Doha: While non-essential businesses in Qatar have been ordered to temporarily shut down their operations, several ‘essential businesses’ which remain open in the country see a growing demand for their services amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
With residents encouraged to stay at home to prevent the local transmission of the COVID-19 virus, businesses offering food and grocery delivery services as well as home maintenance services have become much more in demand.
While it may be business as usual for food and grocery delivery companies such as Talabat and Rafeeq, as well as home maintenance service providers like Alfaytri Trading and Maintenance, these companies have also put in place a number of precautionary measures to protect their employees and clients from the coronavirus, as they anticipate greater demand for their services.
“After the government started to take action with the coronavirus and closed down schools and other public areas, we noticed a small decrease in the overall number of downloads in the first three days as people were still worried about eating outside and started to shop and stock up at home. But even though the number of orders went down, the volume per order tripled as people started ordering for the whole family. After a week from the ‘stay at home’ order, and the increase in the awareness of restaurants’ sanitation, the orders went above the normal especially with the government stopping dine in’s.
Abdulaziz Alsabbagh, Co-founder and Managing Director, Rafeeq
With the government stopping dine in’s and encouraging them (residents) to stay at home, the number of orders increased over all in both volume and quantity. Not only that but we have been extremely busy with the number of new restaurants wanting to be part of Rafeeq as they have no other choice than delivery and pickup to sustain their business. We have also seen a great demand and increase on the other verticals we have such as market, groceries, and pharmaceuticals. Internally we are constantly increasing our fleet of drivers and in-house staff to cope with the influx of demand on orders and requests to be part of the application,” local Qatari food delivery platform Rafeeq’s Co-founder and Managing Director Abdulaziz Alsabbagh told The Peninsula yesterday.
Talabat’s Managing Director Francisco Miguel de Sousa, added: “Our immediate efforts go into keeping all Delivery Hero employees, restaurant partners, riders and customers safe and healthy. In regard to any effect on our business, we have not seen a significant negative impact and we do not foresee any significant long-term changes to our growth locally and globally. Due to the uncertainty around COVID-19, people might prefer to dine-in and order meals, groceries and other necessities straight to their door. We might experience an increasing demand for our services and are prepared to meet the growing needs of our customers, with safety remaining top priority. We are happy to see that people who prefer to stay at home, and avoid crowded spaces, rely on our offer and trust our products”.
Francisco Miguel de Sousa, Talabat’s Managing Director
Alfaytri, a home maintenance service provider company, which was established and managed by Qatari entrepreneurs, has been on normal operations and anticipates a growing demand from clients.
However, the company’s trading arm, which was expecting the delivery of air conditioning (AC) spare parts from India, has been affected by the South Asian country’s nationwide lockdown.
“As Alfaytri, we provide essential home maintenance services, such as AC fixing, plumbing, electrical fixing, and others. With the current situation, where people are encouraged to stay at home, they are becoming more sensitive about how their ACs and other home utilities are working. We see that the demand for services is increasing, which is the normal behavior of the market.
During the beginning of summer, the demand usually picks up, and we see the same behavior. It is picking up. And we anticipate that the demand will stay the same. Although we are going through a crisis, our services are essential especially for those people who are staying at home,” Alfaytri’s Co-founder Ahmed Al Sumaiti said.
As a small and medium enterprise (SME) and a 100 percent Qatari company, Alfaytri is one of the private sector companies which is expected to benefit from the QR75bn financial support recently announced by the Qatari government.
“We’ve been through crisis before. We’ve seen how the government’s response happened so quickly in the field during the 2017 blockade.
So we anticipate the same approach now. We think this (QR75bn financial aid) is the right response from the government to make sure that we as SMEs will survive the crisis. The next step is to see things happening in the field.
We already started communicating with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI), regarding how we’re going to benefit and use the support, and we are in the process. We’re seeing good signs also when we contacted them for support regarding our spare parts business,” Al Sumaiti added.
