Baedal Minjok to lower restaurant fees starting next month

Baedal Minjok, Korea's leading food delivery app, will lower restaurant fees to implement a tiered commission system capped at 7.8 percent.

Baedal Minjok, Korea’s leading food delivery app by market share, will lower the fees it charges listed restaurants next month. Pictured is the platform's logo. [BAEDAL MINJOK]

Baedal Minjok, Korea’s leading food delivery app by market share, will lower the fees it charges listed restaurants next month, CEO Kim Bum-seok said Wednesday.

The platform, also known as Baemin, is the second of Korea's major delivery platforms to implement a tiered commission system following Yogiyo. It is the first to implement a plan capped at 7.8 percent that a consultative body of platform representatives and merchants agreed upon last November.

Baemin operator Woowa Brothers, which currently collects a 9.8 percent commission, will begin charging between 2 and 7.8 percent, the CEO told employees during a meeting at the firm's offices, in Songpa District, western Seoul, according to a company release.

The Fair Trade Commission ordered Korea's major delivery platforms, including Baemin, Coupang Eats and Yogiyo, to address the complaints of struggling restaurant owners, who were increasingly demanding lower fees, last summer. A committee of representatives from platforms and vendors was formed last July to address the issue, reportedly running into roadblocks for months before reaching its consensus.

Kim said that details of the tiered system, including rate calculation methodology, will be finalized before the end of January. As per the plan, a restaurant's individual fee would be based on its sales, with higher-earning shops charged more.

The app will also change its user interface (UI) that will encourage customers to order from a larger variety of restaurants and will add benefits to and expand the delivery scope of its subscription service in 2025.

Changes will be made to the app’s current structure that distinguishes direct deliveries from restaurants from food deliveries made by Baemin’s own delivery riders, Kim said, without providing specific details.

“The app’s UI must be improved in a way that will allow customers to choose restaurants and menu items more conveniently and intuitively. Store competitiveness is what makes customers make satisfactory orders in more restaurants and is the most important factor in a customer’s experience, and thus must be strengthened,” he said.

BY KIM JU-YEON [kim.juyeon2@joongang.co.kr]