Tag Archives: GrabFood

GrabUnlimited : Is It Worth Becoming A Member?

GrabUnlimited offers a large number of discount vouchers, and the opportunity to earn rebates!

Find out what GrabUnlimited really is all about, and whether it’s worth becoming a member!

 

GrabUnlimited : What Is It?

GrabUnlimited is a subscription plan that offers discount vouchers, and special promotions for Grab services.

Here are some of the benefits that the GrabUnlimited subscription offers :

Special June Promotions

  • 4 x GrabFood discount vouchers (up to 50%) + free delivery (cannot be used at peak hours or in Penang)
  • 6 x GrabFood discount vouchers (up to 38%) + free delivery (cannot be used in Penang)
  • Only in Penang : 10 x GrabFood discount vouchers (up to 50%) + free delivery

Standard Subscription Vouchers

  • 50 x GrabFood free delivery vouchers (up to RM3 off)
  • 10 x GrabMart free delivery vouchers (up to RM3 off)
  • 10 x GrabFood discount vouchers (15% off, only for self pick-up)
  • 1 x RM5 Grab Ride discount (Malaysian airport rides only)

Unlimited Benefits

  • RM1 GrabFood premium delivery discount
  • JustGrab (Top-Rated Drivers) in selected cities (from 9 June 2022 onwards)
  • Earn up to 1.5% in GrabRewards (instead of just 0.5% for non-members)
    You will get 1.5 GrabRewards for every RM1 spent, instead of just RM0.75.
  • Monthly Grab Hot Deals are now limited to GrabUnlimited members.

 

GrabUnlimited : My Humble Opinion

GrabUnlimited is being pitched to the media as a great way to save and earn money (paradoxical, I know!).

At first glance, it does look attractive, offering you 38% or 50% discount vouchers, as well as free delivery vouchers worth RM180. And who doesn’t want to “earn” 1.5%?

The real purpose though is to lock you into their platform, to discourage you from using their rivals / alternatives.

And if you look at the fine print, you will realise that those benefits and vouchers come with caveats that make them much less attractive.

  • You get 1.5 GrabRewards for every RM1 you spend – twice that of non-members, which you can use to redeem discounted Grab vouchers for a rebate “up to 1.5%”.
  • The 50% discount voucher is really a RM8.50 discount voucher with a minimum spend of RM20. The additional discount comes from Grab automatically applying one of the GrabUnlimited RM3 free delivery vouchers. It is also limited to “selected restaurants”.
  • The 38% discount voucher is really a RM7.50 discount voucher with a minimum spend of RM25. The additional discount comes from Grab automatically applying one of the GrabUnlimited RM3 free delivery vouchers. It is also limited to “selected restaurants”.
  • The 15% off Self Pick-Up discount is capped at RM12, which works out to a maximum order value of RM80.
  • The RM3 GrabFood free delivery voucher requires a minimum spend of RM20, and is not valid for Mix & Match orders.
  • The RM3 GrabMart free delivery voucher requires a minimum spend of RM40, and is not valid for Mix & Match orders.

That is why Grab limited their monthly Hot Deals and Top-Rated Drivers to GrabUnlimited members. They used to be available to everyone.

That does not mean it’s a bad idea to subscribe. If you use Grab regularly to order food or grocery deliveries, you can save quite a lot. You just have to make sure you meet the voucher requirements.

And you should definitely not fall into the trap of only using Grab. Always check alternative delivery services to see if they offer a better deal.

Finally, if you do not use Grab regularly (like me), you should obviously not subscribe at all. It would only be a waste of your money.

 

GrabUnlimited : What You Must Know…

GrabUnlimited Membership Cost

GrabUnlimited is a subscription-based membership programme that costs RM4.90 per month, which works out to RM58.80 per year.

New subscribers will be charged 1 sen for the first month, but will have to pay the full subscription price thereafter.

Existing GrabUnlimited members outside of Penang, Kuching and Johor Bahru who subscribed in April and May will be charged only 1 sen in June, but will have to pay the full subscription price from July onwards.

How To Subscribe To GrabUnlimited

Here is what you need to do to subscribe to this plan :

  1. Open the Grab app
  2. Go to Account > Subscriptions
  3. Tap on GrabUnlimited
  4. Review the plan details, and tap on Get this plan
  5. Pay for the subscription using your GrabPay Wallet

GrabUnlimited Automatically Renews Monthly

You may be interested to try out GrabUnlimited due to the 1 sen promotional price for the first month.

