. They are not freelancers.

{audio:0:50:33} Currently, we work in more than 50 cities in Spain, with more than 1,000 employees. We have worked with Just Eat, Uber or Glovo. Just Eat is one of our investors, but Just Eat do not obligate us to have exclusivity with them. Additionally, we work with some chains, such as Burger King. Since Covid, we have started working in grocery and retail, working with companies as powerful as SEUR or GLS. However, we are very specialized in food delivery.

{audio:0:51:21} How exactly does it work? I’m in Barcelona and I order a meal from Uber Eats or Deliveroo. There’s a restaurant on Uber and they will take my order. Do you guys deliver the food for Uber and the restaurant? How does it work?

{audio:0:51:45} We work in some cities with Uber Eats and, at the same time, Uber Eats have their own bikers and then they also work with us. It depends on the restaurant. In our collaboration, they ask for a number of bikers and hours. Every week, they send us a forecast and they say, for example, we need 5,000 hours for the next week and we need this number of bikers, during these hours. We recruit these bikers. In addition to recruiting, we are responsible for the operation and having to provide the vehicles, the motorbikes, and controlling the quality of the service with our traffic department.

{audio:0:52:43} The platform gives us their application. We have to train our bikers to learn and understanding the different applications of each marketplace. They don’t like us to use our own app. In the example that you gave me, yes, you make an order via Just Eat or Uber. If it’s one of the restaurants that Uber or Just Eat give us, the restaurant receives the order and our biker will receive the order, via Uber or Just Eat’s app. The biker goes to the restaurant, picks up the order and delivers it to your home.

{audio:0:53:36} Do you only work in major cities?

{audio:0:53:39} We work in major and medium-sized cities. For example, with some platforms, we are working in one city that only has a population of 50,000.

{audio:0:53:59} How would you compare the different services between Uber, Deliveroo, Glovo and Just Eat?

{audio:0:54:09} I can’t tell you about Deliveroo, because we never work with them. The main difference between Uber Eats and Just Eat is that, in the case of Just Eat, we are responsible for the operations. That means that we have our own traffic department. We have 16 people working, at night, to control all the processes of our bikers receiving the orders. We ensure that the order arrives to the consumer in a good condition.

{audio:0:54:59} In the case of Uber Eats, it’s totally different because we are not responsible for the operations. With Uber Eats, we are only responsible for recruiting the bikers that they need. Uber Eats themselves are responsible for all the operations. We don’t have a traffic department for them.

{audio:0:55:29} You just send the riders, for Uber? They check the order and they deliver, based on Uber’s app?

{audio:0:55:37} Correct. If there is any problem during the process, Uber Eats will be responsible for this process and not us. We are only responsible if, for example, they wanted 500 bikers during the weekend and we have 30 bikers that don’t work during the weekend. But if the bikers are working and an order is made via Uber Eats, when the biker arrives to pick up the order, we are not responsible for this operation, for this process, as we are for Just Eat. For Just Eat, we are responsible for the service level.

{audio:0:56:28} Is the delivery cost for Just Eat and Uber very similar?

{audio:0:56:35} Yes; very similar. We do not receive money for every order. Our price is based on hours of bikers. Our pricing covers the bikers’ salary and social security costs, as well as the expenses that are associated with the motorcycles. We must also add the operating costs, like the traffic department and our managers, as well as our margin. The price that we receive from every platform is very similar. It can change a little bit, in the case of Just Eat, depending on the quality of the deliveries, because we are responsible for the service level. In addition, we can receive some money on other variables such as the branding of the motorcycles or delivering flyers for the platforms. Sometimes they want to have a special campaign and they print thousands of flyers and we deliver them.

{audio:0:57:49} How much does it work out at? Let’s say an average order, in Barcelona, is €20 on Just Eat; how much would they pay you, per order, for delivery?

Former Head of Sales at Just Eat, Spain 

Just Eat & Online Food Delivery in Spain

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