So-called Web 2.0 services are supposed to be stylish and cool. They are supposed to harness the wisdom of crowds, the long tail, freakanomics, social bookmarks, tags, widgets, AJAX, open APIs, missing vowels, and wacky names. And they certainly aren’t supposed to have anything to do with delivering food lest they end up in the annals of history. So Demae-can is not 2.0.
Demaecan (”Delivery House”) is a delivery service aggregator which provides a standard pc and mobile front end for browsing and ordering. You sign up, set your address, see the services in your area, and order. Thirty minutes later, you are enjoying a delicious omelet curry and a can of beer. From my apartment in West Tokyo I can order from: two bento shops, four pizza places, four sushi chains, one chinese restaurant, two western restaurants, two curry places, a liquor store, a supermarket, a flower store, seven plumbers, five locksmiths, three window repairmen, two mechanics, two maid services, three computer repair services, and a massage service (not that kind!). Demae-can currently has nearly 1 million registered members, yearly sales over 649,000,000 Yen (5.74 Million USD), and 90%+ marketshare in Japan’s online food delivery market. But why are they so successful?
I think it’s because they did not set out to build an Amazon-esque delivery infrastructure or co-ordinate their own system of meta-delivery drivers like WebVan. They simply function as the middleman. Demae-can takes the order from the customer, passes it to the company (sometimes by fax), and provides customer service on either end of the transaction. Restaurants receive increased revenue in exchange for flat monthly plus per transaction fees. It’s also taken years of sales, partnerships, and outside investment to get where they are today. Demae-can can now be found on many of Japan’s major restaurant-related free publications and websites. Yahoo Japan has heavily invested in the site to the point that it now owns over 40% of Demae-can’s parent company.
Demae-can currently faces no major competitors and is firmly entrenched in the market. I’ll be watching to see if anyone challenges them in the near future, but at this point I’m doubtful. And if anyone does, I bet they’ll be armed with a bunch of salesmen and no more than a drop of AJAX.
Yoroshiku!
Joseph
