China’s coffee war is about to get heated. On Monday, McDonald’s rolled out their new online delivery service for the company’s coffee shop brand, McCafé. The move means McDonald’s has officially entered a market dominated by Starbucks and local brand, Luckin Coffee.
Customers in Shanghai can now order online through the iMcCafé Delivery mini program on WeChat, according to Technode. Customers can also order directly through Ele.me and Meituan.
The service is still limited and expansion to other cities is still in the works, Jiemian reports.
McDonalds’s new delivery service is a major step in its effort to compete with Luckin Coffee and Starbucks.
Although Starbucks opened in China nearly 20 years ago, the company was slow to adopt the delivery models pioneered by e-commerce giants like Alibaba and JD.Com. The coffee giant only recently began offering delivery services to customers in China. This left the door open for Luckin Coffee, a homegrown company which uses the similar delivery methods as Alibaba to maximize convenience, according to RADII.
READ MORE: You Can Now Get Starbucks Delivered in China
McDonald’s learned from Luckin Coffee’s success. Like the Chinese company, users who order from McCafé will receive a free drink with their first purchase, gaining additional perks when sharing promotions with friends on social media, Technode reports.
But the most important thing is still the amount of time saved for the customer. When a customer walks into a Starbucks, they order, pay and get a beverage. This takes time, because of queues. For McDonalds and Luckin Coffee, the customer picks a drink from the app, pays and either picks up the order or gets it delivered, without the hassle of waiting in line.
With the new delivery service, customers are guaranteed to get their drinks from McCafé in 28 minutes, two minutes faster than Starbucks and Luckin Coffee.
[Cover image via Pexels]
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