But please be warned that once you subscribe, it will automatically renew every month, and you will be charged the full price.

if you don’t want to pay the full price after trying it out, make sure you cancel the plan before the next billing date.

Cancelling GrabUnlimited

This is the official way to cancel your GrabUnlimited subscription :

  1. Open the Grab app
  2. Go to Account > Subscriptions
  3. Tap on GrabUnlimited
  4. Tap on View Details
  5. Tap on Cancel Plan

If you accidentally cancelled your subscription, you can resubscribe anytime before the next billing date at no additional cost.

 

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Name : Adrian Wong
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.

He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.

 

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MCO : Can Strata Residents Directly Receive Parcels / Food?

Can strata property residents directly receive parcels or food deliveries directly at their units during MCO?

Let’s find out what KPKT and MKN actually said about this issue.

 

Strata Residents CANNOT Directly Receive Parcels / Food During MCO?

On 17 June 2021, SelangorKini reported (in BM) that strata property managements are prohibited from allowing residents to directly receive parcels or food deliveries at their units.

Strata property covers not just condominiums and apartments, but also flats, townhouses and even landed homes in gated and guarded communities.

Here is our English translation of what the Head of the Strata Management Enforcement Unit, Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT), Inspector Mohammad Izzat Hassan, said :

If they allow the dispatcher or the visitor to enter the occupant’s residence, compound action can be imposed for violating the SOP (standard operating procedures) set by the National Security Council (MKN).

Apart from ensuring the safety of all, we also want to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic from spreading. No more compromises and action will be taken if anyone breaks the rules.

 

Surprise : Strata Residents Are ALLOWED To Directly Receive Parcels / Food During MCO!

With some help from Steven Khoo, Chairman of Surian Condominiums Management Corporation, we looked into this issue, and came to the surprising conclusion that strata residents are ALLOWED to directly receive parcels or food during MCO!

Strata Management Sector SOP By MKN

If we refer to the latest MKN SOP for the Strata Management Sector (11 June 2021 edition), it seems clear that postal, courier and delivery services are only allowed to send their food, parcels, packages to a designated area.

They are asked to employ a contactless delivery method to reduce the risk of infection, and so delivering to a designated area seems like a logical decision.

Strata Management Sector FAQ By KPKT

However, the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT) itself issued their MCO FAQ for the Strata Management Sector.

In their latest 3 June 2021 edition, it is stated that the strata management is permitted to use their own discretion to allow the delivery of goods and food directly to the unit.

Here is our English translation of this section of the KPKT FAQ :

What about postal, courier and delivery workers (FoodPanda, Grabfood and so on)?

Postal workers, couriers and delivery workers (FoodPanda, Grabfood and etc.) are allowed to deliver the goods at the place designated by the management, after clearing the body temperature screening test.

The Management may use their discretion to allow delivery workers to deliver goods / food directly to the unit.

So it appears that KPKT has left it to the Strata Property Management to decide whether to allow residents to directly receive parcels and food from delivery services, or not.

Until and unless KPKT changes this FAQ, any fines by their own Strata Management Enforcement Unit will likely have to be cancelled, like what happened when the Manjung Police wrongly fined factory workers for not updating MySejahtera on a daily basis!

MKN Hotline Confirms Management Discretion

The Surian Condominiums Management Corporation contacted the MKN Hotline about this issue on 18 June 2021.

Puan Nurul from MKN confirmed that it is up to the Management’s prerogative, whether to allow direct delivery of goods and food to the strata units or not.

So there you have it – confirmation from KPKT and MKN that direct deliveries of parcels, packages and food to your strata unit is ALLOWED, as long as it is PERMITTED by the Management of your strata property!

 

Help Support My Work!

If you would like to support my work, you can do so via bank transfer /  PayPal / credit card.

Name : Adrian Wong

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GrabFood : Restaurant Availability Not Based On Commission!

GrabFood has responded officially to the allegations that they are turning off restaurant availability according to commission rates.

We also asked them some questions of our own, and will update the article with their replies when we get them!

 

GrabFood Restaurant Availability Controversy : What Happened?

In case you missed the recent kerfuffle, Burgertory – a gourmet burger restaurant – recently accused GrabFood of quietly switching off their restaurant’s availability because of their lower commission rate and sales bucket.

You can read more about their allegations in our earlier story – GrabFood : How Burgertory Exposed Potential Discrimination!

 

GrabFood Clarifies Restaurant Availability Controversy!

Sean Goh, the Managing Director of Grab Malaysia, issued this press release to address those allegations.

