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Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

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Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#21
If 30% of dine-in prices go to rent / seating / storefront marketing, why shouldn’t 30% of the takeout price (which is the same) go to subsidize the delivery infrastructure?

Why are restaurant owners ok with paying so much for rent on a useless (during COVID) storefront in a high traffic area, but when Uber Eats gives them more marketing and orders than the storefront does, Uber Eats is the bad guy.

Be mad at the landlord or COVID, not Uber.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#22

So capping delivery fees on unprofitable delivery platforms now means they lose more money or they cut the pay of the drivers. The only answer is shockingly enough for both the delivery services and the restaurants to charge enough to be profitable and then people will have to choose to get out or pay the market rate. Capitalism is the answer. On the other hand, since I am a bleeding heart capitalist, I have no probl…

[deleted]

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#23
post #9

Food delivery is a complex, three-sided marketplace problem area. Balancing the needs of all stakeholders, especially during a time of consistent innovation is challenging.

Found the UberEats employee. I’ve only ever heard UberEats employees call it a 3P/2P marketplace (I have good friends that work at Uber as well).

I don’t see UberEats mentioned in OPs profile. Best not to accuse people of shilling.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#24
post #9

Food delivery is a complex, three-sided marketplace problem area. Balancing the needs of all stakeholders, especially during a time of consistent innovation is challenging.

Found the UberEats employee. I’ve only ever heard UberEats employees call it a 3P/2P marketplace (I have good friends that work at Uber as well).

I don't work fro UberEats (or any delivery company), but I do work for a company in the local rest space. Uber Eats margins are just as thin as the restaurants. a round trip delivery might take 40 mins. Everyone's margins are super thin.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#25
You're missing one thing - a restaurant is more then the delivery of food to a plate.

Just because they can have food made for food delivery services, doesn't mean it will be the best choice for regular customers.

Where restaurants compete with food delivery is by being in a physical location that people seek to have an experience. Or a quick stop on a car ride. Or a fast snack near work.

For some restaurants food delivery simply won't work.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#26

As part of trying to provide benefits one would normally get in the office, we provide unlimited Doordash for lunch/dinner. I would prefer to order from places directly, but the choice is either free for me but I order through DD, or pay out of my pocket and order directly. This isn't common I don't think, and we won't have DD anymore after we all go back to the office, but it's a data point. The accounting is signif…

DoorDash probably offers the company a discount on everything as well for the volume.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#27

They thrive because people are lazy - both restaurant and their customers. Restaurants can make a concerted effort to ask regular clients to order from their own websites/apps but rarely do even when they can make an extra 10-15% after giving the customers 10% off. Customers are lazy because inspite of all the talk of supporting local, they are too hooked on click-click-click and ordered. The delivery apps have hundr…

I think that's about the size of it. This seems like a "bad deal" to restaurants because they aren't really thinking of the problem correctly. Restaurants view having to sell a meal via GrubHub as selling a discounted meal, because the customer pays menu price but the delivery service charges a fee. So the restaurant makes less cash than they would to serve the same food to a table.

And the reason they think this is that when customers used to order "takeout", they'd still pay full price and the restaurant would keep all of it. So it feels like they've lost something.

But that's all wrong, because takeout used to be "improperly" (per a market analysis) marked up. Serving takeout is cheaper: no need for tables and dishes and servers. Lots of restaurants have known this forever and prioritized their takeout business, and done very well.

But now those savings are all being eaten up by another party that is providing useful improved services to the customer, and restaurants don't like it. Well... I guess I wouldn't either, but what they're complaining about isn't so much unfair competition than it is (heh) the elimination of what for them used to be a free lunch.

The market will re-equilibrate. It always does. But yeah, until it does the distribution of changes will not be fair. It never is.

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#28
Many restaurants are asking for a flat-fee alternative, similar to the Shopify model for e-commerce. Whoever brings this to market will win the restaurant owners. And then does the consumer loyalty lie with the app or the restaurant? I.e., would I rather order from restaurants on my favorite app or from my favorite restaurant, regardless of the app? Probably the latter, but who knows!

Re: Our restaurants are failing. Why should food delivery apps thrive?

#29
The question I keep asking myself is, if Domino’s can be their own delivery system and now most restaurants are 100% delivery why can’t they do the same thing?

I was, a long time ago, a delivery driver for Little Caesar’s and it seemed to work out for everyone without any technology to speak of.

EDIT: I am aware of the three party optimization problem for food delivery services. In housing seems to simplify that problem immensely given there is no /fourth/ party trying to optimize it from the outside and take a cut in the process.

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