Consumer Preferences for Meal Delivery: The Offsetting and Complementary Effects of Virtual Restaurants

ABSTRACT As meal delivery services continue to surge globally, the emergence of virtual restaurants presents unique opportunities and challenges. This study explores consumer preferences and willingness to pay for delivered meals from virtual restaurants and examines their interactions with branded restaurants, live kitchens, and consumer ratings through a discrete choice experiment. We find that consumers exhibit a stronger aversion to delivered meals from virtual restaurants. Furthermore, virtual restaurants and well‐known branded restaurants or live kitchens exhibit offsetting effects, leading to a lower combined consumer willingness to pay when these attributes coexist compared to each of them appearing separately. Conversely, virtual restaurants demonstrate complementary effects with positive or neutral consumer ratings. Simulation results indicate that combinations of single or multiple attributes contribute to alleviating potential consumer welfare losses associated with delivered meals from virtual restaurants, and mitigating their adverse impacts on market shares. Management strategies aimed at promoting restaurant diversity could focus on understanding these offsetting and complementary effects.