First and foremost, we would like to address the misconception: we do not turn off any of our stores / restaurants based on commissions.

Secondly, during rainy days, or when there is a lack of delivery riders in a specific area, we automatically reduce the service distance to ensure that we can maintain our service levels. Once the availability of delivery riders has recovered, our service distance would resume to normal levels. Occasionally, this may result in stores being unavailable in a nearby location, but available in a further location. For example, Customer A may reside in Bangsar but only see restaurants available in PJ, because we have insufficient delivery partners within the Bangsar area at that specific time.

Thirdly, during festive seasons where some of our restaurant partners may be closed, we practice a precautionary ‘temporary pause’ based on feedback from delivery riders who cite that a restaurant is closed despite being available in our app. This is done to ensure we do not disappoint customers who may continue to order from restaurants who have not updated their operating hours especially during the festive season. Such was the case experienced by this specific restaurant partner.

Prior to Raya holiday period, we sent out multiple communications (emails and SMS) to remind our restaurant partners to update operating hours and how to easily reactivate their restaurants in case of a ‘temporary pause’. In this case, we apologise that we were not attentive enough to ensure our partner received and acknowledged our communications.

We also note that information that was provided by our support staff was inaccurate, and apologise for the heartache and impact to our restaurant partner.

In view of the pandemic, we empathise with our merchant partners whose income has been affected due to the lockdown and restricted operating hours, and have had to rely only on delivery services to generate income. We are continuously looking at different initiatives to help drive demand for them, such as our Local Heroes and Grab Small-Biz Relief fund which this specific partner was also a part of, but will strive to balance this with the need to ensure we continue to uphold our highest service level.

We welcome any partner who has any queries on this to reach out to us directly so we can address your concerns.

 

Our Questions To GrabFood On This Controversy

We took the opportunity to ask GrabFood to clarify some points not covered in their press release. We will update this article with their answers when we get them.

  1. If bad weather or a lack of riders is an issue for a particular area, why was XXX restaurant marked as Unavailable, while other restaurants in the same vicinity are still Available?
  2. Is there a verification protocol for your rider reports? Does GrabFood call the merchant to verify that they are closed, after a rider reports it?
  3. The press release mentioned that GrabFood requested that restaurant partners update their operating hours. Did Burgertory or the other affected partners change their operating hours? If not, wouldn’t the operating hours remain the same?
  4. What is this Temporary Pause you refer to? Why is there a need for it, and what exactly was the procedure to reactivate their restaurant?
  5. The Raya holidays ended on 26 May 2020, but why are they still experiencing these issues?
  6. Is there any reason why GrabFood support staff would claim that availability of a restaurant is based on the commission level, if that was never the case?
  7. If the percentage of commission does not determine availability of the restaurant, does it affect prioritisation or visibility on GrabFood?
  8. Can GrabFood explain to our readers the difference in commission paid by the various restaurants, and what advantage they would have for paying GrabFood more commission, as opposed to less?
  9. Does sales bucket affect store availability? Does it also affect prioritisation or visibility on GrabFood?
  10. There are concerns that the commission levels are too high – some 25% to 35%? Can you tell us the exact commissions, and breakdown of what goes to the riders, and what goes to GrabFood?

 

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GrabFood : How Burgertory Exposed Potential Discrimination!

Burgertory recently complained about how GrabFood was discriminating against them, in favour of larger businesses, or those who can pay them higher commissions.

Find out what happened to Burgertory, and why GrabFood could be manipulating what you can or cannot order, to make more money!

 

Burgertory vs GrabFood : A Quick Primer

Burgertory – a small gourmet burger restaurant – had been using GrabFood for food deliveries for more than a year.

However, they recently noticed that GrabFood kept listing their business as unavailable, even though they were open for business.

Oddly, other restaurants in the vicinity were listed as available, just not Burgertory. When they complained to GrabFood, they were told that restaurant availability was turned on or off based on :

  • differences in commission rate – commission per order (25% to 35%)
  • differences in sales bucket – the value of each order

In other words, what you see on GrabFood is not what’s really available, but rather – which restaurant is more willing to pay them more commission, or can generate them more money.

If you want to know more about what Burgertory posted, please scroll to the bottom of this article.

Recommended : GrabFood Clarifies Restaurant Availability Controversy!

 

Burgertory vs GrabFood : Some Updates!

First of all, Grab issued an official press release, stressing they do not turn restaurants off based on commission rate, but there was no mention of the sales bucket.

