Earlier quoted context omitted.
I saw someone online saying how they didn't get their ranch with their pizza, so they called up customer service and eventually got a whole new pizza out of the deal. I understand it sucks to not get your ranch, but come on...
I had a few friends in customer support. This happened all the time. If you spend too long going back and forth with a customer, the salary-based calculation of what it costs the company doesn’t make sense. So you give it to them free. But then it’s not like you have any margins that those come out of.
Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
61–70 of 324 posts
Re: Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
#62What I find interesting about the food delivery business is that there's clearly a market for this but nobody's happy. - Restaurants (rightly) complain that the drivers provide a poor service. For example, pizza delivered cold because the drivers have no heat bags. I've even heard of a pizza box mounted vertically on a delivery bicycle. - Customers are unhappy because food can be delivered cold through no fault of th…
I think so. If a driver spends an hour on delivery, they have to make $15 in NYC or ~$8 elsewhere (USA) to be worth their time. For a single person, that can be the price of the whole meal again.
I've run into this when seeing the fees reflected on a final checkout page, and decided to cook for myself instead.
Re: Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
#63Food delivery is a terrible business. M&A won’t make it better. I worked at LivingSocial in 2012/2013. We used to joke that “we lose money on every transaction but make it up in scale.” Takeout and Delivery was one of the last bets the company made. Basically food delivery. The customer service load is huge, the services aren’t really differentiated, and you have to both pay the driver enough for it to be worth it an…
I saw someone online saying how they didn't get their ranch with their pizza, so they called up customer service and eventually got a whole new pizza out of the deal. I understand it sucks to not get your ranch, but come on...
Re: Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it will make sense when cities will have a better infrastructure for targeted deliveries. I'm thinking routes for drones and clear delivery spots. Would not be surprised 30y from now most homes won't have kitchen anymore. You'll have an access where a drone can come in an deliver whatever you ordered.
> Would not be surprised 30y from now most homes won't have kitchen anymore. You'll have an access where a drone can come in an deliver whatever you ordered. I suspect you vastly underestimate how cheap and time effective cooking at home can be. My girlfriend and I just mealprepped 8 meals for $30. Took 15min of active work. The whole week we both get a healthy balanced meal that takes 2min to prepare. No delivery co…
Re: Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Remember JUMP? They were acquired for $200M like, a year and a half ago. As far as I can tell, they don't exist anymore.
Jump bikes still exist. Not sure what you're on about.
Re: Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
#66Food delivery is a terrible business. M&A won’t make it better. I worked at LivingSocial in 2012/2013. We used to joke that “we lose money on every transaction but make it up in scale.” Takeout and Delivery was one of the last bets the company made. Basically food delivery. The customer service load is huge, the services aren’t really differentiated, and you have to both pay the driver enough for it to be worth it an…
Re: Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
#67Food delivery is a terrible business. M&A won’t make it better. I worked at LivingSocial in 2012/2013. We used to joke that “we lose money on every transaction but make it up in scale.” Takeout and Delivery was one of the last bets the company made. Basically food delivery. The customer service load is huge, the services aren’t really differentiated, and you have to both pay the driver enough for it to be worth it an…
Considering that a large part of the culture defining movies/franchises/series IP is also not owned by Netflix, they can't really hope to just end up outcompeting everyone else down the line. Think about it: food delivery is pretty generic, you don't really see the difference apart from cost. So if let's say Uber manages to bring down costs, outrun the current big competitors, and use that dominant position to keep prices lower than future newcomers, odds are customers will just keep using Uber.
But in Netflix's case, people will still want disney movies or HBO series. That means there's no real hope for a profitable market dominating position down the line, so they will need to perpetually produce a very expensive product just to pay off the cost of other expensive product. If Netflix starts to lose subscribers, it still has very fixed costs (content acquisition & debt service for already made content) whereas Uber or Doordash have most of their operational costs directly tied to demand. No orders only means loss of revenue, but no additional losses.
Netflix just seems like a very weird and very... risky investment and much more so than the already very shaky business of food delivery. But I always assume the markets see something I don't, so maybe I'm totally wrong!
Re: Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
#68What I find interesting about the food delivery business is that there's clearly a market for this but nobody's happy. - Restaurants (rightly) complain that the drivers provide a poor service. For example, pizza delivered cold because the drivers have no heat bags. I've even heard of a pizza box mounted vertically on a delivery bicycle. - Customers are unhappy because food can be delivered cold through no fault of th…
Many high street brick-and-mortar restaurants will shut, but those that remain will likely make being "not available on any food delivery app" a unique selling proposition.
Re: Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had a few friends in customer support. This happened all the time. If you spend too long going back and forth with a customer, the salary-based calculation of what it costs the company doesn’t make sense. So you give it to them free. But then it’s not like you have any margins that those come out of.
But as your customers learn that wasting support time pays off, the game is surely over!
Re: Uber, Postmates Agree on $2.65B All-Stock Deal
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Would not be surprised 30y from now most homes won't have kitchen anymore. You'll have an access where a drone can come in an deliver whatever you ordered. I suspect you vastly underestimate how cheap and time effective cooking at home can be. My girlfriend and I just mealprepped 8 meals for $30. Took 15min of active work. The whole week we both get a healthy balanced meal that takes 2min to prepare. No delivery co…
Please reveal your secrets!