Earlier quoted context omitted.
You realise free shipping on ebay and amazon is.. anything but free right?
Maybe that's whats next -- online only restaurants. Food made in a warehouse.
A turnkey solution for delivery-only restaurants
Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
371–380 of 580 posts
Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
#372Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we guarantee that only over-capitalized predatory businesses can compete in the space. Assuming you can't make money at 10%, why would even a well-capitalized company that's OK with having a loss leader enter that market? The Uber strategy has been to enter a market fast, drive competitors out (possibly taking a loss), then (and looking at their earnings, this never happened, probably because there's a competitor i…
Because you’re funded by investors who have been lied to about eventual automation. Netflix delivered DVDs at a loss to build a brand and content licensing for their streaming service.
Was that really the case? Netflix delivered DVDs for a decade before it started online streaming.
If I remember correctly Netflix’s original business model was more like a gym membership than brand building for an online platform that was a decade in the future.
Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
"You fight back by calling your order in" -- if they are offering free delivery through an app, all you are doing is paying inflated prices to subsidize their delivery customers. If they are not offering you an explicit called-in or picked-up discount, you're not really helping anyone except all those people using the app.
I've noticed more and more restaurants in the Seattle area are listing higher prices for the GrubHubs/UberEats (some have explicitly told me during pickup to just call it in if I want to save some money). The picked up discount already exists within the app. So what you're saying is starting to happen as restaurants wise up.
I am really glad to hear that! I can only hope that this practice spreads. I want there to be a viable business model in the restaurant delivery business, but it has to be actually viable, which most likely means that it will have to be local approaches.
Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe that's whats next -- online only restaurants. Food made in a warehouse.
Wouldn’t last long. Perhaps if most energy was removed first. Then local depots could store them in thermal insulators. Not sure if anyone would ever eat a pizza that has stored below freezing point
I keep a stock of various Totino's pizzas in my freezer at all times.
Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
On paper it looks good, and given the players in the arena, there’s not much competition, especially since there’s a high bar of entry for new competition. Perhaps the idea behind not imposing such regulations is a free market argument, in which the most efficient price won’t be selected for, thereby not producing the optimal supply/demand. I would argue against this point that we would be assuming perfect competitio…
How is that in the US there are always monopolies everywhere? Where I live, there are at least 10 different car sharing apps, and there is an app that lets you see which app offers better rates for a given destination. I think it has something to do with regulatory culture.
In this case, it's that the parent comment is just wrong. There are at least five different food delivery apps in Portland that I'm aware of.
Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The End game is to be the dominant food ordering platform in any given town where you get to dictate rates like 25%. You fight back by calling your order in and having them deliver it or pick it up yourself. I do this 99%* of the time as I refuse to pay a web server $8+ order+delivery fee for a meal that costs the same. It's absurd to think that people are so lazy that they cant pick up a phone or walk a few blocks…
Sometimes it’s really hard to do this though. I recently wanted to order from a sushi place and I couldn’t find the paper menu with their number so I searched DDG. The first three or four things I clicked on weren’t the direct website of the restaurant. And only one was an ad. I get that for some of these small local restaurant owners the margins are tight and I’ll do my best to make sure my money goes directly to th…
The answer is another tool that reduces friction to setting up a website. I'm friends with a bunch of bands that don't have websites, but they do have facebook pages! Why? Because they're free and they do what the band needs from a website.
A restaurant doesn't need more than a page with contact info and link to a pdf menu. But even standing that up is a massive hurdle for .
Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
#377Earlier quoted context omitted.
> we guarantee that only over-capitalized predatory businesses can compete in the space. Assuming you can't make money at 10%, why would even a well-capitalized company that's OK with having a loss leader enter that market? The Uber strategy has been to enter a market fast, drive competitors out (possibly taking a loss), then (and looking at their earnings, this never happened, probably because there's a competitor i…
Because you’re funded by investors who have been lied to about eventual automation. Netflix delivered DVDs at a loss to build a brand and content licensing for their streaming service.
>Netflix delivered DVDs at a loss
source? I've never heard that one before
Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because sometimes the net result of individual optimization (predatory food delivery apps) is social deoptimization (local restaurants close). And for the same reason that we don't allow health insurance to charge people different rates on the basis of their genetic profiles, the exercise of government prerogative to optimize for the greater good, on behalf of all, is apt here. Whether or not this particular approach…
We don't even let health insurance to charge people different rates based on pre-existing conditions anymore, which is what drove health insurance premiums through the roof.
Healthcare premiums were steadily marching higher from the 1970s onwards, and continued to do so post-ACA at about the same annual growth rate.
Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
#379Earlier quoted context omitted.
A family member of mine owns a restaurant that does mostly delivery business. He employs his own drivers; he's on GrubHub because it brings in more business and is a net positive for his bottom line. He includes flyers with every order that says, in large obvious text, "Call us directly at [this number] and save 20% compared to GrubHub." He still gets a sizeable amount of repeat business from GrubHub.
I am pretty sure he signed a contract that says he isn't allowed to charge GrubHub users more.
He's not charging more, GrubHub pads the price and charges a delivery fee.
Re: Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge restaurants
#380Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that this response is in the wrong direction. By forcing prices lower, we guarantee that only over-capitalized predatory businesses can compete in the space. The problem is that consumer advocacy and anti-monopoly are practically the opposite thing. The end result of government action here should be short-term higher prices to the consumer, that reflect the actual cost of operations, rather than lower…
> we guarantee that only over-capitalized predatory businesses can compete in the space. Assuming you can't make money at 10%, why would even a well-capitalized company that's OK with having a loss leader enter that market? The Uber strategy has been to enter a market fast, drive competitors out (possibly taking a loss), then (and looking at their earnings, this never happened, probably because there's a competitor i…
Because they want to make a bet on the future being different. Or they just want to pump up the company's value enough that the initial investors can get out with their cash and leave the shareholders/acquirer holding the bag.
If the delivery companies start shifting the burden to consumers, or if they start forcing bicycle couriers to comply with the rule, or if they can successfully contest it in court, then it makes sense to some degree to stay in the fight.