Perceptions of Value Co-creation in the Recipe Delivery Service Industry - An Exploratory Case Study

Abstract: This report presents a critical analysis of how recipe delivery service (RDS) companies perceive they are co-creating value with their customers and what the potential benefits to RDS firms may be. An analysis of the industry finds RDS firms lacking many sustainable sources of competitive advantage and proposes value co-creation could be a source of relational advantage. Since these companies are on-line subscription retailers, artificial experience environments need to be developed to facilitate firm-customer interaction. The concept of value co-creation is broken down into its key elements and a number of potentially beneficial co-creative activities are hypothesised. Then semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine RDS and related firms across six countries to observe how they believe they engage with the paradigm. What was found was that a number of these firms thought they lacked the capacity to engage in product customisation; this does not exclude them from co-creating abstract value propositions. Most companies were heavily reliant on social media as their main experience environment which can facilitate some degree of interactivity but is limited in its scope. The perception of the level on customer interaction on social media appears to be higher that what was observed during data validation. There was also evidence of companies starting to construct value constellations to develop an overall consumer experience.