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| Jason Boutte, co-founder of Shuttle Delivery / Courtesy of Shuttle Delivery |
By Jon Dunbar
Where would we be in 2022 without delivery services? It's been a rough couple of years for the world, and app-based startups like Shuttle Delivery have been finding ways to hold society together by keeping us eating, for which they are reaping the rewards.
"We definitely felt a sense of a mission during the start of the pandemic," said Jason Boutte, co-founder and CEO of Shuttle Delivery. "We honestly felt relieved that we were bringing value to people."
While the headlines are dominated by Baedal Minjok, Yogiyo and Coupang Eats, it's Shuttle that stands out for many foreign communities in Korea. It may be smaller, but it's founded by foreign nationals and its coverage focuses on areas with higher foreign populations and international restaurants, such as Seoul's Yongsan, Hongdae, downtown and Gangnam, as well as Pyeongtaek, Daegu and Busan. What's more, it's easy for non-Koreans to sign up.
"We are so thankful to the foreign community. We wouldn't be still doing well without them. They embraced us and stuck with us even when our competitors went after the foreign community, so, we tried to show our appreciation of them by doing our best to truly localize the experience they get," Boutte said. "We have grown by double annually for the last four years thankfully. And a lot of it is due to the support from the foreign community."
Of course, Boutte added, Shuttle is also attractive to Koreans looking for delivery food options. "Most of our Korean customers tend to like us because we are more curated than our competitors. Meaning we only list the restaurants that we consider trustworthy. Our competitors list any/all restaurants, but we try to be specific about the ones we allow on our platform, in order to make sure our customers have the best chance of being satisfied," he explained. "Unfortunately for us, we haven't been exposed to a lot of the Korean population because marketing to Korean customers is very expensive."
Early on in the pandemic, Shuttle started making decisions to enable safe operations and protect their drivers. "We had to consider all the ways to reduce interaction at the door," Boutte said. This included eliminating in-person cash payments and only accepting money online, as well as offering no-contact deliveries for customers who want to grab their food at the door without interacting with the driver.
They also made sure drivers kept their hands sanitized, and helped establish pickup zones in restaurants, enabling drivers to collect orders while minimizing exposure to any customers in dining areas. As well, Shuttle introduced a pick-up option, allowing customers to place orders through the app and then grab the food from the restaurants themselves rather than going through a delivery driver, reducing person-to-person contacts and cutting costs.
Shuttle has also rolled out a next-day grocery delivery service, which Boutte says is available nationwide, rather than just in key markets. "We would love for more people to give it a try, since we are able to handle that nationwide, instead of just delivering for the restaurants available in certain areas," he said.
One of the company's main troubles over the past couple of years has been keeping up with demand, as the increasing use of Shuttle's services outpaced recruitment of drivers.
"It is much too difficult these days to handle the high demand for deliveries without the proper supply of drivers," Boutte said. "But we wanted to be of service to our community."
That dilemma led the company to turn to third-party logistics agencies (3PL), which now provide delivery services for Shuttle.
"We could talk your ear off about our ideas that we had to better improve the driver system in Korea; but it has been extremely difficult to make real changes in the market with the bigger players mostly dictating the terms," Boutte said.
"The hardest part about doing business in Korea is keeping up with the rules and regulations that run contrary to the things that would help our business grow. Like particularly the visa rules about working. We want to hire more foreign employees but the rules prohibit a lot of very qualified people from working with us."
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| The Shuttle Delivery team / Courtesy of Shuttle Delivery |
Shuttle was founded in 2016 in a merger of Y-Not Takeout and Bird Riders Delivery, both Itaewon-based food delivery services launched in 2014.
"We are still a startup in my eyes because we are constantly thinking of ways to add value in order to not just rest on our previous successes," Boutte said. "We need to keep developing more ideas to grow our business and I think it's important to keep that startup mentality to never rest."
Visit shuttledelivery.co.kr for more information.
