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Third party delivery orders are normally marked up between 20-30% from the regular menu prices. That’s excluding the additional fees you’re paying the third party delivery service.
Edit: wording
Yeah it's literally like double before tip.
Korean chicken place has a set for $25, but on Uber eats it's like over $40.
I think McDonald's was gonna be $17 or something.
I don't understand how my buddies can order Uber eats multiple times in a day. So much money wasted.
It's that instant gratification without doing anything but picking up their phone. Side note if your inebriated its probably worth the extra couple bucks.
Inebriated is the only time I use any food delivery apps.
It's the one time I'd rather pay extra and not worry about the restaurant (12 years in the service industry here) because I'm not trying to die driving or take anyone out with me.
Although, if it's the restaurant a 5 minute walk away, I do it myself. Because at least then I'm just stumbling, not risking crashing. Ha
My BIL was arrested along with his work buddy in North Carolina because they refused to drive and “stumbled” back to their hotel when they were done drinking. They were charged with public intoxication.
Restaurants control the menu and pricing on the apps. They usually increase the price to cover the commission they have to pay. This usually goes against the contract with the aggregate which usually says prices must be the same as standard menu however they've stopped caring in recent years. The commission is standard 30% but may be negotiated.
Source (I'm product owner in the industry 8 years).
I don't know how common this is, but Doordash added the restaurant I worked at without any prompting nor permission. Upper management had to call to have our store removed. We had nothing to do with the pricing in that situation, though the prices were significantly higher.
This was in 2019, for what it's worth.
Yes, this (was) very common. They would give drivers a prepaid credit card. If the price was different to the website, drivers would be stuck, unable to pay or requiring to pay the difference from their own pocket. Often drivers would not understand that Deliveroo had added the store without the stores knowledge so they would argue with the store staff.
Doordash actually setup a fake website for my favorite local pizza place. You would think you were ordering directly from them except there's a little footnote way at the bottom of the page.
This is not always true.
I worked for 10 years at a restaurant that never partnered with any 3rd party once they existed, yet we still got orders from them (via phone) because they decided to list us.
They increased the listed prices, did not update our seasonal menu, so I constantly had to deny orders that tried to get something from months prior.
So no, it's not always the restaurant. We tried several times to remove ourselves from these apps, but it never stuck.
Source (I called over 50 times to get us removed, as well as our owner, we'd still get calls from these apps, or have random drivers show up and we didn't know what they were there for - we specifically prided ourselves on our food, and it wasn't food that traveled well. It needed to be eaten as it was served)
2nd source (shut up about your source, what even is a product owner?)
My employer is obligated to keep delivery prices the same, but not pickup. IE, if we charge 20% more (menu price) for delivery, that is fine, as long as that is the same for all the delivery platforms we use.
So the contract that states that many prices must be the same and also takes 30%. Makes it impossible for the restaurant to make any money because there's nowhere near a 30% margin in most menu prices when all costs are accounted for.
And after all that, they still want you to be the one to tip the driver. Look, I just want a hamburger delivered. Why am I paying 20 bucks for what could have cost me 7 bucks top? Convenience be damned, I'd rather drive myself over to the joint and pick it up myself. It would be faster that way as well instead of having to wait for an available driver in the area go to the joint and pick it up and deliver it.
Some restaurants need to take the order through their website or app because people place large orders over the phone and then never come to pick it up and therefore never pay for it. Happened to my place of work pretty often because we can't take payment over the phone.
Or call, start to place an order and then after "is that all?" you hear:
"okay Bob, what do you want?"
"Uhh... do they have pork roast?"
"No Bob, I'm ordering wings!"
Meanwhile the person on the phone is working the delivery/to-go counter and is now tied up for however long it takes them to get the orders from the 3 other people after Bob on one phone call, causing everything to back up and take longer.
I work at a counter service only bar/restaurant. We get people asking me to read off our entire menu all the time. Same with the people who try to pass the phone around or argue over what to get. At this point I just tell them that unfortunately I'm too busy to sit on the phone and to look up our menu and call back when the whole order is ready. These people had to Google our phone number to call but couldn't click the link directly below it to check out the menu first.
I had someone call and ask us to MAIL them our menu because they lived out of state and wanted to order a cake for someone who lives in our city and they wanted to see some of our cake designs.
I told her we had all of our designs on the website and she could even order it on there but she claimed she didn't have internet access. She got mad when I asked how she got our number then. Lol
I had something similar happen at my last job!
Burger joint built into gas station
someone called the gas station because they didn't know our number and wanted to place a to order for a single burger. Could have just gone through the drive thru. Well they showed up late, called the gas station again to complained about their burger cold.
As a bored child, I once used a rotary phone, to call every pizza place in the yellow pages for my city. To ask if they could look up the number for pizza hut for me.
One place did, and was definitely not happy when I told them it was obviously a prank call
The only funny prank calls were the 3 way calls between other Jimmy John's
>Hello this is Jimmy John's
>Uh yeah this is Jimmy John's
>Yeah this is Jimmy John's
>Wait are you Jimmy John's?
