GastroClub is a food and drink club offering discount privileges in more than 1,000 restaurants in Turkey. GastroClub, which offers its members unlimited use throughout the year, operates in 12 provinces and has 60,000 members.

Challenges

Delivery and take-away services are seeing a rising demand worldwide. Most firms offering only in-restaurant loyalty do not want to enter this field due to their existing strategies or cannot enter even if they are willing.

There are many reasons why in-restaurant loyalty firms do not take this step. One of the main reasons is the need for a very large operation, software development, and cost for this transformation. The second reason is the existence of large food ordering portals and the difficulty of competing with them. Doing exactly what food ordering portals do is the same as entering a dead end. Possible customer loss from rapid transformations targeting outside the restaurant is another reason why loyalty firms do not turn to this area.

Goals

When we started this project, our main goal was to develop a unique solution for delivery and take-away that is different from food ordering portals. While doing this, we aimed for a transformation that would both cover some of GastroClub's existing member businesses and ensure new businesses join GastroClub.

When we examined GastroClub member businesses, we focused on cafes, patisseries, and products with a very short shelf life. In many businesses, these products were thrown away due to inability to be sold. Utilizing these wastes was the key feature of the project.

Solution

By developing the integration with GastroClub, we created the Evening Market operating within the GastroClub mobile application.

The Evening Market is a campaign module where selected products of the venues are sold online at very advantageous prices with a certain quantity limitation. With the Evening Market application; businesses found the chance to re-evaluate their surplus products by listing them in a discounted way. These selected and listed products can be purchased online at any time of the day and picked up from the business.

Results

With this new project operating within the GastroClub mobile application, we provided the following:

• Patisseries/cafes utilizing their waste
• Products approaching their expiration date being sold at very affordable prices
• Businesses providing extra income
• This operation having no extra cost to the business
• Increase in customer base following discounts and loyalty to the business
• Increase in awareness and PR of businesses with this sensitivity
• The morale/peace given by preventing waste in businesses