Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

themargins.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 534 posts

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#101

Post by judge2020 »

peteretep wrote: post #88
ngngngng wrote: post #64

I don't understand why doordash, uber eats, deliveroo, and similar business are starting to exist. Restaurants have been running successful delivery operations independently for ages. And there are many software offerings to help businesses get set up with delivering food. Why do we need a centralized on? Is it just the benefit of being able to browse in one app/website everything available for be delivered to you?

I've spent many thousands of dollars on app-delivered food over the last few years (Foodpanda, Uber Eats, Grab Food, Lineman, and Deliveroo). I use the apps because: - GPS tracking of the driver, and helpful notifications - Discovery of new restaurants - Detailed menu (and occasionally useful suggestions of menu items) - I don't have to create a new account or fuck around with giving some restaurant my credit card -…

> - I don't have to create a new account or fuck around with giving some restaurant my credit card

In case you need to in the future, i'd recommend privacy.com for merchant-locked cards.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#102

Post by xwdv »

Initially I thought this may have gone the other way, setup a business with no physical location, get on Doordash, and when you get orders you place orders at other restaurants not on the platform, then pick up and deliver their food, while charging some kind of markup on their prices.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#103

Post by TuringNYC »

bvandewalle wrote: post #52

I said this in another post about Grubhub but similarly to this article I really don't get it. Those apps are all 25%+ expensive than ordering take out directly with the restaurant, they screw the restaurants and all those delivery companies lose millions. Did everyone really become THAT lazy that driving 10 minutes to get your meal is that much trouble?

I used to think this, until:

1. We had a child

2. We had multiple children

3. We realized getting children (who may be sleeping) into a car for even a 10minute drive becomes a big production

4. We got rid of our car

Also, other reasons:

A. It is 8:30pm, you're at the office, have another 3hrs of work to do and cant spare even 10min to get away. Very common in my Junior Analyst days. In fact, we had a company sponsored SeamlessWeb account that we could use anytime.

B. You are on a business trip at a random city/hotel w/o a car

C. Your car is in street parking and you dont want to lose the spot (wicked, i know...)

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#104

Post by astura »

bostonsre wrote: post #25
bransonf wrote: post #15

Reading the title, I anticipated this was going to be something along the lines of getting Domino's delivered for less than their delivery fee. (Side note, does anyone actually order franchise pizza on an app? They all already deliver for far less) But this was far more interesting. The fact that Doordash scrapes prices, and apparently doesn't verify... how does this happen? I'm not familiar with the reimbursement mo…

Anyone know if it would be considered fraud and/or illegal to exploit this? I would consider doordash and grubhubs tactics of falsely representing themselves as restaurants to be more unethical. It would be great if someone could scale a solution that would take those arbitrage opportunities and pass them on to the drivers and the restaurants.

Yes, it's fraud.

In general, knowingly obtaining money, goods or services you know you are not entitled to is fraud/illegal.

Here's an example of someone going to jail for knowingly exploiting a glitch: https://www.inquirer.com/philly/hp/news_update/20071026_N_C_...

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#105

Post by wmab »

alteria wrote: post #98
wmab wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grubhub for years were just a marketplace for customers to find food to order online / restaurants to find customers online. They'd charge a commission on order amount for fulfilling the match but the restaurant would have to deliver the food, manage their own delivery drivers etc. This is why they were profitable for years - they were a two-sided marketplace with a high commission percentage and low cost based since…

Got it, this makes a ton of sense, and explains why Grubhub was able to do the impossible, make money.

Yeah, Grubhub were touting themselves to restaurants as more of a marketing channel partner - find customers, advertise etc. Still, I'm not sure why that business service warranted a 20% commission fee in the first place to be profitable from.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#106

Post by jaboutboul »

MattGaiser wrote: post #29
jaboutboul wrote: post #14

Honestly at times it seems like all these Uber for this or that, DoorDash and whatever other logistical services were created with the premise of just keeping people busy and making them feel like they have a job (one that often costs them money to work at). Once upon a time you started something and hoped to figure out how to scale and find product/market fit. These days with the cloud it’s become trivial to scale a…

> Honestly at times it seems like all these Uber for this or that, DoorDash and whatever other logistical services were created with the premise of just keeping people busy and making them feel like they have a job (one that often costs them money to work at). Are you referring to customers or restaurants or drivers?

I’m referring mostly to drivers, but programmers and basically everyone else in the chain as well.

Let’s throw a stupid amount of (not our own) money and manpower at programming a solution to a well defined problem and then grab a bunch of low wage workers and milk them. We will keep everyone, engineers, drivers, restaurants busy all the time to make it seem like we are making progress but in reality we are just burning time, money, oil and the last mile workers to the ground.

With all this money being thrown around you would think they would be able to engineer a solution wherein instead of committing identity theft (which is essentially what the author describes) and exploiting workers, they are actually solving the problem in an honest way which also provides an equitable wage.

Enough with the unethical bullshit. If you have to pose as the business to “help” a business all while exploiting cheap labor you aren’t solving a problem and you don’t have a right to exist, no matter how much money you got from SoftBank.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#107

Post by dylz »

bransonf wrote: post #15

Reading the title, I anticipated this was going to be something along the lines of getting Domino's delivered for less than their delivery fee. (Side note, does anyone actually order franchise pizza on an app? They all already deliver for far less) But this was far more interesting. The fact that Doordash scrapes prices, and apparently doesn't verify... how does this happen? I'm not familiar with the reimbursement mo…

The driver pays with a Doordash prepaid-reloadable card. When the driver GPS-checkins at the restaurant they're picking an item up at, the card is loaded with the exact balance the restaurant is "supposed to charge"

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#108

Post by dannyw »

MattGaiser wrote: post #70
dannyw wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30-40% from restaurant + up to 35% in promotional fees from restaurant + delivery fees + service fees from the customer.

The promotional fees are on top of the 30-40% for the order?

Yep - this is optional though, it's essentially an ad service.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#109

Post by masonic »

dylz wrote: post #107
bransonf wrote: post #15

Reading the title, I anticipated this was going to be something along the lines of getting Domino's delivered for less than their delivery fee. (Side note, does anyone actually order franchise pizza on an app? They all already deliver for far less) But this was far more interesting. The fact that Doordash scrapes prices, and apparently doesn't verify... how does this happen? I'm not familiar with the reimbursement mo…

The driver pays with a Doordash prepaid-reloadable card. When the driver GPS-checkins at the restaurant they're picking an item up at, the card is loaded with the exact balance the restaurant is "supposed to charge"

This mechanism reminds me of Moviepass.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#110

Post by duxup »

013a wrote: post #46
Consultant32452 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>does anyone actually order franchise pizza on an app I do. I find the app to be a much nicer experience. I see all the available coupons/deals in a list instead of the 1-2 deals the phone person wants to guide me towards. With an app I can start and order and my family/friends can have an extended conversation to figure out exactly what we want on our pizza, what sides/drinks/etc. And in a pinch, we can completely s…

I imagine the OP meant through the DoorDash app? Recently, I've used the Dominos, Papa Johns, or Pizza Hut apps, which are, you know, fine enough, they get the job done, but critically: there's no surcharge beyond what you'd pay over the phone. I would be confused why anyone would buy a chain pizza like this through DoorDash (or a similar service). Beyond the one tenuous benefit of not having to install another app;…

Yeah, and big chain apps and mobile sites, while not amazing at times, all work pretty well now.

Outside of a few odd situations now and then, most big chain apps (if they typically take mobile type orders) .. offer a competent experience.

Other benefit is if you sing up for some "club" or email list you'll often get a coupon or etc.

Post reply on HN