Recently, I read about a friends message related to McDonald’s delivery service in Hong Kong. This made me wonder why McDonald’s here does not offer a delivery service also like how Pizza places do. Because there are so many McDonald’s restaurants here, it seems like delivery would not be hard compared to having employees in Honk Kong bike to various apartments to deliver food.
Later I realized that the reason why McDonald’s does not offer a delivery service is probably because they have drive thrus here instead. Instead of using up tons of gas to deliver food at each house, people here can easily drive to the closest McDonald’s and go to the drive through if they are too lazy to get out of their car. In Hong Kong, this would never work because restaurants are usually in between many other shops or inside malls so there is no way of creating a drive thru.
McDonald’s delivery and drive thru services should how they deliver their service differently in different market segments. In Canada, because majority of the people drive regularly and there are many McDonald’s nearby, having a drive thru system is more cost effective for the McDonalds yet still convenient for the consumer. In Hong Kong, majority of people are walking or taking public transportation and because restaurants are so small, having a drive thru is extremely difficult. Having a delivery service is more convenient.