Factors Influencing Consumer Attitude And Perception Towards Online To Offline (O2o) Food Delivery Business In A Tier 3 City Of India

Abstract

The growth in technology coupled with low-cost mobile data plans attracts many people to access the Internet, which has resulted in a spike in Online to Offline (O2O) business in India including Online Food Delivery (OFD) platforms. In the present global COVID-19 pandemic, the OFD service providers played a vital role in delivering the food to consumers and enabling the restaurants to keep operating by minimising their losses. With the increase in demand for fast and online foods, many businesses are entering into tier 3 cities in India. This study was conducted in a tier 3 city in the month of February-March 2020 to assess the consumer attitude and perception towards an OFD application, Zomato. The results indicate that the frequency of using an app, monthly expenditure of the respondent and the first five order benefits that the Zomato offers to the customers shows highly significant to the orders they place. However, most of the respondents reported digital trustworthiness, higher service charges, followed by higher prices as the challenges while ordering food. Home-cooked food with 24×7 availability were the expectations of the consumers. As the demand for online food orders increases, there is a huge scope to improve the business, if the company switches to adopt user-friendly services and provide excellent quality products at a reasonable price. Government need to ensure safety in online transactions in order to attract more people to use electronic medium for transaction. The outcome of the study would help the policy makers and OFD players to better understand the insights of consumers towards OFD system especially in a tier III cities and may take new initiative for the improvement of OFD business sector.