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Amazon Restaurants

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Re: Amazon Restaurants

#161

Post by petra »

guelo wrote: post #50

This is obviously part of Amazon's effort to build out their own delivery network in order to muscle out fedex, ups, usps, etc. If their drivers aren't delivering packages they can be delivering food. That makes their whole delivery network stronger because it allows them to have more drivers employed driving around town all the time. It's the same reason Uber got into food delivery.

This is very different service from what fedex etc offers, because of the rapid delivery times. So maybe not direct competition on the 1-day / 2-day services.

But 1-hour for rush orders at low cost, or free if you order a meal, could be a good competitive advantage.

Especially if they could find a way for customers to order a lot of meals, like 3-4 times per week, or have a frequent order in some office in the same building you work.

Re: Amazon Restaurants

#162

Post by BinaryIdiot »

Pyxl101 wrote: post #123
pjlegato wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very disturbing how often we're seeing stories of someone's whole life being ruined due to some trivial error followed by poor / nonexistent customer service at Amazon or Google, and only getting their life back after they 1) plead for assistance from the general public on social media and then 2) happen to luck into getting upvoted rather than buried.

I agree many companies could do a better job of being accessible. Providing good customer service is challenging, especially at large scale. I am reminded of when Postmates first launched, and they provided a customer service phone number for assistance with orders. Eventually that number was replaced with a message saying "phone support is temporarily unavailable while we migrate to a new system" and asked you to se…

> We often don't hear the other side of a story, because many companies have privacy policies or laws that limit their ability to talk about their customers or employees. For example, it's extraordinarily rare to get the kind of insight into a situation that we got when Yishan Wong posted on Reddit to correct the lies of an employee who falsely claimed to have been fired with no reason and without cause: https://np.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2iea97/i_am_a_former_r....

That's an awful example. The employee completely stopped responding after that so we don't know how much of the truth it was (like you said there are two sides and there were tons of rumors he was advised by his lawyer to stop talking; who knows what happened after that).

What's worse is this type of behavior by the CEO was downright despicable. Why? Two scenarios.

1. The employee was correct and it showed other employees that the CEO is willing to lie and berate them in the open public should they have a dissenting, public opinion about the company. Feedback, even if encourages, would completely stop after this event.

2. The employee was a liar and really was terrible. The CEO now has created a permanent remark that cannot be taken back regarding this person's work ethic. Now the employee can't redeem themselves. They can't learn from past mistakes. Every employer in the future of his employment can google search him and have this come up. Unfortunately this is likely to come up more and more as kids grow up with Facebook, post photos of themselves being drunk or otherwise and then seeking employment as they grow up.

Both sides were awful in this example.

Re: Amazon Restaurants

#163

Post by BinaryIdiot »

dsugarman wrote: post #90
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That story is just...insane. I'm glad I have a separate account for my maybe-one-day-business and one for personal use but still they need to let them talk to a real PERSON before locking out an account like so. I can only imagine what would have happened if he didn't post to a website where it gained traction. If it wasn't upvoted out of reddit's new, would he just be completely screwed? Damn...

If you have ever logged into both accounts with the same IP, they can tie the accounts together. That is not a hypothetical if, they will ban an account if someone logs into Seller Central from an IP of a previously banned account.

Source? While they could certainly do this IP addresses are shared quite frequently due to NAT. It seems inevitable that a banned IP address will login to another account at some point.

I can't imagine they ban IP addresses lightly.

Re: Amazon Restaurants

#164

Post by linkregister »

sytelus wrote: post #115

Assume that on average, * delivery time = 30 minutes * minimum wage + minor benefits = $10/hr * cost of vehicle, gas and other logistics = $5/hr ...then they must charge $10 per delivery. If you squeeze and wiggle may be you can bring this down to $7 or so likely not considering downtimes in between peak hours. I thought this was the reason why most door-to-door delivery services eventually failed or switched to cate…

They probably charge the restaurant a fee, as Seamless does.

