[ UPDATE 5/06/2020 21:45 ]: Grab has responded and they clarified that restaurant availability is not based on the commission rate. More details here.
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During the Movement Control Order, delivery services such as GrabFood has greatly helped the F&B industry while Malaysians are confined at home. Although restaurants are now allowed to reopen for dine-in with strict SOP, deliveries are still a vital contributor to local businesses.
Burgertory, a burger joint located at SS15 Subang Jaya, has posted on Facebook alleging that GrabFood is discriminating against small businesses or businesses that have menu items with lower price. According to them, customers have complained that they couldn’t find Burgertory on GrabFood although their location is within a reasonable distance.
Initially, they thought maybe the GrabFood system has set a distance limit but they discovered that other restaurants in the same area are available except theirs. When they reached out to GrabFood merchant support, they were told that their restaurant availability was turned off “due to the differences in commission rate by different restaurant”. They explained that restaurants that signed a higher commission rate with be prioritised and will be available in more places.
After the initial contact, they were put back online but turns out their restaurant became unavailable again. The restaurant claimed that GrabFood will only allow restaurants with larger “sales bucket” to appear in more places.
This probably explains why some restaurants on GrabFood could go missing on certain days. Personally, I’ve encountered restaurants being unavailable on the app but strangely enough, I could order from restaurants located further away with higher delivery fees. Have you experienced the same issue? Let us know in the comments below.
We have reached out to Grab on the matter. We will update this post once we have received a response.
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