In a Facebook comment, they said that Burgertory was switched off the first time, because a GrabFood rider arrived and found them closed.

However, Burgertory pointed out that they kept Grab updated on their operating hours, and the rider arrived late – after they closed at 8 PM, and they were not alerted to the rider’s report, or that they were being switched off.

Burgertory also posted a separate update, sharing that Grab told them other merchants “has paid campaigns with them, and the difference in the discoverability radius is to help with the campaign ROI“.

 

GrabFood Discrimination : Bad For Almost Everyone

If what they were told is true, then GrabFood is intentionally turning off visibility to potential customers, in favour of higher profits from their merchants.

They are no longer acting as a neutral platform, but becoming a gatekeeper of sorts, giving those who can pay more, greater access to customers.

This is naturally bad for merchants, who already have to pay rather exorbitant commission – 25% to 35%. With such a discriminatory system, they will be forced to pay more just to stay visible on their platform.

This is also bad for customers, because our choices will be limited to what GrabFood decides makes them more money, not what’s actually available.

They would be essentially deciding who you should order your food from. And limiting you, not to those with better food ratings, but those who can pay them more.

Eventually, food prices will go way up, because merchants have to increase their GrabFood commissions to “stay visible”, and the additional cost will be added to your meals.

It’s not bad for everyone though. As long as customers remain ignorant, restaurants will be “encouraged” to pay GrabFood more money. It will work out great for GrabFood.

 

Burgertory vs GrabFood : What Happened?

Here are the details of the Burgertory vs GrabFood scandal. It started with a Facebook post by Burgertory on 4 June 2020 :

We are really disappointed and upset with the partnership with GrabFood.

We have been on-boarded to GrabFood for more than a year now, and we have been a cooperating partner.
Not until recently that we found out GrabFood has been very non-transparent in their assignation for restaurants availability in terms of radius.

We have been receiving a lot of complaints from our customers about GrabFood not showing the availability to deliver within reasonable distance, and we thought this is due to GrabFood system that is set to be within a specific distance in each area.

However what triggered the following case was on 26 May 2020, when we were alerted by our staff that GrabFood was unavailable for that day (imagine the sales that we lost, especially during this COVID period whereby businesses are struggling). Our sales from GrabFood on that day is ZERO. Upon checking, we realized other restaurants in same area is available but not us.

Hence we reached out to GrabFood merchant support via live chat and given the response that they off our restaurant availability from the back-end due to differences in commission rate by different restaurants, which means the restaurants which signed higher commission rate with them will get the priority and ‘be available in more places’. And they switched on our availability back after our call.

We were very upset and escalated to the manager. He then gave us another explanation that GrabFood will allow restaurants with larger ‘sales bucket’ to appear in more places. If that’s the case, it’s discrimination against small businesses, or any businesses that have menu selling items with lower price.

We gave feedback to them that this is not acceptable. And the manager promised to get back to us again after discussing with the team. It’s been a week and we hear nothing from them.

Yet it happened again today..! We realized they ‘turned off’ our restaurant again after checking from the app. Hence we wrote a complaint again, and same cycle happened… (same canned response, and they switched back on)

We are deeply disappointed with such partnership relationship. Does this mean that we have to always check if our restaurant has been hidden from the platform? These occurrences have broken the trust, we don’t know when their system will discriminate against us again and only switch back on after we found out and reach out to them each time. This is totally unfair to small and medium businesses.

After the public uproar, GrabFood quickly reached out to them the very next day to “discuss the issue”.

They clarified that Burgertory did not get “switched off” because of their lower commission, but did not explain why some restaurants get “switched off”, while others don’t.

We are truly humbled by the support from many of you and empathy shown by some of the business owners as well. Just want to give a quick update for those who has asked us about any update from GrabFood after the post yesterday:

They have reached out to us this afternoon to further discuss the issue, and clarified that the switch-off wasn’t due to commission factor, though we still don’t know the reason behind why certain restaurants in the same area are switched off unknowingly. We will continue to discuss and provide feedback to their team and hope that this will not happen again.

The reason why we decided to share the experience is to clarify what it might have impacted many of us as small & medium businesses. This is a year like no other and we empathise with all local businesses that are struggling to survive. We’re touched by some the responses we received yesterday, this is the time we strongly feel what brings Malaysians together. 🇲🇾

Apart from this, all of us from Burgertory team is really thankful for all the support to our business shown by our community, especially everyone of you, in what are the toughest of times. We always strive to sustain and provide a better F&B experience to all our customers. Hope all of us can stand strong together in unity through this tough times. Stay safe! 💪

Grab has since issued an official press release, which you can read @ GrabFood Clarifies Restaurant Availability Controversy! We also asked them some additional questions on this controversy.

