• Some restaurant owners have expressed concerns about the high commission fees charged by food delivery platforms such as Uber Eats and Deliveroo.
• However, there are other platforms available in Australia which charge a lower fee, like Bopple and Mr Yum.
• Bopple, for example, lets restaurants run their own deliveries.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

As restaurants and cafes have had to shift to delivery and takeaway amid the coronavirus pandemic, many of them have raised concerns about the high commission fees charged by the likes of Uber Eats and Deliveroo.

But there are other food delivery apps helping businesses pivot to delivery at a lower cost, such as Mr Yum and Bopple.

Brisbane-based Bopple has seen a jump in the number of people ordering on its platform over the past month. When comparing Friday March 27 and Friday April 3, order revenue rose 39%, with orders increasing 26%.

The platform was cofounded by Angus McLachlan and lets restaurants run their own deliveries. It charges between 3.9% and 5.9% commission per transaction depending on which plan the venue is on.

Restaurants can control their own delivery radius, the delivery fee they charge customers and can get their payments daily on Bopple. Additionally, Bopple waives subscription fees for the first few months. “We’ve waived our subscription fees for 1-3 months to try to help as many businesses as possible,” McLachlan said in a statement to Business Insider Australia.

“These are challenging times for our industry, and we want to do whatever we can to help businesses stay open, keep staff employed and help them transition to this new reality.”

Some of the restaurants on Bopple include Continental Deli, Bella Brutta, Rising Sun Workshop, Pawpaw Cafe, Comuna Cantina and Happy Boy.

On Friday March 27, Bopple saw a record high of $136,000 in revenue across 3,486 orders sent to local businesses – a 109% jump in daily sales compared to March 6. And Pawpaw Cafe customers quadrupled the number of orders placed through the app from February to March.

More than 500 venues in Australia, New Zealand and South East Asia are on Mr Yum. The company charges a 4.5% commission, with venues available in Victoria’s Collingwood, Fitzroy, Prahran, Windsor and South Yarra suburbs. According to its website, it’s “coming soon” to Darlinghurst and Surry Hills in New South Wales.

Kim Teo, CEO and co-founder of Mr Yum, told Business Insider Australia via email that before the coronavirus pandemic, the app was predominantly an in-venue table ordering platform. And before restaurants were forced to close, the app helped businesses address hygiene concerns.

“In the 5 days before venues were told to close, 30% of our customers had ditched their communal menus for hygiene reasons and transitioned fully to Mr Yum’s visual menu that customers scan a QR code to browse on their own phones, including photos of every dish,” she said.

Teo said the takeaway component of the platform saw a huge spike as many food businesses didn’t have online options before to the pandemic. She said applications on the platform have grown eight times in the last month compared to the month before.

Teo called out delivery platforms with high commission fees, saying they spend the funds on marketing and logistics. She added that “savvy hospo operators” are pivoting to online platforms like Mr Yum where they can market themselves with lower fees.

“Venues drive sales through their own marketing channels, and their teams are doing deliveries,” she said. “This continued connection with customers is important. Just like Shopify helps independent retailers start eCommerce businesses, Mr Yum is empowering the hospitality industry to build a digital connection with their customers and sell online.”

Kristian Klein, owner of restaurant Mr. Miyagi – which uses the Mr Yum platform – said in a statement the 30-35% fee makes the restaurant question whether it’s able to employ many of its staff or not.

“By pushing the orders and marketing to ordering direct through Mr Yum, who charge just 4.5%, we’ve seen enough increase in margin which is giving us hope that if the coronavirus restrictions are more of a long-term thing, we can survive,” he said in a statement.

“Mr Yum links straight up with the kitchen, there’s no room for error because no one is the middle man, nobody [is] inputting orders.”

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