Consider this. On a Saturday night, you get ready and are all geared up to savour some scrumptious Greek salad from your favourite restaurant in town. You drive down a long distance only to find that the place is completely booked and return home dejected. Why go through the hassle when you can just a table online? Also, are you tired of eating at the same burger and fries at your friendly, neighbourhood café all the time? Need to explore more eating options? Worry not as Yummybay will come to your rescue! An online food ordering portal, it enables customers to order food from over 1500 restaurants in Bangalore, Chennai and Kerala, book tables and cakes for free. It also deals in corporate bookings.In a conversation with Anisha Mehta from YourStory.in, Ketty Cherian, CEO of Yummybay, shares more.
Why get into the online food business?
I was completing my MBA degree in UK and took notice of the thriving online food enterprise industry there. When I returned to India, I ventured into the software business until 2009 when I started conducting surveys to understand the feasibility of an online food ordering portal. When I deduced that a market for a business idea like this existed, I took the plunge and established Yummybay in 2010. We first launched the venture in Kerala and later moved to Bangalore and Chennai. The e-commerce industry in India is registering a steady growth with respect to the ever-growing internet population in the country. We believe in tapping the market potential. Therefore, we are looking at targetting people living in big cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Jaipur, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. People who love eating out are our target consumers. Through Yummybay people can also avail gift vouchers, earn points with every order and redeem them to get discounts and free dishes.
As an entrepreneur in the e-commerce space, it must be challenging to sustain a business and compete with similar enterprises?Availability and promptness of delivery is a major challenge. As an e-commerce venture, it is essential that we instill trust among our consumers, be it the quality of food that is offered or payment option they use. In the online food ordering segment, we do have strong competitors but what gives us an edge is that we have a huge database of restaurants. We have covered restaurants from almost all major cities in south India and we are in the process of adding more restaurants to our database from cities like Delhi, Mumbai and Pune. Yummybay is growing exponentially since its launch in Bangalore.
On an average, 20 per cent of our traction rate is converted into sales and we are expecting that this figure will grow since we are expanding to Mumbai, Delhi and Pune.
Tell us something about your revenue model.
Our revenue model is formulated in such a way that it is generated from three streams. Firstly, we earn a commission from restaurants for every order placed and from sponsored listings on the site. Advertisements on the site also generate revenue.
What are your expansion plans?
Over the past one year, Yummybay has grown exponentially. Yummybay plans to launch in all major cities across India and we want to expand our services to countries in Middle East and Europe in the coming years. Venture capitalists from US and Europe have shown interest in investing in Yummybay. Also, as mobile internet users in India are growing by the day we are planning to launch a mobile application soon.
Go to www.yummybay.com for more details!