 

Burgertory vs GrabFood : What Are Other Merchants Saying?

Here is a selection of what other merchants posted on their own experiences :

Renee Tan : Happens to my restaurants all the time especially “crunch time”. Suddenly customers calls & dm come flooding our inbox’s asking why does our restaurant appear “offline”?!

Juan Lyn : I’m currently handling a chain of restaurant online delivery support and we are also facing the very same issue with you. The same reasons given above “sales bucket” size. And our ticket size on average is already around RM50.

Voxism Lim : Happens to our outlet as well.. Exactly what happen.. The store beside is always open, where as mine is turned off (unavailable)

Alief Nurudin : My shop Meteora Cafe paid 28% commission to Grab. We NEVER appeared on the app unless you searched for us manually. We have experienced the SAME thing. Suddenly, NOT AVAILABLE.

 

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Exclusive Tour Of New Grab Regional Centre of Excellence!

Grab just launched their new Regional Centre off Excellence in Malaysia! With it came the rare opportunity to check out the new office space, so join us for our exclusive tour of the new Grab Regional Centre of Excellence!

 

The New Grab Regional Centre of Excellence

Officiated by YB Datuk Ignatius Darell Leiking, the Minister of International Trade and Industry, the 54,000 square feet Grab Regional Centre of Excellence will house their core business strategy and operational functions, including legal, customer experience, financial services as well as creative services.

This Grab Regional Centre of Excellence follows the launch of Grab’s 7th R&D Centre, which would jointly create at least 400 new high-value jobs. This would bring their total employee count to 1,000.

The Grab Regional Centre of Excellence Team

The legal team will provide advice on regulatory, policy and legal issues that impact the entire region; while the customer experience team will provide quality customer support for several countries.

The creative and design team will develop  creative assets for regional marketing campaigns and projects; and the financial services team will implement financial, procurement and risk management policies across all countries where Grab operate in the region.

The Grab R&D Team

The tech and engineering team in Malaysia’s R&D Centre will focus on building trust and safety solutions and capabilities that not only solve safety issues for citizens in Malaysia, but also across the whole of Southeast Asia.

 

Exclusive Tour Of The Grab Regional Centre of Excellence

The Grab Regional Centre of Excellence spans two floors, with a combined floor space of 54,000 square feet. Let’s check out what it looks like on the main floor.

 

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The Future Of Grab – An Everyday App For Consumers

Grab today unveiled The Future of Grab – their vision of a future of seamless mobility, on-demand food delivery, logistics, cashless payments and financial services – all within their mobile app. Here are the full details!

 

The Future Of Grab – An Everyday App For Consumers

After hitting their 1 billion ride milestone across Southeast Asia, they surveyed 500 of their customers. A majority responded that they wanted an everyday app that would complement their daily lives. Six months later, Grab is ready to share their vision of the future in this video :

Here is a summary of the services that will be forthcoming :

Transportation

Grab will focus on serving the first- and last-mile needs of a multi-modal transportation system in the future. Consumers will be able to mix and match different transportation option, based on their travel preferences and budget.

With better integration of public and private transportation options in one platform, consumers can ride and pay for multiple modes of transportation through the Grab app. For example, they will be able to take an on-demand shuttle bus to the MRT, and finally take a JustGrab taxi to their final destination – arranged and paid through the app.

Payments

GrabPay will see expanded use as a mobile wallet, with consumers enjoying the benefits of going cashless, while accumulating benefits through GrabRewards. GrabPay and GrabRewards will also become revenue drivers for micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses.

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Financial Services

Their fintech offerings will create new economic opportunities for unbanked and underbanked consumers, drivers and small businesses across Southeast Asia. Grab plans to add another 100 million micro-entrepreneurs by 2020.

Lifestyle

The future will see most of a consumer’s daily needs for on-demand transportation, food and delivery fulfilled by a single app.

 

The Future Of Grab Starts Soon

Consumers in Malaysia will soon be able to start seeing the Future of Grab materialise with GrabFood and GrabPay.

GrabFood is currently being beta-tested, and will be formally launched at the end of May 2018. It will allow consumers to order and pay for their food to be delivered to their doorsteps, while enjoying GrabRewards points for every order.

Grab will also expand the use of GrabPay beyond transportation and food, turning it into a mobile wallet for use with traditional, cash-based merchants in coming months.

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