One commenter on the article claims that prices are jacked up to hide the true delivery cost. Wonder if that's the case?
Postmates charges exactly what the retailer charged you plus 9% (it's a transparent markup, not an opaque one like Instacart.)
Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
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Re: Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
#12Honestly if there is a bubble and if it does burst, I'm putting my money on Postmates as the first company that will go out of business.
Re: Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
#13I can't understand how Postmates is so big. I've tried them twice. Both times the food took over 1.5 hours to be delivered and was cold.
Just order pizza or Chinese.
Re: Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
#14One commenter on the article claims that prices are jacked up to hide the true delivery cost. Wonder if that's the case?
Postmates charges exactly what the retailer charged you plus 9% (it's a transparent markup, not an opaque one like Instacart.)
Could you shed some more light on this? Instacart claims to offer in store prices for my local store.
Although I have caught a few issues where they charged double for an avocado or something like that but it seems like more of a data entry error based on the current price of "2 for 1"
Re: Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
#15Ha, just finished reading this about delivery startups: https://medium.com/@alexschiff/dear-food-delivery-startup-dc...
Re: Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
#16My startup is bootstrapped and does deliveries.
In fact we actually hired people that hated the old/current Postmates model.
But basically, it's not an easy business model and it's not one that makes financial sense, no matter what the funding, city, tipping situation is.
Deliveries = Time Time = Money
If you want someone to have time to make deliveries, you have to pay them enough money to have that time. Until VERY EXPENSIVE robots and cars replace people, deliveries will always be expensive, and relatively dependent on the speed of traffic + production. And even once we have robots, we'll need to charge enough to cover the robots, the guy that repairs the robots and money to invest in the next robot. That probably will be more than an dollar... especially when you factor in energy for the robots.
Re: Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Postmates charges exactly what the retailer charged you plus 9% (it's a transparent markup, not an opaque one like Instacart.)
Could you shed some more light on this? Instacart claims to offer in store prices for my local store. Although I have caught a few issues where they charged double for an avocado or something like that but it seems like more of a data entry error based on the current price of "2 for 1"
Oh, they don't have that feature in my area (yet?) - if I browse Instacart for Trader Joe's, I see "15%+ higher than in-store pricing" and it is generally on the plus side more than the 15% side. (The average markup seems closer to 25%, it is a really really poor deal.)
I've never seen the in store pricing option here.
Re: Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
#18My startup is bootstrapped and does deliveries. In fact we actually hired people that hated the old/current Postmates model. But basically, it's not an easy business model and it's not one that makes financial sense, no matter what the funding, city, tipping situation is. Deliveries = Time Time = Money If you want someone to have time to make deliveries, you have to pay them enough money to have that time. Until VERY…
I think the long-term hypothesis of many of these companies is that you can hit a critical mass where your logistics can be made significantly more efficient. The current efficiency bottleneck, both in terms of cost and time, results from the fact that deliveries are infrequent and relatively distant. If enough people were ordering in an area, the theory goes, you could efficiently route delivery drivers to minimize the amount of time spent between deliveries and restaurants. Whether this works in practice remains to be seen.
Re: Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
#19Honestly if there is a bubble and if it does burst, I'm putting my money on Postmates as the first company that will go out of business.
What about Doughbies?
Re: Postmates Raises $80M in Push Toward $1 Deliveries
#20My startup is bootstrapped and does deliveries. In fact we actually hired people that hated the old/current Postmates model. But basically, it's not an easy business model and it's not one that makes financial sense, no matter what the funding, city, tipping situation is. Deliveries = Time Time = Money If you want someone to have time to make deliveries, you have to pay them enough money to have that time. Until VERY…
I have a feeling that we'll solve self-driving cars to your driveway a long time before we solve getting the package from there to a person/porch/mailbox.
I reckon for some time we'll see people sitting in self-driving cars just to take care of the final hand over.
Actually, just struck me that what might work is an Amazon Locker on wheels plus an Uber-style app. You track the package drawing near via app (plus alerts) then go outside to grab it from an opening on the van before the vehicle recognises a completed transaction and drives off. You could take a delivery at a park, home, work, anywhere with a road nearby.