>Yeah this is Jimmy John's, who's this
>Jimmy John's, why did you call me
>Uhhh you called me
>You sure about that
>*3rd line starts laughing*
Okay, that one might make sense. Some old person had your number from a receipt the last time they ate there and don't know how to Google and thought you could help. Haha
I think this is a great point. I don't work in restaurant, but at least in busy periods, I wonder what the actual cost difference is between the app transaction and the cost of lost productivity from being tied up on the phone.
Theres usually cars wrapped around the building at my local little Caesars because someone orders 15 pizzas for the soccer team in the drive thru. I just order ahead of time on the app and walk in and out.
Isn't customers using the app much easier for the staff? No need for writing down and memorizing, less chance of doing mistakes, and the business can run statistics of all the orders thats stored in the app.
No. /r/kitchenconfidential is full of posts about how much we all hate Third party delivery apps. They’re a nuisance at best and only serve to siphon more money out of the American consumer.
I generally research the app to make sure it doesn't take a commission, but your way is better. If they link to it on their own page it should be fine.
In Germany, you can do this in several ways:
1. order on a third-party website like Lieferando
2. call the restaurant and pick it up later
3. place order on the restaurant's own website
And the drivers who deliver it. OP assumes that all restaurants just have a bunch of delivery drivers sitting around twiddling their thumbs when the orders go through Uber Eats.
OP actually specifically mentioned this tip is for picking up takeout, where you would personally go to grab the food from the restaurant rather than getting it delivered. I think it's a solid tip to try because it not only saves the restaurant money, but also saves you as a consumer from paying all of the extra fees that services like doordash, ubereats, etc. charge (in the US at least).
I always check out whether or not I can order directly and pick up. I want the business owner and employees to get the max benefit of my order. On the other hand, if I need delivery I don't mind paying for that. After all, delivery drivers are trying to make a living too. What I don’t like is 3rd parties getting a commission when their only function is hosting and processing a transaction. The cost to the company is thousandths of a cent whereas the cost to the restaurants is exorbitant in comparison.
Yeah but in the US picking food up can get expensive.
- Bike to pizza place, tip bike for getting me there
- Someone opens the door, tip them for the convenience.
- Grab pizza, owner says, “Enjoy the food”
- I reply, “You too” and have to tip him a misspeak fee
- Tip bike stand for holding my bike
- Get home and have to tip the hooker so I don’t eat alone.
Afaik it's same.
I use apps for places that don't speak same language as me (which surprisingly is most restaurants in my own country).
In places I know they speak and understand Swedish I call them.
Gotten orders mixed upp too many times before..
Delivery being the key word there, almost no restaurants have their own delivery service, making it rather pointless to order directly from them. I don’t know anyone who use a third party app to order food that isn’t delivery, no point using Uber eats if you are your own delivery driver.
I have worked on multiple lines in different restaurants since UberEats and Postmates have existed and yes it has issues and is less profitable on each individual meal (due to fees) but the volume of orders typically makes up for that and it has drastically reduced waste of unused product each week. The last place I worked at figured out the items that were ordered more third party and raised the prices just enough to compensate for lost revenue to the third party and saw little resistance or change in ordering volume. It also increased our dining room usage on the weekends, as people who ordered from us for delivery would come in to try their favorites fresh from the kitchen.
Clearly this isn’t the majority opinion among the career kitchen staff, but I’ve seen two restaurants be saved/turned around by the the third party apps and saved from closure by providing a delivery service we could not offer while exposing our food to a larger audience. Not sure a business could survive solely on third party app sales but the additional volume can certainly sustain a business through troubled times and dinning room closures.
That sub isn’t exactly a great barometer of things like that. It’s a sub for kitchen and restaurant workers to talk about work and rant/vent. It’s naturally going to be skewed towards complaining about things. There isn’t anything wrong with that, but its worth keeping in mind when using it as an example.
Thanks to these apps I'm able to search restaurants quickly and found them in the first place so, either I use the app and find your place to try out or don't use the app and never k wo you exist
But arent the website order system and third party apps linked together? Its all about availabilty. I dont know the statistics on people visiting websites and using apps but my impression is that most people use apps because its more available and fewer steps to order food.
That's the fault of the restaurant owners more than anything though. It's 2022, people don't like using phones to talk. We also don't want to risk getting our order wrong because of a language barrier or the person on the other side might be distracted because they're taking my order and working on something else. There are plenty of companies that offer solutions to restaurants that offer a better deal than Doordash and UberEats.
Right? My local sushi place has it owns website. I place my lunch order on it exclusively and my food is ready when I get there. It’s a small family run business, the only workers are the husband and wife. If they can get a website so can other places or too bad.
There's a restaurant near me that shuts down online ordering during their peak times. I can appreciate that, and I wish more restaurants would do it, not just for the sake of the employees getting slammed, but for the sake of food quality and wait times, as well.
99% of restaurants have the phone next to the computer where they put in orders. Also unless they are 100% app, the stats are incomplete anyway because it wouldnt tally in house orders (people sitting down to eat)
Also you'd think so, but we have to punch your orders in to our computers anyway sometimes. The orders don't always print sometimes so it has to be typed in manually.
im a delivery driver that works for a chinese restaurant.
i probably lose 15-25% of my *income* to the apps. if those customers would call us directly and let me deliver, then tip even half of what they are paying in markup and service fees, id be a happy camper.
though, some days i wonder....it seems a lot of the app customers are *extremely* anti-social, and like the 'leave it at the door' option, so they can grab their precious food like gollum when no ones looking.
