Ballarat has jumped on on-demand delivery bandwagon with thousands of dollars worth of food and alcohol distributed in the city each week.
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Delivery on demand has so far centred in capital cities where they have been dubbed the new retail disruptors. Ride share juggernaut Uber’s food delivery service UberEats now services most mainland capitals, launching in Canberra just last week.
In the past 12 months Ballarat has seen the launch of two on-demand delivery services. Those two have gone to partner more than two dozen independent restaurants and fast food outlets.
Haulr, which delivers food and alcohol, launched in November last year. In the coming weeks the business will announce six new partners, including Cattle Yards Inn, Mair Street’s Freight Bar and The Red Door Pizzeria in Bunninyong. The business also plans to roll out flowers, groceries and dry cleaning delivery.
Fast food delivery service Delivr followed in February this year. The start-up launched with partners including McDonalds, Red Rooster and KFC. Earlier this month founder Alex Power announced partnerships with Boost Juice and The Sporting Globe. The service now averages 243 deliveries a week and will announce a further two partners next week.
Haulr had a slow start with just one partner – a Sebastopol bottle shop – but saw demand spike when they began offering food delivery in April, co-founder Simon Sebit said. The service is delivering on average $3,500 a week worth of food and alcohol. Haulr promises to deliver food hot, alcohol cold – within 90 minutes. The system also allows customers to track their orders.
Unlike the big-name services which have been under the spotlight for paying their riders per delivery, Mr Sebit hopes to transition his workers from contractors to an hourly rate.
“Now we’ve gotten to a stage where partner restaurants are reaching out to us and get on board but we don’t have the man power to cater for all of those,” Mr Sebit, who came to Australia as a Sudanese refugee in 2005, said.
“We're not only bringing jobs to Ballarat but also helping small local businesses to compete in the current markets of online services and on-demand delivery.”