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Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

nytimes.com

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Re: Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

#131

Post by Traster »

dom96 wrote: post #109

My question: how is this allowed? Won't this create a massive monopoly? I and many others had the same concerns when Just eat bought Hungry House. Now we've got Deliveroo and Uber Eats too, but how can a smaller player survive with these behemoths?

I had a real laugh when Dara Khosrowshahi tried to argue that the "market" uber eats is competing in should include home grocery shopping so that he could claim that they're competing against Amazon and Walmart, despite Amazon and Walmart literally not offering a competitive alternative to 99% of Uber Eats business.

Re: Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

#132

Post by AgloeDreams »

greeniron wrote: post #69
replyguy912 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or you could, ya know, walk 8 blocks and keep the restaurant in business, but hey, we all have our limits.

wait... this comment is confusing. how is he not contributing towards "keeping the restaurant in business" by ordering delivery vs picking it up in person?

Often these delivery services take around 20% off the top of the restaurant's pay in addition to the 'fees and taxes' they take out and 'delivery fee' and 'driver tip', plus specials and discounts generally come out of the restaurant's cut too, plus door-dash and the like also take out cuts on advertising.

But let me take this a step further because you're not just screwing the restaurant...

The delivery driver is ALSO being screwed by the nature of all of this!

You see, on average the pay and tip of a delivery actually is less than the cost of car wear and tear + minimum wage + gas! People take this job to have cash now but will often end up stuck with the bill in the end. By supporting these delivery companies you are actually supporting companies that are taking aggressive advantage of people to drive engagement numbers and eventually... ^ $7.3 Billion in investor payoffs for a company that has effectively only built an app and menu directory and did basically none of the work. They classify drivers as 1099s to avoid having to adhere to minimum wage laws, they dodge laws where they can and take zero responsibility when people screw up. All of them are exploiting poor people and while one can argue that that's the driver's fault.. as long as you pay the Doordash or GrubHub's of the world their fees and as long as they take 20% off the restaurant's cut, the restaurant wont be able to afford to pay to hire more employees which helps these delivery app companies get drivers due to unemployment. Should I also note that this same company used to pocket the driver tip?

Re: Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

#133

Post by AgloeDreams »

lz400 wrote: post #127
aesyondu wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but a restaurant wouldn't be entering into these special deals if it wasn't beneficial to them as well. Even if the margins are much lower, it could be offset by the increase in number of customers/orders.

I've talked to people who run restaurants and in their words uber eats is not worth it economically. They just do it, barely breaking even, as a marketing thing, hoping people will like the food and go to the real place.

Bingo, plus if they don't do it, their competitors will and then nobody comes to them.

Re: Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

#134

Post by AgloeDreams »

randycupertino wrote: post #77
alfalfasprout wrote: post #35

Is it just me or are all these delivery apps pretty much the same thing, just with different restaurants? In SF at least Grubhub tends to have some of the more "typical delivery" choices (pizza, chinese food, thai) and decent customer service, Doordash seems to have the most variety but the dashers take their merry time on their way to you (and customer service is nonexistent), Uber Eats is somewhere in between grubh…

> Doordash seems to have the most variety but the dashers take their merry time on their way to you (and customer service is nonexistent) I was picking up sandwiches from a popular sandwich joint last week and the Doordash drivers were picking up multiple orders each time. So most likely the "delay" is really them stopping at other houses to drop off food on their way to you, or vice versa.

Both GH and DD do this now, honestly it feels like a massive bait and switch because you don't know which order # you'll be and the system never clarifies that there can be others ahead of you. Notably, the other orders can be from other restaurants so your driver may have to stop and wait while your food is just in their car. If you don't live in a metro area the total out of the way time can be more than 25 minutes. This means that ordering a small hot meal over GH can show up 20 minutes after preparation or 45 minutes after. There's a very large difference between these two orders but they make you set the tip ahead of time and charge the same fee. I once ordered ice cream, they made a second stop. It was just goop. Just completely absurd.