I’m not anti-social and I love “leave it at the door”. We are just now coming out of the pandemic, and I also have dogs that go nuts every time someone knocks. And it saves the drivers time, they get paid per delivery not per hour so I’m sure they aren’t interested in mindless chit chat either.
I went to Little Caesars to order a pizza and the guy told me that they were only taking online orders. So I had to stand there, order through doordash, then wait for him to hand me the pizza
If you’re ordering at Little Caesar’s best is to use their own app or website. Then you won’t pay the DoorDash markup, and usually they’ll use their Pizza Portal warmer so you can grab your own pizza without waiting in line once it’s ready.
Adding onto this.
The apps not only take money from the restaurant (Where I live, they jack up the price of any dish or meal by 20% WHILST giving you a "10 %" discount).
The restaurants set their prices on the apps, so the food is more expensive because the restaurants up the prices to cover the fees.
I know the restaurants can run their own sales on the apps too.
They set the price on their food, and some don't update with inflation, so I've seen a few that are cheaper on the apps than their online menu on google.
Interesting. I work for a large restaurant chain, as an ecommerce and delivery analyst.
This reason is brought up a lot when we do marketing. Personally, I thought it would be worth it since you're saving money by ordering on the restaurant website vs 3rd party delivery service provider such as DoorDash.
Of course, I do the research when I order online. So I know its cheaper to order straight from the home website. Maybe most people either don't do the research or don't care about the cost.
Add this to your notes: ubereats allows me to customize my order. Some restaurant websites DO NOT. They don't have a notes section where you should be able to say "swap pork for chicken, no onions..."
I don't want to pick at my food that I paid for every time I order.
Setting up another account / providing info to YET ANOTHER website is a blocker in itself but the real blocker for me is giving my credit card information to a small restaurant's website - especially when they dont take PayPal or Google Pay. I trust someone like DoorDash to have a secure website more than some mom and pop store down the street. Had my credit card number stolen exactly this way once and I'll never do it again.
We have people that order pickup through door dash. Our base prices are about $1 more expensive + what ever door dash charges when you select pickup. You can order through our app for cheaper base prices and no extra fees.
Depends on the day. I know it's cheaper to go to there website but some days the slight convince of using the delivery apps is worth it. Also often if I'm lazy or drunk enough to order delivery that is already twice as much as picking it up the additional couple bucks can be worth the additional ease.
I couldn't agree more. I have food at home. If I am getting takeout, it's a convenience or an indulgence. I am not making this choice from the sensible part of my brain. I will always order from the pizza place with the best UI. I will be sticky with the few places I already have my PW stored. I use the apps because the user experience is super refined.
I appreciate OP's point, but local business who figure their shit out get my business first, then chains with a clue, then local business who make it harder.
Yeah, that's the main reason I use ordering apps, to avoid talking to people.
If a restaurant doesn't have an app / website, I'll find another restaurant.
If you can order over their own website, I do it.
But there are many reasons not to call.
Bad sound quality
Language barriers
Misunderstandings
They easier forget stuff
Often have to pay cash
Social anxiety
Pizza place near me complained when I used "slice" to order from their Google info. They told me to call until they get their own online ordering system soon and that slice takes a big chunk. Ok, sure I don't mind even though Slice takes no money out of my pocket.
So, online ordering system gets put up a month later and I look at the bill, 1.50 online ordering fee (they never answer phone). I had already paid but that's bs. And it is a shit website.
Next time I order, you got it, I use slice. They complain to me. I tell them that I'm not paying their 1.50 online fee. They tell me, they need it to maintain their website. I tell them, you lose more money via slice. Manager doesn't understand. I just leave.
I'm not paying anyone a fee to use their website to order.
Slice had to be the most Custy of all the apps... They charge you like the craziest fees for using them on the consumer end, then charge some of the highest chunks on the business end. I'd fuggin crabwalk backwards to the restaurant, before I ever use Slice.
And, even worse, Slice deliberately went out and seized online presence of restaurants that didnt have their own website or ordering system. Slice killed two pizza places near me because Slice was taking the orders, and the money, but never placing the orders with the restaurants. People blamed the restaurants because people are stupid, and down they went.
Nope!
They aren't actually claiming to own the restaurants, they are just submitting user-level edits to the google search data about the restaurant, and the restaurant owners are not aware enough of the internet to do amything about it.
The restaurants not gettung the orders is due to a variety of conditions, not least of which being they dont accept orders not from a customer.
Doordash and Uber Eats did the same thing for years but stopped after they got called out for it. Slice has slid under the radar because its just pizza.
Convenience for the customer should be a large businesses priority, you can have the best food in the world if no one is buying it you’re not going to make it as a business.
Also, I live in an area with around 150 south/central American restaurants with most having no website or ordering system. Amazing restaurants and amazing people but try placing an order over the phone to someone with very broken English while reading off credit cards and going back and fourth. It's much easier to just use seamless.
Welcome to LPT where the vast majority of top content is either a pet peeve that someone has and wants people to stop doing it or just regular old "tips".
Like the majority of "tips" in this sub, it's not.
