The Two Cloud Kitchens !

I use food related apps a lot — some days all my meals are ordered online — and I have had good and bad experiences with them. Box8 and Freshmenu are 2 of my favorite cloud/ghost kitchens that have quite different themes and value propositions, and yet frequently seem to compete directly with each other for my plate space on the table.

Both these companies have different business strategies and that naturally reflects in their apps as well. In this article, my focus has been apps that I use more frequently than I care to share but I will cover my analysis of their business models in a later article.

Here’s my take on features in the Freshmenu and Box8 Apps as a consumer with a summary followed by a detailed analysis on certain parameters:

Ease of item selection: My vote on this goes to Freshmenu.

Box8’s landing page starts with categories such as meals-for-2, boxes, salads, sandwiches etc., so it makes the user first decide on the general form of cuisine they want to consume before they can see the items. This could be because (to a large extent) variety in Box8’s menu comes from the way same set of base dishes (curries/cooked meat/staple) are packaged together into a meal. It enforces a structured selection process and adds a step in the flow. What I don’t like in Box8 is that they restrict view within a category, e.g. if I didn’t like any sandwich and wanted to check wraps, I need to find that category and switch.

Freshmenu with its limited and changing daily menu takes you directly to the dishes. So user dives right into the final decision she wants to make. I prefer Freshmenu’s approach here though they need to watch out as their product listing becomes longer. Freshmenu struggled with the issue of traversing between sub-menus for quite some time but after a series of trials and errors, seem to have gotten it just right. They don’t restrict the user but provide visual indicators to let the user know they have crossed over to another sub-menu.

Providing item details: Freshmenu wins hands down on this parameter with their clever use of space and a separate product info page.

Box8 provides decent food photography along with peppy one or two liner item descriptions and does a pretty good job at packing in the key benefit (flavor/fitness/quantity) in that much space but they don’t provide a detailed description. One could argue that all Indians are familiar with what tikka, makhini etc. preparations mean and it’s pointless to explain that further but with this Box8 loses the opportunity to describe how and why their preparations are unique.

Freshmenu does a tremendous job at re-enforcing the ‘gourmet’ promise here. In fact, the app is a classic example of food porno of both kinds: visual and written. Their food photographers must be spending a lot of time with trying different presentations and looks. Most of the visual real-estate on the app is taken by food photography which screams ‘gourmet’, ‘fresh’, ‘healthy’ and ‘high-end’. They let the user savor the food with their eyes and imagination triggered by beautiful pictures and detailed description, well before it arrives on their doorsteps. On the downside, the gap between expectation and reality of presentation can sometimes be a bummer but more often than not, the taste makes up for it.

Duplication of items in the menu: This is really a sub-point for aforementioned two points but I just want to call out the distinct design choices made by the product designers here. Design of Box8’s menu would suggest they want to divert attention from redundancy in items/flavors/curries to enhance variety.

Freshmenu does not mind repeating the same items across menus e.g. paneer tikka roll on snacks and burger-and-wraps menu as they do not have that long a menu overall.

Time/Clicks to order: Freshmenu again!

In Freshmenu, you add item > go to cart > checkout > pay i.e. 4 clicks and you are done. The only additional click you might have to do is if you wanted to change the address or schedule delivery for later but those are optional clicks.

In Box8, it is add item > customize (for items that can be customized) > go to cart > deliver now or schedule > confirm address > pay i.e. 5–6 clicks. Once items are added, checkout is prompted in Box8 by a ‘cart ’icon which took me a second or two to figure out the first time because it is not so prominent. In general, I think they could use slightly bigger button sizes on Box8.

An interesting difference between the two is that Box8 seems to assume by default that you will be ordering from different locations every time, while they could user’s location to predict when there’s a saved address and save a click.

As far as overall app UX goes, Freshmenu clearly has better designers and UI developers (Funding helps!).

Order Tracking in the app: Both apps allow tracking the overall status of the order to show if it is pending confirmation, being prepared, shipped or delivered. Once order is dispatched, user can call the assigned delivery agent as well.

