Tech
TasteAway enters the Toronto restaurant delivery space
Over the past couple of years there's been heated competition in the online restaurant delivery space in Toronto. Two main competitors - Just Eat and OrderIt - have been blanketing the city, signing up restaurants to help them reach hungry diners everywhere. Now, there's a new player in town. TasteAway launched earlier this fall and is starting to create some inroads with restaurants such as Amaya Express, Thai Room and Ginger among its current crop of customers.
Earlier this week I connected with founder Constantine Daicos who told me he's been in the industry for three years after stating a site called MenuBaby in Oakville. What he hopes to create with TasteAway is (in his words) a better, more visual marketplace for customers to..."eat with their eyes" and he wants to offer restaurant customers better tools than the competition.
For now, better tools mean restaurants can set delivery zones that don't force them into servicing an entire postal-code, the ability to accept orders from their own website without paying a high commission and the ability to update their own menu whenever they feel like it. They're also mobile-friendly right out of the box with native apps launching in the new year.
What do you think? Will you give TasteAway a try? Do you think they can succeed in what is already a hotly-contested market?
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if they can pick up businesses, they'll last as long as the competition.
It's a scary market because it's all about convenience and it's hard to build brand loyalty. If someone can do it more conveniently than you, they'll win. So if this startup can aggregate more restaurants and make it more user-friendly, they can crush Just-Eat. I love Just-Eat because of the service it offers, not the brand itself - if a different service has a restaurant I like, I'd just as happily order from them.
I will say one thing however - I've consistently had better-than-expected service from Just-Eat's online chat support. Like when a Greek restaurant I ordered from botched a transaction, they got the refund in order within minutes without any complicated crap. They talk like real, smart human beings instead of helpless drones hitting copy-paste. I hope TasteAway does the same.
Outdated you mentioned? What are you expecting, lot's of colors, fancy graphics? Pictures of generic food?
I've been a die hard just-eat.ca user and I simply love how easy and simple the formula is! My teenagers are starting to use it, we love the fact that it loads quickly, I don't have to look through some fake/generic pictures of a meal that once I order won't look remotely close to the pic!!!
Good Luck Taste Away, you copied Groupon and couldn't beat them, now you are playing in Just-Eat.ca backyard, what next should Apple be worried?
Check the new food delivery and take out website www.ueat.ca Very similar to JE, but I found it easier to order.
For those of you who enjoy Restaurant Delivery and are interested, here's a few of the key differences in services: Orderit provides their own delivery fleet for restaurants without delivery drivers, which means some unique options and a higher degree of quality control; Orderit also offers exclusive discounts via Facebook or their newsletter which results in a lower cost as compared to other services; and finally - the main reason I joined Orderit - Orderit.ca is Canadian created, owned and operated with 15 years of experience.
Personally, I'll always go with the restaurant I love for the lowest price -- competition drives this offering! :)