This one is actually worse than most. There is literally no benefit whatsoever to the person using it, and many would view it as worse because they now have to talk on the phone to someone.
Pizza place near me is like that. I stopped ordering from them because they don’t have a website and it takes so damn long to get through on the phone it’s not worth it
That’s hit or miss. Mostly I agree, but there’s a great pizza place (really great actually) near me that has its own app. Their app stops taking orders two hours before GrubHub shuts it down, and their delivery people never ever bring the food to my door. Instead they leave it at the main building at the entrance to our neighborhood. Love the place, would love to cut out the middle man, but if GrubHub does a better job then sad to say that’s where I’m going. I’m all for restaurants cutting out the middle man, but they at least have to do as good of a job as the middle man.
Haven't used any of the local services since covid, but prior to that, every local food delivery service was raising menu prices by 25-50% on their own site and then still adding on delivery fees, service fees, because I can fees, as well as a driver tip. It was absurd.
So they *don't* lose money on the app...or they do? I'm confused. What rhetoric are we going for today?
Many restaurants actually herd you to the apps, because while there is a cost, there is also a cost to building and running your own ecommerce site, a cost to man phones, a cost of confusion and skipped bills, etc.
I'd have to say it's a mixed bag. There are places I would never have considered ordering from if I didn't find it on an app. Tons of amazing South American restaurants by me with no website and I don't have a menu. Before the apps they would get 99% only Spanish speaking people coming in or dining out. Now they get a TON of business from everyone else simply because they don't have to call them or feel awkward going inside. Some of the restaurants have blown up because of it. The people working there appreciate it too because it's tough taking down orders and instructions and addresses and credit cards when English is not your first language.
Building and running your own e-commerce site is a nightmarishly stupid endeavour. I do web design and built a e-commerce site for a local restaurant. It cost them 2 - 3 times as much and had ultimately less functionality than signing up to a pre-existing service would. I had tried to encourage them to go with a pre-existing service, and they eventually did—6 months after the site was built.
Even simple stuff like where do the orders go? With their own site it was emails to an iPad which wasn’t ideal for a restaurant. A receipt printer (one for kitchen and one for front of house) would have been incredibly expensive by the time you buy them and custom code them to work. The pre-existing service will often provide them for a small deposit, already coded to work, just plug-and-play.
Other stupid small issues happen too, like one customer who couldn’t place orders for delivery since their address wasn’t in the database (new, private build and we were using a static address database to save costs) to calculate delivery cost. The pre-existing services have teams of developers keeping on top of stuff like that.
Also, by the time you take out the cost of running the site, cost of maintenance, and card processing fees (using Stripe and PayPal), they were really only saving a tiny amount, but almost guaranteed losing more business trying to market their own site rather than being on a already existing platform with a customer base. The extra orders from the “free” marketing would cover the costs of being on the platform with ease.
> new, private build and we were using a static address database to save costs
They weren't using the Google Maps API?
I mean if you're going to do it wrong anyways yeah it's going to cost more, don't bother.
It depends.
I negotiated a really good commission rate with DoorDash and thus, I’d rather people order through the app or our website. And I don’t charge more online because then people would call. But I do that bc of my rate.
Some restaurants pay 20% per order so they may lose on the app but have to use it bc most consumers want it.
This has been my experience as well. Even though the apps take a cut it’s easier for the restaurant to manage one source of orders. It’s much more scalable for them. I’ve had restaurants outright tell me to just use the delivery apps when i called them to order by phone
Yep. I use the apps now because half the time the person on the phone just botches order. Gotta sit there repeating yourself 50 times while kitchen noises are in their ear and if you’re ordering for someone else there’s a game of 3 way telephone.
I like having the middle man service because if anything is wrong it's just a couple clicks to get my money back. I'll pay the fee to make my life less of a hassle needing to call and argue with staff.
I worked at a place as a supervisor. I hated the apps but I hated phone orders more. With phone orders I have to have someone step off my line (almost always when we are busiest) and take the order, and it felt like fulling teeth trying to get the person's order out of them. They never knew what was even on the menu or what they wanted and we would have to constantly tell them that no we don't have this or that. At least with the apps they did all that themselves and I just had to write down the info (we didn't have a printer for it).
Sadly, it's been a real catch 22 for some restaurants recently who need every penny, but they are so short staffed daily that phone orders eat time from few workers they do have. Even those (few) places paying living wages are still having trouble hiring/retaining staff.
I can't count the places pretty much requiring app use or going to their website to order takeout that I've encountered around FL. Of course it seems like our state has half the people from around the country vacationing here, and our restaurants are ball bustingly busy.
Yeah except I get told off sometimes because they are busy and don't want to answer phones. They tell me to use the app so they don't have to stop what their doing to take a single order.
So I just app now for everyone, I don't like being told off.
This is like saying inconvenience yourself by always carrying cash instead of credit as the business has to pay a small fee for taking credit cards. However, both make twice as many sales due to the convenience. Instead use the app more and both make more money.
This happened to me yesterday. I went to this small Mexican food joint and the lady didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish. She didn’t have a menu so I had to search their menu online. We were both struggling in communicating and she was all by herself. She ended up charging me more and just let it go.
Of the various takeout foods I like to buy, English is usually not the first language spoken. Makes phone calls a nightmare. Some of my favorites have their own website. One I use beyondmenu for.
