Google Pay Singapore launched their new “Menu Discovery” feature on April 28, to help local F&B businesses that are struggling due to the dining-in ban.
When the circuit breaker kicked in, many F&B establishments had to stop their dine-in services and relied on ground-up methods to share their menus and publicize their pick-up or delivery options.
Users can now find available food options through this new feature on the Google Pay app.
New feature lets users find food merchants
The new “Menu Discovery” feature on the Google Pay app helps food merchants to be discovered easily on the platform. They can upload their full online menus for free, so that customers easily find them on the platform.
Users just have to go to the “explore” function and tap on the “order food” button which will show them merchants based on their location.
There are currently close to 250 merchants on the platform, said Su Mei Teh, APAC head of payments product operation at Google.
Some of these merchants include Burger King, Canadian Pizza, Cedele, Da Paolo Group, The Daily Cut, Tuk Tuk Cha, Kok Sen, O Banh Mi, Outram Park Ya Hua Rou Gu Cha, Blue Ginger, O.BBa BBQ Jjajang, and NUDE Seafood.
This free feature, which took 2.5 weeks to be built, will be gradually improved over time with feedback from users and merchants.
Google Pay said it’s working with five agent partners—Aigens, FoodZaps, Novitee, TabSquare, and Waitrr—to onboard and fully integrate more food establishments onto the Google Pay platform.
Not all merchants are fully integrated in the app.
For fully integrated merchants, users are able to order and pay within the app for their orders.
A quick search on the app showed that major brands including Burger King, Cedele, Canadian Pizza, and Eighteen Chefs allow users to place and pay for the order within the app. They can then opt to pick-up the orders themselves or have them delivered, depending on the eatery.
For non-fully integrated merchants, users can only browse the menu and select items within the app. They would then need to either call or message the merchant to confirm the order, before proceeding to the stall to collect and pay for their order.
Google is also working with Chope to make this menu discovery option possible for Chope-affiliated food establishments.
Google Pay Took 2.5 Weeks To Build This Feature
The conceptualisation of this idea came about after Su Mei and her team had a hard time trying to order from menus sent over WhatsApp, where they had to toggle between the menu images and WhatsApp chats.
During the circuit breaker period, many F&B merchants are trying to reach customers through word-of-mouth and other informal means to continue driving sales.
Noting this trend, the team made use of their already established food ordering platform on Google Pay to help the merchants with more intelligent discovery, while also giving customers a more convenient tool for their orders.
They enlisted the help of over 100 members of the Google Singapore community to nominate their favorite F&B establishments and include their online menus.
After collating this list, the team went on to code them into the Google Pay app, within just 2.5 weeks.
“We hope to make the process of discovering local eateries simple and easy, and support even the smallest businesses, like hawkers, to minimize disruptions to their business,” said Teo.
“We have rushed to get this out and will continue to improve the experience hoping that the easy access to a variety of food options will help Singaporeans enjoy their meals safely at home while supporting small businesses during these tough times.”
Local F&B businesses that are not on the Google Pay app, but are interested in having their menu included in the app, can fill out and submit the form here.
This article first appeared in the Vulcan Post.