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Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

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Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#111

Post by thomk »

judge2020 wrote: post #101
peteretep wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How has your experience been with privacy.com?

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#112

Post by mikekchar »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #80
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?

Majority of times I order from these centralized sites becauae of convenience. Id like to support my local restaurant by ordering via phoning the restaurant directly, but it is pain in the arse compared to the convenient web ordering process.

Given that, I wonder if there is an opportunity to provide the ordering service and leave the delivery up to the restaurant... It would be dramatically easier to start up, require far less capital, require almost no human resource challenges, etc, etc.

Edit: Just noticed lower in the comments that this is exactly what GrubHub was doing before Doordash showed up.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#113

Post by throwaway_dflka »

paulcole wrote: post #35
throwaway_dflka wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting question. I suspect there's some trademark arguments to be made regarding confusion as to who is providing the product and service and whose failures any mistakes reflect. That kind of attribution, and the product quality it promotes, is one of the central purposes of trademark law. But there's also the first sale doctrine--that after you sell your physical product, people can do with it as they p…

> But there's also the first sale doctrine--that after you sell your physical product, people can do with it as they please, including resell. Yep! First sale doctrine applies to all transactions. This is why my gammy can resell her Oxy’s and it’s all nice and legal.

To speak more precisely, the first sale doctrines prevent the original seller from asserting intellectual property rights (copyright, patent, trademark) as a basis to prohibit resell. I was writing an internet comment, not a legal brief!

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#114

Post by ethbro »

astura wrote: post #104
bostonsre wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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_...

It seems like it would depend on who's initiating the action.

While the restaurant preparing "partial" pizzas to ship to coordinated orders is obviously fraud, I'm not so sure "Asking the restaurant owner about their costs, then independently ordering a large number of pizzas" qualifies.

It's not your responsibility if Doordash has shit code and auditing. And given VC-onomics, it's not even clear how you would be certain this isn't "operating as intended."

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#115

Post by masonic »

chrisseaton wrote: post #74
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?

> Is it just the benefit of being able to browse in one app/website everything available for be delivered to you? Yes I think that’s a big part of it. That’s a big part of Uber as well - I can fly into a city not knowing anything about how they do taxi and get an Uber.

   I can fly into a city not knowing anything about how they do taxi
What airports are you flying into where you could avoid signage/references to local taxis/buses/transit if you wanted to? Heck, most have taxi stands right outside baggage claim, if not all exits.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#116

Post by astura »

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"

At that point door dash still thinks the pizza will cost much less, so if it's only the total the customer paid that's authorized, then how does the full cost of the order get paid?

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#117

Post by inquiryaccount »

Oh, one other interesting thing I've heard happens regularly. Couriers have multiple cellular devices. The second account usually get batched orders from the same restaurant they are already at which leads to a host of problems for the customer and restaurant. This leads to the order that was ready first to just sit and die in the courier bag while they work to maximize their earnings. Couriers sometimes leave before the second-order is ready and return well AFTER it's been ready to retrieve it because they are out and about delivering other orders.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#118

Post by asveikau »

spurdoman77 wrote: post #57
dvduval wrote: post #20

The restaurants need to work through their own trade organization where they band together and push out the delivery businesses that are costing them money, and then allow delivery companies to bid for their business.

In the end the customer needs some single easy interface where to order food from. It is kind of difficult to see how this could work in a way where restaurants would dictate how customers prefer to order.

Same as it works today, but replace the VC funded app with a different app that a critical mass of restaurant owners get behind. That app could be owned, funded, managed by a group of restaurants in order to better serve their needs. Perhaps there could be some kind of federated standard.

Re: Doordash and Pizza Arbitrage

#119

Post by slimsag »

inquiryaccount wrote: post #51

This reminds me of a post I submitted a few weeks ago on HN. A friend of mine works for a restaurant group in NYC and they like many they have had to respond by offering delivery to folks in order to keep some revenue flowing. He and I were chatting and he mentioned that lately, a large majority of high value ($500+) orders were fraudulent with the fraudster ordering things that can be resold such as high-value wine,…

Consumers often don't realize the charge, I believe, until it's too late. Tech-illiterate old folk getting hit by the latest leak of information from .
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