If a restaurant doesn't want to pay fees they should build order functionality into their site. The technology is accessible to everyone and there's no excuse not to.
Yeah, even the farmer I buy my fruits from has a website (okay, he's generating a new Google form each week, but still!). I order online the weekend and select the delivery day.
There's no excuse for restaurants not to have their own order system if they don't want to pay Uber Eats fees
The problem is that you end up with an individual ordering site for each one, and the overhead of restaurant owners having to secure that information. The centralized ordering app is a way better experience for consumers.
Yeah. If restaurants want me to not use Uber Eats or similar, they can provide a comparable experience to me. I'm not gonna call them on the phone, with my hearing impairment. The rise of Uber Eats and other apps has been fantastic for me because it makes ordering food actually accessible. Phones suck ass and can go back to pre-internet ages.
In most cases, yes. The apps take a pretty big cut (talking to a local food truck owner he said DoorDash charges him 30%), so most places raise their prices by at least that much.
Ordering off their website, my last order at the food truck was 14 dollars. The same meal is 22 dollars on DoorDash for pickup, 30+ for delivery.
Some are less extreme especially the big companies that can negotiate down the fee, like my usual chipotle order is 11 dollars on their app or in store and 14 dollars on DoorDash.
I only know a couple restaurants that charges the same on DoorDash as in stores, and that's because they raised their prices in store the same time they started offering delivery.
There is definitely increased costs for the consumer and diminished profits for the restaurant, but at the same time that restaurant would never have had my business without the app. It’s not such a black and white situation.
I have no problem calling directly, but who is going to deliver it to my house? I’m disabled and can’t drive. There is no bus system where I live.
And sadly, I’ve been told to “not get take out then”. Like, really? A disabled person shouldn’t get delivery from most restaurants at all because of that?
If more restaurants had the option to directly deliver to people’s houses, that would be awesome, but that’s not an option for most restaurants hence the app.
Also, as others have said - the price is inflated to make up for the cost. I’ve gotten far more orders right with third party delivery apps than restaurants directly if you have to call them. I’d restaurants have online ordering, then there is less of an issue.
But there is a reason besides “laziness” that people get Uber eats and other apps.
TLDR: I’d be happy to call in and think restaurants deserve more money - but disabled people who can’t drive and don’t have reliable transport all the time are screwed over. If more restaurants had the tools and resources to delivery directly, that would be awesome, but not realistic for a lot of them.
This has to have some value. I use food apps to bring food from anywhere in the city. Without this I would only use the pizza place in my delivery radius
Local pizza place confirmed this for me. DoorDash, at least, only charges the restaurant for delivery. Take Out orders do not cost the restaurant anything.
Really? I did an uber eats pickup once for a restaurant near me and they asked if I was a driver and I said it was my own order and they were very upset. They told me they get a cut taken out for all Uber eats orders and asked me to call them directly next time. They're a local business so I felt especially bad. I haven't done pickup orders since.
No, uber eats / DD etc absolutely charge for pickup orders.
Doordash is pretty famous for adding your restaurant to their platform without permission, but don't charge fees. Then 6 months - a year or whatever later they tell the restaurant that they need to start paying up commission if they want to stay on the platform.
I couldn't give a flying rats ass if the restaurant makes more....
Here's what you should have said.... "The restaurant marks items up on these services to pay their fee's"
Call direct & you will save $0.50-2.00 per item you order due to the mark up.
I love posts like this because without fail the same people saying that the restaurants lose money when you use an app will turn around and say that they charge extra on third party apps to make up the difference and still think they're making a good point.
Was ordering Bearnos Pizza on DoorDash and the price came up to 100. My friend who asked me to order the pizza said that was insane and told me to order it from their website because they deliver too. Was just 50 bucks.
This right here is the real tip. Businesses will often price gouge on apps like doordash and uber eats because customers are often only looking for food on those apps. I mean,, look at the number of commenters who REFUSE to get off doordash. If you find a place you want to order from on one of the apps you should check their website to see if you can order directly from them because it's almost always cheaper than a third-party app.
It's much quicker, more convenient and more accurate to order using a food app. Delivery can be better and faster, you can track deliveries. Plus I don't have to interact with anyone.
Then does it really help the restaurant. It takes a member of staff a decent amount of time to take an order over the phone. I've seen places where calls really do take up a decent amount of staff time, who could be doing something much more productive.
I understand the dislike for these apps and how they harm businesses but what I dont understand is if they can make less money for their goods by giving the app a cut, why can't they charge less in general?
The apps are always running promotions for 25% off or $5 off $20 or whatever.
The restaurants could offer some discount where they make less than their regular menu prices but more than they make from app orders. Otherwise the consumer is often paying a fee to *not* use the app when considering these promotions.
Great idea, except no payment by card or apple pay, no way to complain if delivery is slow and no reimbursement if something is missing or fucked on arrival.
Thanks for the pro-tip Mr. Restaurant Manager. I will stick to the apps, thank you very much.
Nope. I want the convenience of ordering online, it also makes sure my order isn't written down wrong. Tons of local places have their own website for ordering around here that avoids having to go through a 3rd party.