While both apps can provide remaining time to delivery forecasts, Freshmenu also provides real-time position of the delivery agent using google maps. However, after a couple of issues, I have figured that until the order is dispatched, Freshmenu does not really start recalculating time to delivery. E.g. if the expected time to delivery was 45 mins at the time of placing the order and for some reason it is delayed in the kitchen, the app would not show you that. It will reset the timer once the delivery is dispatched, so if they utilize the whole 45 mins in the kitchen, the delivery team will simply reset the counter to expected delivery time from the time they are handed the order. So, the timer is not really reliable and can take you by a surprise.

Order Cancellation: Freshmenu lets user cancel an order only before it is out for delivery and they do not make it easy…the only way is to call or email them. My problem with this is that on two separate occasions, the moment I chose the help option to call to cancel an order that was taking too long in the kitchen, that very moment, the status was changed to out for delivery, making me very suspicious (maybe the app is possessed).

Box8 let’s you cancel an order only within 2 minutes of placing it but they do let you do so in the app itself. So, I will give my vote on this one to Box8.

Speed of customer service: Not an app feature but a key product feature if you ask me. Here’s why. Remember the cancellation examples from the earlier two points? Well, neither app has a ‘chat’ option and the only way to reach customer service is through phone or email. I have personally found customer service of both companies lousy in responding and resolving issues. E.g. if I need to call customer care for canceling an order stuck for a long time in the kitchen but I am ‘on hold’ for several minutes before an agent can attend to me, how is this a thought through flow? It means that after wasting my time twice (delay in preparation/delivery and waiting on the phone) you are going to leave me even more annoyed. It is easier to forgive an honest mistake than if I (user)feel suspicious or disrespected.

Box8, so far seems to have a better customer care strategy. They try to reduce the dependency on calls/emails for urgent matters such as cancellations and payments, hence, avoiding over-promise.

All in all, Box8 seems to be doing better on customer service but the jury is still out.

Menu navigation: I like Box8’s menu. It is simple and to the point.

Freshmenu is still figuring this out. Personally, I think they could do with a more compact menu with some better looking icons and a different font. User’s name is sufficient, no need for a picture there. ‘Refer & Earn’ and ‘Offers & Gifts’ sections could perhaps be combined in some way. In fact there is a Rewards tab under Refer & Earn which essentially shows cashback offers. Perhaps this differentiation is because of different departments handling these but it can be confusing for a user. Another one is ‘FreshMoney’ and ‘Payment’ where the choice of icons seems to be strange (wallet icon for Payment options and rupee icon for their FreshMoney wallet). It is just small things but they can clearly do a better job at their menu.

Freshmenu’s exclusive club membership: The Freshclub membership although aligns with the overall ‘aspirational’ theme, the value proposition is not clear. First, getting 10% discount on an exclusive menu is redundant because the discount does not hold for other/usual menu items. Second, the items in the exclusive menu seem to be some of the previously hot sellers that Freshmenu wants to lock down, so as a user, it can be frustrating because now I feel forced to join a membership. Getting out of this membership is again a tedious process of emails. So, ‘food lover’ target audience in mind, although at ~33 bucks per month, it is easy to increase signups, it is also prone to dissatisfaction, and hence, overall reduction in LTV if not churn.

Box8’s 8PASS: On the point and easy to understand value proposition for a deal seeker. First, flat 25% off on 20 orders (in 6 months) for 299 bucks means that I can recover it in 5 orders (assuming average spend of rupees 250 / order). Plus they clearly specify priority delivery and no min. order. Clear and distinct benefits.

So, is one app better than the other? When it comes to app design, I like Freshmenu better. They experiment with their menu designs/usability more often and it seems the app is very central to their strategy. Some features that are missing in both apps are a ‘chat’ option, splitting bills for an order, pay later option in Freshmenu, disabling delivery completed option for the delivery person before actual delivery, better delivery time forecasting, not having to repeat directions to each new delivery person etc.

Your thoughts?

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