From our other sites
The story
Food delivery app Rocket Now has been ramping up its challenge to Uber Eats by scrapping both delivery fees and service charges while matching in-store prices — and it’s become a hot topic on 5ch’s Nandemo Jikkyo G board. The operator is reportedly affiliated with South Korea’s Coupang, and thread posters repeatedly speculated that ‘they’re covering the losses with profits from the Korean parent company, and plan to raise prices once they’ve driven Uber Eats out of the market.’ Some pointed out that Wolt and menu have already pulled out of Japan, while others questioned how sustainable this is given the strain on driver recruitment and the risk of dumping.
What people said
Beauty account Aoi 💎
@aoisan_beauty
They're funding it from their core business in Korea. There's no profit in it — the whole point is to kill Uber. Once they've done that, they'll raise prices.
Once they've finished crushing the competition, they'll hike the prices.
Crush the rivals, shrink the market down to just them, corner it, and then start running the show like feudal lords.
It'd be scary if they didn't, right?
What happens is you get someone moonlighting for both Demae-can and Uber
You ordered from Rocket Now and the guy shows up going 'I'm with Uber!'
They can't line up a driver in time, so the food shows up cold.
Users get a short-term perk, but long-term it's nothing but a loss for them.
It's not like this is public infrastructure, it's just a service business
There's nothing for users to lose if they wipe each other out
Even if this one wins, another competitor will just show up next.
If they raise prices, you just stop ordering. Simple as that.
That's just healthy competition, isn't it?
They're planning to raise prices later — for now the goal is just to kill off Uber.
So now it's a three-way fight between Rocket, Uber, and Demae-can.
Stuff like luxury high-rise towers probably takes longer to deliver to anyway, what with all the building procedures.
Everybody except Uber basically got wiped out just like that.
New ones keep entering, and the weaker players keep getting pushed out.
Chirashi sushi — ¥16
Mala soup — ¥320
Karaage bento — ¥0
Yóulínjī, crispy fried chicken — ¥0
Is this a soup kitchen or something?
Yeah, this is them coming in to crush the competition alright.
There are way too many unresolved issues — accidents, noise, airspace rights — feels like this could only fly in some special deregulated zone.
Where I live, we're lucky if even Tenfor (a local restaurant chain) will deliver.
Honestly, everywhere in central Tokyo is so crowded it's unpleasant
Standing around waiting outside for food must get old fast.
That ad is way too annoying 😯
Background and key points of the debate
Rocket Now’s operator is reportedly South Korea’s Coupang, the e-commerce giant known for rapid growth built on same-day delivery, which has a track record of running deliberately loss-making, low-price strategies in its delivery operations across multiple countries. Japan’s food delivery market already had Uber Eats and Demae-can, and Wolt and menu also entered — but those two later entrants have since withdrawn, underscoring just how much this is a battle of financial staying power. The thread was split on whether to view this price war as ‘healthy competition’ or as ‘dumping in anticipation of price hikes once the market is cornered,’ with some questioning whether it amounts to unfair below-cost pricing under antitrust law. Practical worries also came up repeatedly — that driver recruitment can’t keep pace and that rural areas simply don’t generate enough orders to retain delivery workers — pointing to service-quality issues that price alone doesn’t capture. Note: a few posts tied this price war to a specific nationality or origin, but since those claims were unsubstantiated generalizations, they have been left out of this article.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nandemo Jikkyo G) thread ‘[Bad News] Rocket Now comes to completely crush UberEATS — no fees, no delivery charge, same price as in-store.’
Leave a Reply