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DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

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Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#71
post #67
post #57

I really want to like all of these services. I've used Grubhub, Uber Eats and DoorDash. My problem with them is that it costs way more than eating at the restaurant. It's usually 30% - 40% of the cost of the food for delivery, service fees and tip. I've always wondered why it wasn't cheaper to do take out than eat at a restaurant. I'm not taking up a parking space, table, using facilities, or taking up as much of the…

IIRC, it is common in the UK to charge different prices for dine-in vs take-out. Can anyone confirm?

It does happen, but its not very common. (some exceptions for cold food, where the tax is different).

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#72
post #32
post #27

Doordash is a tire fire. 10x worse than Uber Eats for basic service. My experience is less than 50% success at delivering what I ordered. Missing items, wrong items, wrong totals, completely failed deliveries, and non-equitable compensation. Then, shit follow up when they fail. I’ll savor in more than a little Shadenfreud when they fold.

Downvote at will. But be brave enough to offer some counterpoint. They truly suck at delivering on their promise. That includes direct comparison to their competitors.

Lol, cowards. I ordered 15x times in a row. This isn't an isolated incident. They suck, badly. Less than 50/50, on basics in DFW. Put up, or shut up. You're terrible in Dallas/Fort Worth right r

,,,N

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#73
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congrats you aren't losing money on every order! I think this misunderstands how marketplaces are built. Traditional economics would agree with you and say that selling $1 at $0.90 is insanity. Traditional economics have been slow to catch up with marketplace economics although there have been some recent papers that start explaining a better framework. If you know that a marketplace has strong network efforts and…

I'm not sure I even understand what the network effects are here. I guess there are some potential efficiencies with having a single delivery company that handles deliveries rather than individual restaurants but it seems like a stretch. People I know who live in cities tend to just have a stack of take-out pizza/Chinese food/etc. menus for places that deliver (or not). Maybe I'm missing something but it doesn't real…

Using DoorDash or UberEats as your delivery service instead of building your delivery staff in-house is like using AWS or DO instead of building your own in-house ops team. Since most delivery workflows are pretty much identical (go to restaurant, pick up food, deliver food), it seems like any restaurant other than a "typical delivery" place would benefit from using someone else's infrastructure.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#74
post #69
post #64

Since moving just outside of Portland, none of these delivery companies cover my area with the exception of uber eats. It's insane considering how many large corps are all around (intel, nike, etc). Edit: Apparently grubhub decided my address was in their area, nice!

The availability of most of these delivery services seems to be very dependent on density and demographics. You get out of the core metro areas of relatively large cities and the options for these types of services tends to decrease dramatically.

I think in my case its more of my address being brand new. Hell, the zipcode fails validation on a lot of sites even since they just recently split it apart.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#75
post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

Honestly? Sounds awful. Industrialized, lowest common denominator fast food. Plus pretty much any time I've eaten at a big restaurant offering options from a bunch of different cuisines, the experience has been somewhere between mediocre and awful.

ADDED: As others have pointed out, you can put together something that's effectively managed like a high-end food court. But it seems as if the economics are tough.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#76
post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

Isn't this basically what Munchery does (although their meals are delivered cold)?

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#77
post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

I noticed that Whole Foods is essentially starting to move in that direction, with these options:

* Eat in the store (self-serve "hot bar") * Take home already cooked, heat and eat * Take home meal kit, cook at home

https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/department/prepared-foods

Add in Amazon Fresh for home delivery of most of the above, and they seem to have a covered most of the options.

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonFresh/

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#78
post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

>One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius.

They did, it was called SpoonRocket. I loved it, you could get a decent meal delivered in under 5 minutes. But they failed horribly because the economics just don't work out [0].

https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/15/spoonrocket-shuts-down/ [0]

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#79
post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

INAL, but I'm fairly certain there are a lot of food safety regulations that would prevent that or make it a hell of a hassle.

Re: DoorDash raises $535M, now valued at $1.4B

#80
post #70

One of the big players should launch a giant warehouse - serving as a giant kitchen. Capable of cooking all kinds of different varieties of cuisine and tons of automation. And a huge staff of well-trained chefs cooking, and delivering to a ~50 mile radius. I'd imagine they'd open this in - say Fremont - and deliver to the entire bay area. It would be great, because I could order Mexican food for me, Indian food for t…

Based on other companies which tried and failed (e.g. Spoonrocket, Sprig) this seems like a risky model to follow. It's possible that the costs of managing such a kitchen plus delivery service is at this point more expensive than brick and mortar, or the margin earned on these deliveries is much less than sit down customers.

Maybe once kitchen automation technology gets there this can be a workable model.

[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/26/on-demand-food-startup-spr... [2] https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/15/spoonrocket-shuts-down/

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