Shakespeare: Just Eat could deliver on promise thanks to Covid-19
Many assumed that food delivery companies would actually benefit from the COVID-19 crisis, as nobody was allowed to eat in restaurants, but some of the biggest players in the market have been struggling during the pandemic.
Just Eat has been an exception.
The company, which acquired Grubhub in the United States this year, recently reported that it attracted a record number of new restaurants to its platform and saw significant year-on-year revenue and profit growth over the first half of 2020.
New YouGov data shows that the delivery app’s UK Index scores – which is a measure of overall brand health calculated by taking the average of Impression, Quality, Value, Satisfaction, Recommend and Reputation scores – almost doubled over the course of lockdown, rising from 4.7 on March 23rd to 9.1 by May 3rd.
While this score has decreased since the Government allowed restaurants to reopen on July 4th, it remains higher than it was before the pandemic.
During two months of lockdown, Just Eat’s Purchase Intent scores (whether a brand is someone’s first choice to purchase from) also rose from 7.1 to a peak of 12.8 (May 23rd), while Value scores (a net measure of whether consumers think the brand represents good or poor value for money) more than doubled from 2.9 to 7.1. (May 3rd).
Around the same time, Consideration scores (whether someone would consider purchasing from the brand in future) increased from 16.3 to 22.0 (May 20th) and Satisfaction scores (whether someone is a satisfied or dissatisfied customer) increased from 12.3 to 16.8 (May 23rd).
Even though restaurants have reopened – and with the added incentive of a discount through the Government’s Eat Out to Help Out scheme – Just Eat has held on to some of these gains. The company’s overall Index score was at 7.4 by August 21st, and while Purchase Intent has also fallen from its peak, it hit 8.6 on the same day; still meaningfully higher than it was at the beginning of lockdown. Across some metrics, customer opinion actually appears to have improved: Quality scores (a net measure of whether consumers think the brand represents good or poor quality) rose from 1.8 (March 23rd) to 5.3 (August 2nd).
If the closure of restaurants at the beginning of lockdown made delivery apps more attractive to customers, it also created a problem by giving their customers fewer options. As an older business with a more mature infrastructure and wider coverage across the UK, Just Eat may have been ideally placed to benefit from the COVID-19 crisis.