A service for discounted cafe food launched in Minsk. What are the discounts?

How it works, what they sell, and if there are real discounts, Onliner.by investigated.

What is this all about?

Loveresta is a new app and website, the project launched a couple of weeks ago. The project is conceived as a marketplace for food that establishments sell at a discount to avoid having to write it off.

How to use it: go to the website or app, select the items you like, and pick them up at the establishment (only self-pickup is available, no delivery). Orders can only be placed on the same day: the address and time by which the order must be picked up are specified by the establishment itself.

Павялічыць

More than 20 establishments have joined the service, including Marks, Paragraph, Varka, Salateira, Let it be, and others. Cafes only post dishes when they have surpluses, so the assortment changes throughout the day.

Establishments offer to buy specific items – for example, pastries, or desserts, or a secret box, the contents of which can only be guessed in advance.

What's the point for establishments?

Andrei Babakaeu, the founder of the Loveresta service, explains the idea this way: he used to own a coffee shop, and it wasn't always possible to sell all products on time. Friends suggested that a food rescue app was popular abroad. That's how the Belarusian analogue of Too Good To Go appeared.

According to him, approximately 100 thousand dollars have been invested in the project. The main costs are the development of the service and solutions for businesses to operate within it.

— What's the interest for establishments if they can just offer a discount without an intermediary?

— For establishments, this is free marketing; we take care of everything. Plus, new customers will come to them – in addition to those who were already their clients. We set the service commission at 15% so that participation in the project is not painful for cafes. For example, from a 7-ruble order, the commission is only 1 ruble.

In the future, the service would like to work with retail chains – many now have large-scale in-house production, and certainly not all products are sold.

— I think it would be interesting for chains, but we are still a small project for them. When we become well-known and more users connect, I am confident that they will show interest.

Currently, about a thousand buyers are registered with the service, and there are already repeat orders, says Andrei. The main audience is students; orders come through word-of-mouth.

— Many Chinese students are joining, which was surprising to us. They contacted us themselves and are registering en masse. They have some analogue of Instagram; one of the students said he learned about us from there.

What about the discounts?

At the time of preparing the material, establishments most often offered discounts from 32% to 47%, depending on the item.

For example, "Medovik" cake decreased in price from 13 to 7 rubles – a discount of 46%. A box of desserts cost 18 instead of 30 rubles (a 40% discount). "Roman pizza" became 32% cheaper, from 31 to 21 rubles.

If it's a secret box, its contents cannot be known in advance, which people with allergies or intolerances to certain products should keep in mind.

Павялічыць

— The service promises discounts up to 70%, but are establishments ready to offer such a significant markdown?

— We don't dictate terms; the decision on the discount size is made by the establishment. But it's logical that this affects buyer behavior; if they see a sufficiently attractive discount, they will buy faster. For establishments, the point is that they can salvage at least something, rather than simply writing off dishes.

A logical question is – what about expiration dates in such a case?

The service assures that expired products will definitely not be offered; this is prohibited by law. Therefore, establishments only offer products within their shelf life that they haven't managed to sell.

— Similar projects have already tried to launch in Belarus, but they didn't take off. Why do you think it should succeed now?

— I haven't encountered a similar service here, although it has been working in Europe for a long time (Too Good To Go). There are delivery services, but they have a different commission.

— How long will it take to break even?

— I think it will take more than a year, at least, just to cover expenses; it's too early to talk about profitability at all. The market potential is there, but it needs time. We talked with various establishments – some are accustomed to giving discounts in the evening hours out of habit, there's some fear of trying a new format because we are unknown in the market.

• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0
• 0