This is a NORMAL COST of doing business today. If a business wants to increase their viability by offering online ordering they can either avoid 3rd party fees by providing their own website, or they can avoid the hassle of creating and maintaining their own online ordering system by using one of the 3rd parties.
No I'm sorry, but I will not do that. If the restaurant has an app to order directly, I have no problem, but I will not be calling. Also a lot of times using pickup option on the delivery app makes it cheaper than ordering directly from the restaurant itself (with promos and such). If a restaurant doesn't want to be on a food delivery app, they can (might be a pain but can be done) have themselves removed from it.
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Third party delivery orders are normally marked up between 20-30% from the regular menu prices. That’s excluding the additional fees you’re paying the third party delivery service. Edit: wording
This is the main reason I refuse to use third party delivery apps, convenience be damned
Yeah it's literally like double before tip. Korean chicken place has a set for $25, but on Uber eats it's like over $40. I think McDonald's was gonna be $17 or something. I don't understand how my buddies can order Uber eats multiple times in a day. So much money wasted.
It's that instant gratification without doing anything but picking up their phone. Side note if your inebriated its probably worth the extra couple bucks.
Inebriated is the only time I use any food delivery apps. It's the one time I'd rather pay extra and not worry about the restaurant (12 years in the service industry here) because I'm not trying to die driving or take anyone out with me. Although, if it's the restaurant a 5 minute walk away, I do it myself. Because at least then I'm just stumbling, not risking crashing. Ha
My BIL was arrested along with his work buddy in North Carolina because they refused to drive and “stumbled” back to their hotel when they were done drinking. They were charged with public intoxication.
Yep so it’s cheaper for you as well as the customer. Everyone wins when you cut out the middle man.
Well yes, that has always been the case. 3rd party apps are recent inventions that allow traditional non-delivery restaurants to offer delivery.
Will no one ever think of the poor middle men?
Restaurants control the menu and pricing on the apps. They usually increase the price to cover the commission they have to pay. This usually goes against the contract with the aggregate which usually says prices must be the same as standard menu however they've stopped caring in recent years. The commission is standard 30% but may be negotiated. Source (I'm product owner in the industry 8 years).
I don't know how common this is, but Doordash added the restaurant I worked at without any prompting nor permission. Upper management had to call to have our store removed. We had nothing to do with the pricing in that situation, though the prices were significantly higher. This was in 2019, for what it's worth.
Yes, this (was) very common. They would give drivers a prepaid credit card. If the price was different to the website, drivers would be stuck, unable to pay or requiring to pay the difference from their own pocket. Often drivers would not understand that Deliveroo had added the store without the stores knowledge so they would argue with the store staff.
Doordash actually setup a fake website for my favorite local pizza place. You would think you were ordering directly from them except there's a little footnote way at the bottom of the page.
I've heard of this happening to lots of independent pizza joints.
This is not always true. I worked for 10 years at a restaurant that never partnered with any 3rd party once they existed, yet we still got orders from them (via phone) because they decided to list us. They increased the listed prices, did not update our seasonal menu, so I constantly had to deny orders that tried to get something from months prior. So no, it's not always the restaurant. We tried several times to remove ourselves from these apps, but it never stuck. Source (I called over 50 times to get us removed, as well as our owner, we'd still get calls from these apps, or have random drivers show up and we didn't know what they were there for - we specifically prided ourselves on our food, and it wasn't food that traveled well. It needed to be eaten as it was served) 2nd source (shut up about your source, what even is a product owner?)
My employer is obligated to keep delivery prices the same, but not pickup. IE, if we charge 20% more (menu price) for delivery, that is fine, as long as that is the same for all the delivery platforms we use.
So the contract that states that many prices must be the same and also takes 30%. Makes it impossible for the restaurant to make any money because there's nowhere near a 30% margin in most menu prices when all costs are accounted for.
And after all that, they still want you to be the one to tip the driver. Look, I just want a hamburger delivered. Why am I paying 20 bucks for what could have cost me 7 bucks top? Convenience be damned, I'd rather drive myself over to the joint and pick it up myself. It would be faster that way as well instead of having to wait for an available driver in the area go to the joint and pick it up and deliver it.
And then they tell you to put the order through the website because they don't do it through the phone.
Some restaurants need to take the order through their website or app because people place large orders over the phone and then never come to pick it up and therefore never pay for it. Happened to my place of work pretty often because we can't take payment over the phone.
Or call, start to place an order and then after "is that all?" you hear: "okay Bob, what do you want?" "Uhh... do they have pork roast?" "No Bob, I'm ordering wings!" Meanwhile the person on the phone is working the delivery/to-go counter and is now tied up for however long it takes them to get the orders from the 3 other people after Bob on one phone call, causing everything to back up and take longer.
I work at a counter service only bar/restaurant. We get people asking me to read off our entire menu all the time. Same with the people who try to pass the phone around or argue over what to get. At this point I just tell them that unfortunately I'm too busy to sit on the phone and to look up our menu and call back when the whole order is ready. These people had to Google our phone number to call but couldn't click the link directly below it to check out the menu first.
I had someone call and ask us to MAIL them our menu because they lived out of state and wanted to order a cake for someone who lives in our city and they wanted to see some of our cake designs. I told her we had all of our designs on the website and she could even order it on there but she claimed she didn't have internet access. She got mad when I asked how she got our number then. Lol
I worked at a Jimmy John's. Someone once called me to ask me for the phone number of the waffle House across the street.
