Food Purchase Using Food Delivery App and Gender Influence: Study of a Small Sample in Coimbatore City

Introduction

Revolution in the online retail market made a strong impact on the Indian food industry. The emergence of various food delivery apps in India namely Swiggy, Zomato, Ubereats, Foodpanda, etc with various provisions to its customers attracted the tech-savvy youngsters(Neha Parasar, Sakina Ghadiyali, 2016). Unlimited 4G connection with minimum cost and wide usage of android phone among college students increased the opportunity to explore the online market, especially the online food market. (Yoo-Kyoung Seock and Jessie H. Chen-Yu, 2007). College students are more fascinated towards the food delivery apps. Many respondents are having two or more apps on their mobile phone and placing orders in all the apps when they get attractive offers. It has become a hobby for college students to order food online through apps.

Coimbatore is a metropolitan city also known as South India’s manchester where the culture is respected by the people. Everyone in the family including youngsters respects the tradition and values of the family. In the beginning, agriculture was the main source of income for each family, along with men, women contributed equally to agriculture. After industrialisation, the women also started working in the industry. Though the cooking and taking care of the family members was the responsibility of the women. The women are well aware of how to balance their family and work-life. The education and job related to education in the field like Information and Technology improved the standard of living.

Food retail start-ups made life easy, customers can relax from cooking and concentrate little extra on work or can spend extra time with the family. It has become a boon to the working women. So there is a slight shift from the culture of depending on food distribution by food delivery apps instead of cooking. The recreation for the people in the city is visiting theatres, local parks and dine at hotels. The entry of this retail food delivery apps changed the trend of dining the restaurant food at home. This enables the customer to order from their favourite hotel with the app which offers minimum cost. The below table shows that to sustain in the market and to increase the sales volume the food delivery apps also provide offers, discounts, quality service, etc.

These service providers act as a mediator between the end-user and the hotels. Respondents can compare the price of the food and delivery charges with other food delivery app, review and rating are also displayed by a service provider. This helps the customers to choose between the hotels to order food online(Kim, Anna and Baloglu, 2011; Serhat Murat, Haluk Hekimoglu, 2012). The hotels are also having a tie-up with more than one app or all the apps in the Coimbatore city, which is known for industrial development, medical tourism, agriculture and mainly for its culture.

Apart from all the motivational cues by food delivery apps, gender plays a predominant role in online shopping. Visiting the hotel and spending time together with family and friends enjoyed enthusiastically by the college students, often they used to visit hotels with their friends, at the same time order food online by college students at the various situation has become unavoidable (Lim Pei Ling, Rashad Yazdanifard, 2014). The consumers have more opportunity to compare the prices of the various hotels in the same app for a specific menu and also have the opportunity to compare the price between apps(Kenneth et al.,2012). Though there are certain issues faced by the customers, the food being eaten by the delivery boys, delay in delivery time, etc.

These facilities lead to a change in the culture of the people who are still bound to cultural values. Fast-changing lifestyle, work pressure, convenience to continue the work without disturbance and various other facilities by the service providers are boon to the working customers(Enrico Colla, Paul Lapoule, 2012). This leads to the change in the attitude among the people regarding food and cooking food at home.