Affordability Focus: How Platforms Like Grab and ShopeeFood Impact Small Vendors

Grab and ShopeeFood impact small vendors by providing digital tools and market access, though affordability remains a complex issue with both opportunities and challenges.

Market Access and Revenue Growth

Grab has significantly expanded small vendors' reach through its platform. Between March and June 2020, almost 12,000 merchants were onboarded to Grab in the Philippines alone, with small businesses seeing at least 57% growth in online revenue during that period. In Southeast Asia more broadly, small businesses experienced a 21% increase in online revenue through Grab during March-April 2020. This demonstrates how platform access enables vendors to serve customers beyond their physical location constraints.

Affordable Digital Tools

Grab has developed self-serve marketing tools specifically designed for small merchants with limited budgets. The Marketing Manager tool allows merchant-partners to launch campaigns directly from the GrabMerchant app with just a few taps, without requiring expensive external marketing agencies. These tools include promotions (discounts, bundle offers, free delivery) and ads that help vendors rank higher in search results—critical since 57% of GrabFood users rely on search to decide their next order.

The platform also offers free or subsidised support. Grab's "Homegrown Heroes" initiative provided US$3.5 million in free advertising to approximately 6,000 local businesses across 28 cities in 8 countries, with merchants previously seeing a 300% return on advertising spend.

Operational Support

Beyond marketing, Grab provides business management features including insights tools that show sales data, customer purchasing habits, and marketing campaign effectiveness, helping vendors identify opportunities and address inefficiencies. Additionally, merchant-partners can purchase supplies and ingredients at wholesale rates with next-day delivery.

Affordability Challenges

However, the search results indicate commission rates remain a concern. Recent pressure has intensified for food delivery platforms including GrabFood to lower merchant commission rates, suggesting affordability challenges persist for vendors despite the tools provided.