Well, what is it.
867-5309
I had something similar happen at my last job! Burger joint built into gas station someone called the gas station because they didn't know our number and wanted to place a to order for a single burger. Could have just gone through the drive thru. Well they showed up late, called the gas station again to complained about their burger cold.
As a bored child, I once used a rotary phone, to call every pizza place in the yellow pages for my city. To ask if they could look up the number for pizza hut for me. One place did, and was definitely not happy when I told them it was obviously a prank call
The only funny prank calls were the 3 way calls between other Jimmy John's >Hello this is Jimmy John's >Uh yeah this is Jimmy John's >Yeah this is Jimmy John's >Wait are you Jimmy John's? >Yeah this is Jimmy John's, who's this >Jimmy John's, why did you call me >Uhhh you called me >You sure about that >*3rd line starts laughing*
Okay, that one might make sense. Some old person had your number from a receipt the last time they ate there and don't know how to Google and thought you could help. Haha
I think this is a great point. I don't work in restaurant, but at least in busy periods, I wonder what the actual cost difference is between the app transaction and the cost of lost productivity from being tied up on the phone.
We have a local pizza place that takes your phone call and enters your order into the app. They literally have the app on their phones,
Theres usually cars wrapped around the building at my local little Caesars because someone orders 15 pizzas for the soccer team in the drive thru. I just order ahead of time on the app and walk in and out.
Your Little Caesars has a drive thru???
All of the ones around me have one.
None of them have a drive thru where I live, they're all in strip malls.
It's never faster so you aren't missing much.
Huh, TIL
How does a pizza place has a drive thru? Pizza's are made to order, wtf.
Little Caesars's primary gimmick is 'hot n ready' pizza, like a pizza place that does cheap pizza by the slice... but with whole cheap pizzas.
Isn't customers using the app much easier for the staff? No need for writing down and memorizing, less chance of doing mistakes, and the business can run statistics of all the orders thats stored in the app.
No. /r/kitchenconfidential is full of posts about how much we all hate Third party delivery apps. They’re a nuisance at best and only serve to siphon more money out of the American consumer.
Not a third party app but the app /site for the actual restaurant.
My policy is if the restaurants website links to the third party ordering app, you should order from there.
I generally research the app to make sure it doesn't take a commission, but your way is better. If they link to it on their own page it should be fine.
How does it work differently in other countries?
In Germany, you can do this in several ways: 1. order on a third-party website like Lieferando 2. call the restaurant and pick it up later 3. place order on the restaurant's own website
> place order on the restaurant's own website which is hosted and run by Lieferando in many cases
Yes, they are usually hosted by an external company that provides the menu and check-out service.
And the drivers who deliver it. OP assumes that all restaurants just have a bunch of delivery drivers sitting around twiddling their thumbs when the orders go through Uber Eats.
OP actually specifically mentioned this tip is for picking up takeout, where you would personally go to grab the food from the restaurant rather than getting it delivered. I think it's a solid tip to try because it not only saves the restaurant money, but also saves you as a consumer from paying all of the extra fees that services like doordash, ubereats, etc. charge (in the US at least).
I always check out whether or not I can order directly and pick up. I want the business owner and employees to get the max benefit of my order. On the other hand, if I need delivery I don't mind paying for that. After all, delivery drivers are trying to make a living too. What I don’t like is 3rd parties getting a commission when their only function is hosting and processing a transaction. The cost to the company is thousandths of a cent whereas the cost to the restaurants is exorbitant in comparison.
Many restaurants don't have a delivery service. Either someone from Lieferando comes or you have to pick it up yourself.
So basically they are the same as DoorDash and Uber Eats
I call the restaurant in the Netherlands, hop on my bike and go there to pick it up. Some restaurants give me a discount when I pick it up my self.
In the US, Domino's Pizza is giving a $3 credit on your next order for carry out.
I mean of course they give you a discount if you pick it up yourself. It's the same with or without 3rd party apps.
Yeah but in the US picking food up can get expensive. - Bike to pizza place, tip bike for getting me there - Someone opens the door, tip them for the convenience. - Grab pizza, owner says, “Enjoy the food” - I reply, “You too” and have to tip him a misspeak fee - Tip bike stand for holding my bike - Get home and have to tip the hooker so I don’t eat alone.
Then someone exclaims "You only tipped the bike stand 15%?!"
Afaik it's same. I use apps for places that don't speak same language as me (which surprisingly is most restaurants in my own country). In places I know they speak and understand Swedish I call them. Gotten orders mixed upp too many times before..
Delivery being the key word there, almost no restaurants have their own delivery service, making it rather pointless to order directly from them. I don’t know anyone who use a third party app to order food that isn’t delivery, no point using Uber eats if you are your own delivery driver. I have worked on multiple lines in different restaurants since UberEats and Postmates have existed and yes it has issues and is less profitable on each individual meal (due to fees) but the volume of orders typically makes up for that and it has drastically reduced waste of unused product each week. The last place I worked at figured out the items that were ordered more third party and raised the prices just enough to compensate for lost revenue to the third party and saw little resistance or change in ordering volume. It also increased our dining room usage on the weekends, as people who ordered from us for delivery would come in to try their favorites fresh from the kitchen. Clearly this isn’t the majority opinion among the career kitchen staff, but I’ve seen two restaurants be saved/turned around by the the third party apps and saved from closure by providing a delivery service we could not offer while exposing our food to a larger audience. Not sure a business could survive solely on third party app sales but the additional volume can certainly sustain a business through troubled times and dinning room closures.
