41–50 of 147 posts
I find it funny they're claiming some sort of AI system will help them make better margins. In my city, Nottingham. all the deliveroo people gather in Trinity Square waiting for jobs. There's obviously no special AI needed. I do think though that it raises the issue that they should be paying for their own business premises and stop using our public spaces as their company waiting spots.
This was many decades ago (when people bought their news on dead tree) and a lot of inflation as happened since. I didn't see my paper round as a 'proper job', but I think the inflation adjusted rate comes out to at least double the £8 per hour that Deliveroo riders claim to make on Glassdoor. I didn't have to pay rent since I was living with my parents, my income was purely disposable.
Some numbers: late 1980's, my Sunday paper round took five hours and earned me £30 not counting tips. All done by bicycle. I also had a morning paper round and an after school round delivering the local paper. On the back of these 'gigs' I also had gardening, baby sitting and other jobs from my clients, making my childhood wages now seem positively 'over-paid' compared to what passes for 'gig economy' nowadays.
I believe my take of the newspaper sale was around 20% with a delivery charge of 5 pence. Bicycles were just for kids back then and working for pocket money (not paying taxes or expecting benefits like holiday pay) was okay given I was at school. Furthermore, all my work was chargeable, I was not waiting around for someone to click on an app.
From this perspective I find it crazy that this Deliveroo phenomenon has happened. I aspired to do more than ride around delivering stuff in all weathers. Fortunately I did move on to 'proper jobs'.
The Deliveroo drivers are kind of with the pigeons in terms of London's pecking order. Although 'gig' economy, they lack the opportunities my humble paper round offered for 'up-sells' plus there are some venture capitalists creaming off what should be their cut. How did it all come to this?
How can an investor, justify this as a solid investment when the gross margins are 0.7%?
Money Quote: "Deliveroo grew a lot in 2016, with revenue up 611 per cent to £129 million. But losses were up too — a 300 per cent increase to £129 million. However, the figure to really watch is the food delivery company’s gross margin percentage, which sat at just 0.7 per cent. " How can an investor, justify this as a solid investment when the gross margins are 0.7%?
I reached this conclusion shortly after Yo was valued at something like $10 million.
Another unicorn that can only exist because it uses fake self-employment to turn their workforce into a cheaper one. Just like Uber and so many others this only works because for some reason turning paid work into something that is not even self-sustaining suddenly is accepted. Does nobody have ethical issues with seeing value in devaluing people?
So while it is cheap from a customer's perspective someone else is footing the bill. Once they run out of investor's money someone has to pay for it.
In India, drivers are already demanding more bonuses. They went on strike: https://yourstory.com/2017/02/bengaluru-drivers-indefinite-s...
Now they are building their own ride hailing app: https://yourstory.com/2017/03/disappointed-ola-uber-drivers-...
Was just reading about them only the other day and how they are losing money: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-41347817 So how they derive such a valuation is very much at odds with actualities.
Another unicorn that can only exist because it uses fake self-employment to turn their workforce into a cheaper one. Just like Uber and so many others this only works because for some reason turning paid work into something that is not even self-sustaining suddenly is accepted. Does nobody have ethical issues with seeing value in devaluing people?
It's hard to survive on very low wages. That's one reason we have a social safety net. Many argue that it should be the company's responsibility to pay their workers higher wages and not society's responsibility to take care of unskilled members of society. However, this is not a realistic option in all cases because some fraction of these jobs would cease to exist if higher wages are mandated as not all customers will be willing to pay higher prices. In the food delivery case it's a large fraction of customers and the business will probably cease to exist.
The fundamental problem here is that our economy is becoming more advanced and more and different skills are being required to be able to provide value to society and many people don't have the required skills. There are only a few things that can happen in this scenario: society educates low skill residents to prepare them for more valuable jobs, low skill residents work in low value jobs, low skill residents are unemployed. We should make the education option available and highly encouraged. We should provide for necessities like nutrition, safety, shelter that many young people are lacking that prevent them from availing themselves of educational opportunities. However, in the case that people aren't willing or able to complete the education required for jobs requiring a highly educated workforce, I think it's better that people have the option of working in lower value jobs rather than effectively outlawing it. This does not mean these workers should be treated as having low value beyond being paid low wages. There should be worker protections, customers should treat workers with respect, etc.
It would be better for the world if we had more people working in more valuable jobs like science, medicine, technology, etc. and fewer in food delivery. But raising wage regulations to the point that Deliveroo's business model is no longer sustainable probably just means that its workers are unemployed and people have fewer food delivery options.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree this self-employed farce has to stop, the service itself is good. Previously takeaways were all the more greasy options, the deliveroo options are nicer food and it's aimed at a different market segment. It allows venues access to a market that was previously denied to them because they couldn't justify running their own delivery service full-time. They charge £2.50 per delivery. If they were paying cou…
Deliveroo also take 30% of the food sale so I always assumed the £2.50 went to the rider, which seems like decent amount.
For those wondering about these numbers, Deliveroo has a great concept, solid execution and huge brand recognition. Just-eat (worth 4.6B) connects people to shitty takeaways and has a terrible website. Deliveroo connects people to restaurants and provides the delivery service themselves, through bikers (here in London). They have taken this and spread throughout Europe. They are going to (and are) completely canablis…
What makes you think Just-Eat ran out of steam "years ago"? Stock price is higher than ever: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/prices-and-marke... They are reporting good growth: http://www.cityam.com/256734/just-eat-reported-order-growth-... I see lots of Deliveroo bikes around where I live in the centre of London, but they are basically non-existant when I go to other towns and cities. Also, Deliveroo sta…
Whenever I visit Oxford I always see lots of Deliveroo bikes driving around the city centre.
Another unicorn that can only exist because it uses fake self-employment to turn their workforce into a cheaper one. Just like Uber and so many others this only works because for some reason turning paid work into something that is not even self-sustaining suddenly is accepted. Does nobody have ethical issues with seeing value in devaluing people?
If there was any kind of bike based delivery service in my city that allowed me to work casually, I would do it just for an excuse to go out and dodge traffic on a bike a few evenings a week.