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UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

businessinsider.com

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Re: UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

#101

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

toast0 wrote: post #100
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food delivery will probably never be profitable unless you're able to schedule food delivery days ahead... and utilize the same pathing algorithms used for regular deliveries (like UPS and Fedex). There's a maximum amount of time someone will wait (1 hour) and the product degrades after it's created (cools off)

I mean, it's not that bad. Delivery is an important part of many restaurants (pizza, jimmy johns (sandwiches), chinese in many cities). The issue in my mind is those restaurants with hugh delivery volume can do multiple deliveries in a single run, and can time the completion of the food to the return of the driver, so the food doesn't spend a lot of time sitting at the restaurant, and neither does the driver. It's ve…

Right, but there's an incentive to perform well because if you don't, the food is returned.

Uber can just write off the loss as more and more money is shoveled into it like coal was shoveled into an engine on a trail.

Re: UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

#102

Post by Shivetya »

AlexandrB wrote: post #35
supernova87a wrote: post #32

Uber is making it harder and harder to get on board with the idea that it's not an employer. Leveling out people's pay over multiple trips or retroactively adjusting the reward per job sure sounds like an employer having very strong control over the work conditions and compensation. And this almost brings back echoes of Doordash (?) when it was caught taking drivers' tips so that their pay was reduced to the minimum…

> It's like Uber are trying to shoot themselves in the foot with all the cost squeezing and profit seeking at the same time they're in a fundamental fight defining what they are. I don't think they have a choice. UberEats is fundamentally unprofitable. If it was run profitably, the high(er) prices would drive a large portion of their customers away and into the arms of other "startups" willing to run at a loss or tow…

Has there been a delivery service that didn't have these issues? Raising the prices is effectively the only means, people don't seem to be put off by how much Instacart can jack prices; Costco even warns you the prices are much higher if you choose this as delivery.

Pizza chains and others who own their delivery process can at least set where they will deliver and tend to encourage bigger purchases to avoid delivery charges and hopes of fresher food.

I am going to assume the only type of agreement would be tighter integration with restaurants to the point the service name is hidden, as in contracting out drivers to particular restaurants but the difficulty there is guaranteeing a driver is always available. Basically an outsourcing for drivers. Restaurants get some filtering of drivers and drivers have a set number of stores with instant familiarity.

Re: UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

#103

Post by mrweasel »

cortesoft wrote: post #82
iso1631 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason I could think of to use something like ubereats, deliveroo, justeat, etc would be if I wanted a non-pizza delivered while I was staying in a hotel in a strange city somewhere. If I'm at home I'll look at the menu of my favourite indian/chineese/whatever place, phone them up, and they deliver it as they have done for decades. I've spent two nights in a hotel since March, normally it's 70 a year. One ni…

I get so frustrated when people act like these food delivery services aren’t a WAY better user experience than the old version of having to call for delivery. So many times, I will be super busy with the kids, or work, or housework, and I will just pull up DoorDash with one hand (while the other is feeding a hangry 1 year old) and hit ‘reorder’ on one of my past meals. Literally 15 seconds and food is on the way. Com…

Sure, if that's how food delivery works where you live, then I'm sure that the SF/Silicon Vally type services works better. But that's because the service suck where you live.

Most fast food place either use JustEat or Hungry to accept your order and take your credit card information, if they don't have their own website or app. They will have their own drivers, employed and paid directly by the restaurant and they don't expect a tip.

That's what I compare any "startup" food delivery service to. So they will always be worse and more expensive, because a third party is now involved.

Re: UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

#104

Post by barkingcat »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #81
barkingcat wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine a UberChef where an Uber driver gets an order, and drives a freelance Chef to a freelance kitchen where the chef cooks the food (groceries provided by an uber shopper who can also get one-off ingredients from specialty stores), the chef cooks the food to order (steak, medium rare, or seafood boil for a party of 2, etc) - and then uber driver delivers the food.

If you’ve ever managed a food business, this is unimaginable.

only if you imagine small.

at Uber scale, they can get VC funding for $500-800 million, to hire the thousands of chefs that were laid off during the covid shutdowns. You can also imagine going international, so Uber Chef is actually thousands of chefs around the world. (hiring chefs without the overhead of restaurants - that's the play)

Re: UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

#106

Post by barkingcat »

vkou wrote: post #87
selestify wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Because any food business already has insanely tight margins, and operates incredibly efficiently. The scenario proposed by the grandparent poster adds so much waste and slack and overhead in the system that the family-owned-and-operated Thai kitchen on Main St. will eat Uber's lunch, and the Dominos franchise two doors down from it will pick through its bones.

the family operated kitchen on Main St. has rent, fire codes, safety equipment needs, some form of sanitation code/inspection to pass with the city.

Uber Chef ignores all of that and bypasses all overhead - you don't need a restaurant or even the physical location of a building to employ chefs to cook food. No need for health inspections or expensive fire suppression equipment. (you use people who want to rent their home kitchens out for cooking)

That's Uber's raison-d'etre - to bypass all legal restrictions and externalize all overhead in the way of getting the items to you.

This isn't a joke, this is what Uber did with their taxi service at the beginning as MVP so why not do it to food services as well?

Re: UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

#107

Post by mrweasel »

lumost wrote: post #40
AlexandrB wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like Uber are trying to shoot themselves in the foot with all the cost squeezing and profit seeking at the same time they're in a fundamental fight defining what they are. I don't think they have a choice. UberEats is fundamentally unprofitable. If it was run profitably, the high(er) prices would drive a large portion of their customers away and into the arms of other "startups" willing to run at a loss or tow…

I don't understand why an investor would fund unprofitable Uber 2.0. Without a massive differentiator there is no reason to believe their trajectory would be any different from Uber's - except with increased capital requirements from being the third(fourth?) mover. Uber's burned 10s of billions in the hopes of becoming a few hundred billion dollar company. Would Uber 2.0 need to burn hundreds of billions in the hope…

It would be interesting to hear why investors keep throwing money at Uber. Does anyone honestly believe that they will ever be profitable? You would have to throw billions at them to keep them alive long enough for autonomous vehicles to be a possible rescue.

Re: UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

#108

Post by novok »

joking wrote: post #52
danpalmer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with the part about profitability, but middlemen can definitely add value. I’d say that Uber’s wide reach is valuable, the fact that they likely exist in the city you’re visiting, the fact that they likely have enough cars to pick you up in under 5 minutes. These are valuable things that don’t come from individual drivers or small taxi companies, but rather from big aggregators.

you don't need uber for that, google maps shows you available carpooling ang taxi companies directly when you search for a destination. For uber is good that wide reach, for the end user not so much.

So instead of uber, you have google, another large digital service middleman...

Re: UberEats could be underpaying delivery drivers on 21% of trips

#110

Post by pintxo »

cortesoft wrote: post #96
Balgair wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to trivialize your experiences (toddlers are not easy), but for me, the list you give isn't all that much of a barrier. Yes, it is simpler to use the app, but not all that much more. Also, where I am, they take the credit card at the door, not over the phone. Most use a Square-style card reader attached to a work phone, even the mom-n-pop delivery, even now in the pandemic (they use gloves mostly).

Again, I am not saying it isn't doable to order the old fashioned way, but the newer system is CLEARLY easier and faster. There is simply no way you could order and be done with a call in order in 15 seconds. Your argument (that it is not much of a barrier to use the old way) can be made for so many of the quality of life improvements we have made over the course of human history. Not every advancement is an entire n…

My preferred Sushi place will recognize me by my phone number and take my order within seconds. Payment in cash at the door. There is no reason why the process could not be quick and hassle free, even using the phone.
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