My Experience with ClickTheCity’s Mobile Ordering App

I’ve been trying out ClickTheCity’s iPhone app for 2 weekends now. Except for some minor glitches, it actually works!

When I tried it out last Saturday, CTC’s mobile ordering had only been running for a  week (they officially launched this feature just this 25th of November). I knew it was really new so I wasn’t expecting much from it. The fact that there aren’t a lot of restaurants to choose from even though they’ve already partnered up with QuickDelivery is something I was expecting. For fast food fans, they only have McDonald’s and Shakey’s for now (not sure if they’ll be adding more).

Their app may not be as cool as Pizza Hut’s iPhone app in the US (launched 2 years ago btw), but I think we might just be getting there. Okay fine, maybe 25% but this is progress anyway!
 

Registration

I was expecting this process to take forever since I already encountered a problem with their “just drop the pin to add your address” feature. I knew that sounded too good to be true!

See, here I picked a random location and dropped the pin there BUT when you click Next, the address fields are all still empty. So uhh, what was the point in doing that again?
 

But aside from that, the registration process was pretty smooth.
 

Ordering

Remember, you will only be able to view the list of merchants once you’ve added your address in. Without it, you have no other way of seeing the list of merchants and their menus (I’ve spent a good 5 minutes trying to figure this out so that’s minus points for UI).

You see that minimum order of Php 500? Remember that too. Because once you order, the QuickDelivery rep will try and tell you that you haven’t bought enough to qualify for delivery and that you should buy at least Php 750 worth of food. Just cite this page on the app and that it says it’s just supposed to be Php 500 and they will quickly say “Okay ma’am.” So I’m not sure if they were just trying to upsell in a really really bad way or they just didn’t know. Either way, it happened to me all 3 times I’ve ordered. So don’t forget that part unless you want to be suckered into ordering more food.
 

Timeline

It takes about 15 minutes after you’ve placed your order for QuickDelivery to call you. The first time I ordered, I was sure they didn’t get it so I ended up calling them not realizing I also received an email confirmation 2 minutes before I called. They will email you first and then within 5 minutes, you’ll be receiving a call confirming your order. If you’ve ever ordered from QuickDelivery via phone, you know that it takes about 5-10 minutes to place your order. So if you’re starving, do not take this route.
 

Wishlist

Overall, my experience using this app wasn’t so bad. I’ll use it again and will recommend others to try it out too. Although I do have some things on my wishlist for this app:

1. I’d order more often if there are more restaurants to choose from.
2. There should always be images for all food items. This one is self-explanatory. If I’m ordering from a new restaurant, it would help if I can see how that “Seafood Hofan” looks like.
3. I should be allowed to add details regarding my order because it would be easier to just have the customer rep recap all that instead of me explaining it every single time. (I’m the customize-my-order type when it comes to food. No mayo, no lettuce, please have the sauce on the side, etc.)
4. If I’m a regular customer, it would be nice if I will just receive my order without getting a confirmation call. Because really, what’s the point in ordering online or through your phone if I still have to talk to someone to confirm my orders.
5. I should be able to add my credit card info in so I no longer have to worry about preparing cash.

 

More Screenshots

I took some screenshots so I can show them to you. It’s not bad I tell ya. Go try it out if you can. :)
 

Too Many Group Buying Sites Not Enough Online Shopping Stores

We have well over 40 if not 50 group buying websites in the Philippines. I think that’s crazy. I may have only tried this 3 times (2 from then Beeconomic, 1 from DealGrocer which I haven’t even used) but I’ve often wondered: with all these group-buying sites sprouting like them milk tea shops, is that super convenient online shopping experience almost here?

I know we’ve had Multiply (even before it officially focused on its Marketplace) for a while now, Shopinas most recently and ebay.ph to name the popular ones, but none of them make me really want to buy anything online. And although I really appreciate the fact that they’re out there helping the e-commerce industry, it’s just that I find their categories disorganized, they lack inventory or I feel a bit iffy buying from another person instead of an actual company. So I’d rather go to the mall.

It would be nice to have something like Amazon or Zappos in the Philippines. Where the product pictures aren’t taken in the seller’s living room (with bad lighting and harsh flash), you can zoom in to see fabric or item details, and the image thumbnails are big enough to see even from the main page.

If we get more merchants selling online and the buying process streamlined, who knows, maybe it could lessen the people in malls and even reduce traffic every payday!

In Japan and Korea, 92% of them prefer online shopping than visiting malls and this was in 2010.

I thought about it some more and realized how the biggest roadblock to this is that Filipinos are still skeptical of buying anything online. We don’t trust technology that much yet. How many of us Filipinos really use online banking to pay for our cable, phone and electricity bills? I don’t know a lot of people (outside of the tech-inclined) who do this yet but maybe you do.

The popularity of group-buying sites here is supposed to help pave the way for better e-commerce in the Philippines. But with scams and bad experiences happening with these online purchases, it really doesn’t help make that dream happen any sooner.

For those interested, here’s a good interview article on why India’s e-commerce growth was slow back in 2008. This one I feel applies to us:

“Whether it was the iPod when it was first launched or satellite TV when it was first unveiled in India or the recent shift towards grocery shopping in organized retail chains – all of them have these two things in common – a clear value to consumers and a strong promise around quality execution. Without these two things, it is very difficult to change customer’s behavior, especially when the customers already have a fairly decent alternative. eCommerce adoption is no different, and it has not yet hit the tipping point because of these very factors.”

It’s been 3 years and here’s a good read on how they’re doing now: E-Commerce in India – The Second Coming. I understand it’s like comparing apples and oranges but it’s something to consider anyway.

Do you know of any good online shopping stores here aside from those I’ve mentioned above?