Every now & again, our data throws up something so unexpected and random that we have to ask ourselves — why is this happening? ‘Gorb’ is a food delivery app that just keeps popping up on our radar for Maharashtra.
1.7% reach may not seem like a lot but keep in mind that it’s present only in Mumbai and this reach is for all of Maharashtra — a state of roughly 115 million people. That’s about 2 million users acquired over 9 months!
Gorb’s USP is that it provides meals prepared by the ‘top chefs’ and its menu changes every day. This is clearly not a novel idea and neither is it disruptive; we’ve seen many companies come and go in this space.
More importantly — Gorb is a part of the Essel group which in turn owns the Zee network — which means it has deep pockets and marketing muscle.
They’ve been spending money. They sponsored Aamir Khan’s Dangal and are even offering chefs a chance to host their own cooking show on television. They partnered up with Ola to offer food at discounted prices to Ola Customers — you get as much as Rs. 100 off on an order of Rs. 200.
But all that marketing spend isn’t winning them any fans. Gorb has one of the lowest Net Promoter Scores in the food Space.
In case you forgot, NPS measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products or services to others. We measure it on a scale of -1 to 1.
So why is it still growing? Marketing dollars can buy you growth but that’s no guarantee of retention. Discounts, glitzy ads, and coupon codes are easy (and expensive) ways to get into a customer’s life but not necessarily the best way to build a business. If these NPS ratings don’t improve, Gorb will be yet another casualty in the food space.
On an unrelated but interesting point: Are the economics for delivery businesses better suited for vertical cities (Mumbai) vs. horizontal (Delhi) ones?
In Delhi, distances are longer and buildings further apart. In Mumbai — distances are shorter and orders tend to get clustered in tight geographical boundaries. Deliveries are easier to handle. One building offers the same number of potential customers and as a neighborhood in Delhi. If I were starting a hyperlocal anything — it makes sense to do so in a vertical city.
What do you think?
Thanks for your time,
Ashish
- Team KG
Subscribe to our newsletter here
You can reach me on ashish@kalagato.com