(This is a strange world where I can say... obviously Uber is more ethical here. The Uber X service is clearly labeled as such and has realistic arrival times and an option to pay for ensured rapid arrival)

Re: Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

#135

Post by laddershoe »

hedora wrote: post #78
megablast wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How different would Disney be without Pixar? Not different at all. And fox? Too early to tell.

Name one decent Disney animated movie that was released after Pixar was founded (excluding Pixar films post-acquisition). There aren’t many because most of Disney’s talent left around when Pixar was founded. Without movies to continuously hook new kids, their entire empire is a house of cards.

Pixar was founded in 1986. They started releasing theatrical films with Toy Story in 1995. Are you really saying there hasn't been a single good Disney animated movie in the past 25 years? What's the basis for that statement?

The history of the two studios is way more involved than what you're suggesting, and talent moves around between studios quite a lot. And 25 years is a long time; there have been entire generations of talent that have risen up since then, and trust me, they're not all at Pixar.

Source: I worked at Disney Animation for nearly a decade (and closely with Pixar during that time). I'm certainly not unbiased but probably way more informed.

Re: Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

#136

Post by ardy42 »

waterfowl wrote: post #63
ardy42 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The economics of food delivery can’t be solved with efficiency. There’s not enough pie to split. > Have you tried pizza pie? IIRC, proper pizza delivery requires a special warming bag. These generic delivery companies that employ gig-working randos don't equip their drivers with those bags, so they suck at delivering pizza at any distance, greater "efficiency" or no.

I see doordash/grubhub/ubereats folks with big insulated bags(or backpacks in the case of bike/moto folks) pretty regularly. Not sure if they are required(or provided or sold) but they are definitely available.

> I see doordash/grubhub/ubereats folks with big insulated bags(or backpacks in the case of bike/moto folks) pretty regularly. Not sure if they are required(or provided or sold) but they are definitely available.

They're available, but I don't think they're universally used. I read one article where the a pizzeria was offering bags for the drivers to borrow (because of bad reviews for cold delivery pizza), but a lot of them refused because they'd have to leave a deposit and didn't want to return to the store to return the bag.

Re: Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

#137

Post by ErikHuisman »

mcv wrote: post #110
ErikHuisman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aah thuisbezorgd/takeaway does squad domains so grubhub will fit right in.

They do? I didn't know that. I only know them from their Dutch branch Thuisbezorgd, which seems fairly decent, and has contracts with connected restaurants. Quite recently they've been under attack for abusing their near-monopoly (they do have Deliveroo and Uber Eats as competitors, as well many independent restaurants; many connected restaurants also have their own site) by raising their margins, putting pressure on…

I only got anecdotal evidence. Sometimes i just google the name of a restaurant i want to order.

Most of the times the results are:

- ad: order X on thuisbezorgd

- google widget about X

- 1) squated domain with thuisbezorgd order page for X

- 2) real domain of restaurant X

Re: Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

#139

Post by obibring »

Market consolidation would limit competition and hurt consumers so I'm glad they were purchased by an external player. But local restaurants are still hurting from exorbitant fees and something needs to be done to help.

Shameless plug: I'm working on a chrome extension that compares the price of your order across delivery services to get you the best price. We'll soon be linking to restaurants' websites to let people order direct and save on fees. For those interested, link is here: https://platerapp.app.link/1VRKKwGAe7

Re: Just Eat Takeaway to acquire Grubhub for $7.3B

#140

Post by sokoloff »

AgloeDreams wrote: post #133
lz400 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've talked to people who run restaurants and in their words uber eats is not worth it economically. They just do it, barely breaking even, as a marketing thing, hoping people will like the food and go to the real place.

Bingo, plus if they don't do it, their competitors will and then nobody comes to them.

If all that's true, then it does seem like it's worth it economically. Economics in business goes well beyond the simple transaction-level view.
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