Baemin Invests 30 Billion KRW in Takeout Order Marketing to Boost 'Pickup Service'

Rebranding Takeout Orders as 'Pickup'... 6.8% Brokerage Fee to Be Applied from Next Month
Expanding Pickup Orders Through Service Reinvestment

Baedal Minjok is making a large-scale investment and revamping its application to activate takeout orders, aiming for new growth in the increasingly competitive food delivery market.

Woowa Brothers, the operator of Baemin, announced on the 12th that they will rebrand the existing takeout orders as "Pickup" and activate the service through app renovation to enhance customer experience and an annual marketing promotion investment of approximately 30 billion KRW.

Baemin plans to offer various discount benefits to customers who pick up food directly from nearby restaurants without waiting for delivery riders. From the business owners' perspective, Pickup improves profitability as there are no rider delivery fees, so the more orders, the better the profit margin. Additionally, since customers visit the restaurant themselves, it is easier to secure regular customers by providing a positive purchasing experience.

Since launching the Pickup (takeout) order service in 2020, Baemin has maintained a policy of no brokerage fees for five years. However, despite ongoing operational and development costs similar to delivery brokerage, there was no investment structure to activate the service, resulting in slow growth. Therefore, Baemin will proceed with app renewal and feature enhancement based on a 6.8% brokerage fee for Pickup orders, which will be applied normally from the 14th of next month, and expand related businesses. Additionally, Baemin will invest about 30 billion KRW annually in marketing promotions such as providing customer discounts and supporting business owners to promote sales growth for business owners and service activation through order volume expansion.

To activate Pickup orders, Baemin will first undertake a major app overhaul and feature enhancement along with service rebranding. This aims to make it as convenient for customers to use Pickup as food delivery. First, to make it more intuitive for consumers, the service name "Takeout Order" will be rebranded from the customer's perspective as "Pickup" and applied in the app. The "Pickup" tab will also be prominently placed immediately to the right of the "Food Delivery" tab, which is the first tab displayed, reorganizing the user interface (UI).

Additionally, a "Pickup" button and options will be added to the store detail pages and shopping cart so that customers can select Pickup anytime during app usage. Furthermore, the readability of the map view used for Pickup orders will be improved, and the store search function will be enhanced. When customers click the "Pickup" tab, the size of the map screen will be increased to allow customers to conveniently check the locations of nearby stores at a glance. The related app updates will be rolled out sequentially starting from the 1st of next month. Baemin plans to continuously improve the usability of the map view so that customers can more easily find Pickup service stores by the second half of this year.

Baemin has also decided to invest about 30 billion KRW annually in marketing promotions such as providing customer discounts and supporting business owners to activate the Pickup order service. Through this, a "Discount" icon will be permanently provided in the "Pickup" service tab, gathering stores where orders can be placed at more affordable prices, enabling customers to use Pickup services more cheaply and supporting business owners to expand the proportion of Pickup orders.

A Baemin official said, "As Pickup orders increase, business owners will see higher store profit margins and have more opportunities to meet customers directly and introduce their stores." He added, "Through this change, customer discount benefits will also be strengthened, expanding Pickup orders where consumers visit stores directly, and it is expected to have a positive impact on local communities and neighborhood commercial districts overall."