Bistroo Network Solves Restaurant-Food Delivery Problems

Starting your own small business can be a daunting task. Many entrepreneurs who open their own shop or restaurant don’t start with high expectations of making it big as much as simply making a living. The reality is that by the time you’ve paid all the overheads of premises, bought the necessary inventory, employed some staff, paid corporation tax and all the other expenses, the profit margins are relatively small.

In fact, in the restaurant business, the global average profit margin is somewhere between 2% and 6%. Taking the midpoint of that range, earning a relatively modest salary of around €27,500 or $32,000 (slightly above average for a Western European country) would require a restaurateur to turn over nearly €690,000 ($800,000) per year. These calculations don’t even take into consideration any reinvestment of profit back into the business itself.

So it’s hardly a surprise that so many restaurants are struggling, even before they were forced to shut up shop due to the pandemic restrictions. Many have ended up closing their doors forever, with the US alone losing over 100,000 restaurants in 2020.

A Perverse Scenario?

What may seem odd then is that the food delivery business is booming and continues to grow. In January of this year, Finnish food delivery service Wolt raised $530 million in funding to expand its offering into other revenue streams. Spanish on-demand delivery service, of which meals make up a significant revenue stream, is now extending its footprint into African countries.

Of course, it’s reasonable enough that many people turned to food delivery services as a way of accessing their favorite restaurants during the pandemic closures. But these food delivery platforms are taking a very healthy cut from the restaurants using them to reach customers. Doesn’t it seem somewhat sad that, at a time when many restaurateurs are being put out of business, the food delivery industry is busy lining its pockets at the expense of those small businesses that make up its core revenues?

Bistroo, a Dutch project focused on food delivery services, aims to shake up this business model with its blockchain-based platform. The entire concept is designed to be entrepreneur-first, solving many challenges faced by restaurateurs using the centralized food delivery apps. 

For example, as well as throttling revenues, the food delivery platforms operate on a model that allows business owners very little control over the price the customer pays. If a meal is perceived to be too expensive, the customer often ends up blaming the restaurant.

Moreover, restaurants have little or no ability to interact with their customers directly. It’s in the interests of the platforms to act as the intermediary because they can reap lucrative revenues from selling customer data for advertising purposes. Of course, this means that the small business owners have no access to their own customer data, limiting their marketing and analytical capabilities that could help sustain growth.

Bistroo’s entrepreneur-first platform is designed to facilitate the restaurant-customer relationship, not intermediate it. Food operators can list their menu with full control over changes, including pricing, which are updated in real-time. They have access to a dashboard showing them their customer analytics, and the platform markup is as little as 5% – one-third the rate charged by competitor platforms. Furthermore, restaurants can expect to get paid near-instantly rather than waiting weeks for the funds to reach their accounts.

Benefits for Customers, Too

From the customer side, there are plenty more incentives to use Bistroo than the centralized platforms. They can benefit from discounts when they pay for meals with the platform’s native BIST token and earn rewards for choosing to share their data and leave reviews.

Bistroo is already live and in operation in the Netherlands, with an expansion into neighboring Belgium underway. Users in other European countries can expect to see Bistroo’s presence over the coming year. It’s gaining traction quickly – within under twelve months of launching in 2020, the platform had accrued $1 million in orders processed across 200 merchants, indicating it’s a hit with users and restaurateurs alike.

If the platform model is to sustain itself, it needs to stop cannibalizing the very businesses it’s designed to support. In the food delivery business, entrepreneurs can now vote with their feet.

Source: https://coinquora.com/bistroo-network-solves-restaurant-food-delivery-problems/