Re: Amazon Restaurants

#165

Post by notpeter »

cyberneticsclub wrote: post #151
hkmurakami wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the predicament that young'ish hardware component supplier companies get into. They win a huge contract with a prominent customer, but then that one customer represents 60%+ of their revenues (ex: winning a Cisco, Nintendo, or Apple contract). I've worked at a few such companies, and they all work extra hard trying to diversify their revenue sources, for both customers and industry. If it's a start…

I've seen quite a few restaurants list themselves across multiple platforms lately; Uber Eats, Eat24, GrubHub, etc. I've often wondered how well a restaurant would do in areas where those platforms are popular if it just dropped its customer-facing storefront entirely and went entirely online delivery. The drop in operating costs versus the lack of walk-ins ...

I've started seeing this in the bay area. There are definitely places in SF which are lunch-catering only (via ZeroCater/Zesty) with no retail presence. Also there's a pizza delivery company in the East Bay (pizzamatador.com) which has no phone number, no store front (shopify website only) and will deliver you a par-baked pizza in I expect you'll see more non-traditional kitchen locations and alternative delivery transport methods (e.g. scooters or Postmates bike couriers) to combat the high rents, congestion and parking issues common to most dense cities.

Re: Amazon Restaurants

#166

Post by Balgair »

mahyarm wrote: post #160
Balgair wrote: post #132

So, Amazon is having some issues with retailers trying to sell you some gadget that really isn't what you thought you were going to get. Like a USB stick that says it's 256GB, but is actual 2 Mb. The 'reviews' of these shadier products are shilled out or just 'bots and amazon is trying to get these types of things off their market. So, what happens when this happens to these restaurants? Like, say I 'open' up a resta…

They streetview your business and check if you have a previous presence elsewhere? During your first transaction from a schlub the delivery driver will drive to your fake address, see that there is nothing there and you wont even get money since there would be nothing to pick up.

Well, it wasn't a problem for the GrubHub drivers, so one can assume that at least some of the Amazon ones won't have an issue either.

Re: Amazon Restaurants

#167

Post by CodeWriter23 »

Jach wrote: post #129
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're overlooking a key feature of Amazon's offering: FREE.

UberEats is free too, at least if you order a minimum. (Used to be $20 where I am, now it's $30.) Even when you pay a fee, it's only $4, which beats out BiteSquad's typical $10+ fee. In a contest for who can live the longest on tiny margins, I'm betting on Amazon -- hopefully they start signing up restaurants just a little bit east from Seattle so I can use them... When UberEats hiked their minimum I was a bit miffed…

Amazon is well versed in surviving on negative margins.

Re: Amazon Restaurants

#168

Post by rexf »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #32
gthtjtkt wrote: post #19

This is kind of terrifying after hearing so many life-ruining stories about the rash decisions Amazon makes when dealing with 3rd party sellers ([1] from last week, for example). Everyone always says "Don't stake your livelihood on platforms you don't control" (e.g. Amazon, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), but what happens when one of those platforms suddenly forces its way into your business? How can a restaurant owner tur…

That story is just...insane. I'm glad I have a separate account for my maybe-one-day-business and one for personal use but still they need to let them talk to a real PERSON before locking out an account like so. I can only imagine what would have happened if he didn't post to a website where it gained traction. If it wasn't upvoted out of reddit's new, would he just be completely screwed? Damn...

Even if you have separate accounts, you may have to be careful around backup e-mail addresses

> One user reported that an account that hadn’t been used to purchase a Pixel was suspended, apparently because it was listed as a back-up address for an account that had.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/nov/17/google-su...

Re: Amazon Restaurants

#169

Post by buzzybee »

ne0n wrote: post #26
koolba wrote: post #15

So how much longer till they combine this with drone delivery? The thrill of having a pizza arrive by drone could justify a hefty premium for a kids birthday party.

Realistically, pizzas are a pretty poorly shaped thing for a drone to carry since it would block all of the propellers and it would definitely be way more effort to keep warm. Self driving cars are probably perfect for this, though. In California, self driving cars are classified as neighborhood vehicles which can't go over 25 which is probably fine for restaurant delivery.

"Cooler" scale ground drones seem like the thing being done for pizza now. See starship.xyz and Domino's DRU for examples that are already entering service. Potentially very effective stuff that can beat the flying and car-sized stuff just by being simpler to engineer and faster to market, with minimal regulatory issue.
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