SOURCE: SING TAO DAILY
| TRANSLATED BY RONG XIAOQING
FROM CHINESE
OnDelivery.com, an online delivery website founded by Chinese Americans James Chen and Robert Huang, was launched in Chinatown on July 30. Unlike many other online delivery websites on the market, OnDelivery.com hires its own deliverymen, a service proved to be appealing to restaurants in Chinatown which traditionally don’t do delivery to save labor costs. So far, 30 restaurants have registered for the service. The founders expect its users to double or triple in the first year, and to bring $10 million of extra business to its clientele.
Chen and Huang base their optimism on a previous success. It only took a year for the number of customers of flushingfood.com, a similar delivery website the two founded in the neighborhood in September 2013, to jump from the original 19 to 103. And in its first year, flushingfood.com brought $4 million in business to its clients.
Chen said that the idea of forming flushingfood.com came from his and his partner’s observation that the younger generation like to order delivery but many Chinese restaurants are not ready to provide the service. “The restaurant industry in Chinatown is more established than in Flushing. If we can get $4 million for our clients in Flushing within the first year, there is no problem bringing $10 million in business to our Chinatown clients,” Chen said.
OnDelivery.com can take orders for restaurants and the customers pay for the food online. Restaurants don’t have to operate their own website or worry about technical problems with the Internet. The deliverymen working for the website are responsible for taking take the food from the restaurants and delivering it to the customers. The restaurants only need to pay a service fee of 20 percent of the price of the food. For restaurants that don’t do delivery otherwise, this means extra business.
Mr. He, the owner of Shanghai Cuisine on Bayard Street, said in its 18-year history, the restaurant has never provided delivery service because the safety and insurance issues of hiring deliverymen are discouraging. If OnDelivery.com can do it for him, he is happy to try. “This is a win-win solution,” he said.
Mrs. Zhu, owner of Old Sichuan Cuisine on Bayard Street, said many restaurants in Chinatown don’t do delivery. But in recent years, fewer tourists come to Chinatown and rents here have grown rapidly at the same time. The prices of ingredients have been rising as well. For example, a pound of beef sold for only $1.99 in 2010, and now it is $7. All of these put restaurant owners under enormous pressure. To take delivery orders via the website is at least another way to get more business.
Mrs. Zhu said her restaurant sometimes takes delivery orders. But the restaurant has no deliverymen. The job is shared by employees who have other duties, and becomes a burden for them. Now that the website can do delivery for her, Mrs. Zhu said the 20 percent service charge is worth it.
Taiwan Bear House, a Taiwanese food restaurant that just opened on Pell Street, had been trying the services of OnDelivery.com, before it formally launched, for two weeks. The restaurant itself doesn’t offer delivery, but business coming from the website has made up 20 to 30 percent of its total revenue. “This is extra business. So I don’t mind the two or three dollars in service charges,” said Kris Kuo, the founder of the restaurant.
The office of OnDelivery.com is on Pell Street, where their 10 full-time deliverymen are based. The deliverymen, who mainly use bicycles to deliver the food, are paid minimum wage plus tips. The company also buys insurance for them.
The website takes orders from 11 am to 11 pm. For addresses within two miles of Chinatown, food arrives within an hour after the order is placed. Chen said the company plans to hire 50 employees in the first year. And if things are going well, the company may expand to Upper Manhattan and Brooklyn.
State Sen. Daniel Squadron, Council member Margaret Chin, Wellington Chen, the executive director of Chinatown Partnership, Justin Yu, president of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, and Kenny Chan, chairman of the Chinese American Restaurant Service Association, attended the launch ceremony. They all hope the website can become a new engine of the restaurant industry in Chinatown.
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