Oddle is Asia’s leading e-commerce and order management solution for the F&B sector. Currently available in Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, the homegrown Singapore company was launched in March 2014 to empower F&B businesses to grow and with full control over their online presence.
Oddle also provides end-to-end support to restaurants with operations, logistics, and digital marketing, so they can move online seamlessly through an integrated and cost-effective delivery solution. To date, it has nearly 5,000 partners internationally, including 1,500 restaurants locally. The company was founded by three Singaporeans: Jonathan Lim, Pua Yong Xiang, and Alan Goh, and it is backed by SPH Ventures and Wavemaker Partners.
In this TechNode Global Q&A with Jonathan Lim, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Oddle, we learn about the dynamics of the restaurant, F&B, and logistics industry in the region, particularly with the impact of the pandemic on customer behavior, such as dining in and delivery.
What are the three key challenges for food startups amplified by the pandemic?
There are three key challenges for food startups amplified by the pandemic, namely:
Digital know-how. Getting online is easy but thriving online is difficult. The online world removes any locational advantage, which these food startups may have and exposes them to stiffer competition. For a start, many of the food startups do not know how to contact and convince their existing customers to purchase online (at a higher cost) and create a visible online presence to acquire new customers effectively and efficiently. Hence, many of the food startups rely on the services of marketplaces which are offered at unsustainable costs.
Logistics know-how. Food delivery is labor-intensive, and many food startups lack the financial resources and/or manpower.
In addition, the process of taking down online food orders and coordinating with delivery drivers is typically very manual and prone to errors. Doing this right requires strong experience and expertise. Such problems are exacerbated when the online order volume grows, especially during CB when online sales became the primary mode of sales.
No control over online business. When food startups rely on marketplaces, they gave up control over their online business. This means that they do not know who their online customers are and are unable to communicate directly to their consumers. In doing so, they are unable to build their online brands and have no visibility on how to improve their online business. This realization dawned on food startups during the pandemic and many of them have since been working hard to regain control of their online restaurant-customer relationship.
How is Oddle uniquely addressing these opportunities/challenges?
Since Oddle’s establishment in March 2014, over the years, Oddle built up an archive of domain knowledge, expertise, and experience in the F&B industry. Oddle has been working around the clock to bring everyone’s favorite restaurants online. Oddle has enabled each restaurant the ability and resources to have better control over their online sales, visibility, and operations.
Oddle team also provides a hands-on touch to help their merchants succeed with pricing strategies, menu optimization, operations, and logistics, so restaurants can serve their online customers seamlessly. One of which is to equip merchants with the online marketing technique of creating special online food bundled meals for family or friends, so that with just a click of a button, the customers can now get an entire food set delivered from mobile to doorstep. By using the Oddle platform, food startups can bring the best food to consumers without middlemen or hidden costs.
With the aim of democratizing online ordering for restaurants, Oddle requires no setup cost to join. Business owners pay a 10 percent commission fee per order which also covers payment gateway and customer support costs. This model allows restaurants to choose between using their own drivers or Oddle’s logistics partners, providing the restaurants control over their delivery fees.
Oddle also gives merchants total operations control. The Oddle platform offers food brands direct access to data including order history and frequency, available in real-time to help restaurants build meaningful relationships with their customers and optimize their offerings. Merchants can now build direct relationships with their direct customers.
Most importantly moving forward, Oddle helps restaurants tackle their challenges in re-engaging customers, finding new customers by offering besides online solutions, and also now also dine-in solutions aligned to facilitate restaurants’ success. This is to help restaurants best capture and acquire customer data, and better grow and retain these customers. Through Oddle’s upcoming dine-in solutions, Oddle is passing on the know-how for merchants to build up their own defensibility and have full total control over their customers’ data.
What is your strategy in acquiring customers and food providers/partners?
Strong and suitable product. Oddle was born of the three co-founders’ love for, strong knowledge of, and experience in the industry, which allows Oddle to create a simple but effective tool to support restaurants. In addition, Oddle has always adopted a restaurant-first approach and a business model which is vested entirely in our merchants’ success journey. Oddle does not just provide software but also know-how in managing and growing the online business including kitchen management and operations. Our good work with some restaurants opened doors to many more and this became a key driver of our acquisition strategy.
To acquire customers, Oddle activates the merchants’ existing customers’ base as the best online customers come from their dine-in customers. Oddle works closely with the merchants to bring these merchants’ brands online, activate their dine-in customers to come online customers and those unlock and harness their online presence potential.
Most importantly, moving forward, Oddle is continuing to acquire customers and food providers by leveraging on our strong positioning as an O2O company, and offering besides online solutions and also dine-in solutions aligned to facilitate restaurants’ success. This is to help restaurants best capture and acquire customer data, and better grow and retain these customers. Through Oddle’s online and dine-in solutions, Oddle is passing on the know-how for merchants to build up their own defensibility and have full total control over their customers’ data.
Recently, your company was featured as planning an exit. Can you give us an update? What are your plans moving forward once you have exited?
It is business as usual at Oddle.
We have seen some food logistics platforms launch and fail in some markets. What do you think are the lessons learned from these?
Barriers of entry are low and hence, competition is stiff. In addition, the requirements of the industry are ever-changing. To ensure relevance, a food tech company such as us needs to stay close to restaurants and consumers and continue to consistently improve its product, services, and knowledge to address the pain points faced by the industry.
What are some unique differences or challenges for an online ordering software startup operating in Southeast Asia? Or, you can draw comparisons across the different SEA markets and Greater China Region?
Some of the unique differences or challenges for an online ordering software startup operating in Southeast Asia arose from one key issue – SEA is a fragmented market. The language, regulations, type of food, culture, and even payment options are different in different countries within SEA and this means a great amount of customization for each country is required. This is significantly different from China which is generally, a homogenous market. Also, the market maturity in SEA varies amongst the big cities.
Featured image credit: Oddle/Dancing Crab