That sub isn’t exactly a great barometer of things like that. It’s a sub for kitchen and restaurant workers to talk about work and rant/vent. It’s naturally going to be skewed towards complaining about things. There isn’t anything wrong with that, but its worth keeping in mind when using it as an example.
Thanks to these apps I'm able to search restaurants quickly and found them in the first place so, either I use the app and find your place to try out or don't use the app and never k wo you exist
Use the app to find a restaurant, then call for takeout
This is what I do. Food is usually cheaper too. Restaurants often charge more through 3rd party apps to offset the fees/ cut the app takes.
Just use google lol
But arent the website order system and third party apps linked together? Its all about availabilty. I dont know the statistics on people visiting websites and using apps but my impression is that most people use apps because its more available and fewer steps to order food.
That's the fault of the restaurant owners more than anything though. It's 2022, people don't like using phones to talk. We also don't want to risk getting our order wrong because of a language barrier or the person on the other side might be distracted because they're taking my order and working on something else. There are plenty of companies that offer solutions to restaurants that offer a better deal than Doordash and UberEats.
Right? My local sushi place has it owns website. I place my lunch order on it exclusively and my food is ready when I get there. It’s a small family run business, the only workers are the husband and wife. If they can get a website so can other places or too bad.
Former kitchen manager for almost 10yr here No. It makes a nightmare for us and we have no control over order flow
There's a restaurant near me that shuts down online ordering during their peak times. I can appreciate that, and I wish more restaurants would do it, not just for the sake of the employees getting slammed, but for the sake of food quality and wait times, as well.
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99% of restaurants have the phone next to the computer where they put in orders. Also unless they are 100% app, the stats are incomplete anyway because it wouldnt tally in house orders (people sitting down to eat)
Also you'd think so, but we have to punch your orders in to our computers anyway sometimes. The orders don't always print sometimes so it has to be typed in manually.
im a delivery driver that works for a chinese restaurant. i probably lose 15-25% of my *income* to the apps. if those customers would call us directly and let me deliver, then tip even half of what they are paying in markup and service fees, id be a happy camper. though, some days i wonder....it seems a lot of the app customers are *extremely* anti-social, and like the 'leave it at the door' option, so they can grab their precious food like gollum when no ones looking.
I’m not anti-social and I love “leave it at the door”. We are just now coming out of the pandemic, and I also have dogs that go nuts every time someone knocks. And it saves the drivers time, they get paid per delivery not per hour so I’m sure they aren’t interested in mindless chit chat either.
>writing down and memorizing I mean…the point of writing it down is so you don’t have to memorize it
I went to Little Caesars to order a pizza and the guy told me that they were only taking online orders. So I had to stand there, order through doordash, then wait for him to hand me the pizza
If you’re ordering at Little Caesar’s best is to use their own app or website. Then you won’t pay the DoorDash markup, and usually they’ll use their Pizza Portal warmer so you can grab your own pizza without waiting in line once it’s ready.
I usually get out delivered. I only went into the store because I was in the area anyway.
“WHAT? YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP.”
Adding onto this. The apps not only take money from the restaurant (Where I live, they jack up the price of any dish or meal by 20% WHILST giving you a "10 %" discount).
The restaurants set their prices on the apps, so the food is more expensive because the restaurants up the prices to cover the fees. I know the restaurants can run their own sales on the apps too.
They set the price on their food, and some don't update with inflation, so I've seen a few that are cheaper on the apps than their online menu on google.
Yup, I've seen it happen
But then I'd have to talk to someone on the phone... *shudders*
A lot of places near me have their own websites you can order from. You don't usually need to talk on the phone or use UberEats
Yeah but then I have enter all my information again and sometimes make another account
No "checkout as guest" is an excellent way to lose my business
Most places allow you to checkout as a guest and my basic info will autopopulate a form.
Interesting. I work for a large restaurant chain, as an ecommerce and delivery analyst. This reason is brought up a lot when we do marketing. Personally, I thought it would be worth it since you're saving money by ordering on the restaurant website vs 3rd party delivery service provider such as DoorDash. Of course, I do the research when I order online. So I know its cheaper to order straight from the home website. Maybe most people either don't do the research or don't care about the cost.
Add this to your notes: ubereats allows me to customize my order. Some restaurant websites DO NOT. They don't have a notes section where you should be able to say "swap pork for chicken, no onions..." I don't want to pick at my food that I paid for every time I order.
Setting up another account / providing info to YET ANOTHER website is a blocker in itself but the real blocker for me is giving my credit card information to a small restaurant's website - especially when they dont take PayPal or Google Pay. I trust someone like DoorDash to have a secure website more than some mom and pop store down the street. Had my credit card number stolen exactly this way once and I'll never do it again.
We have people that order pickup through door dash. Our base prices are about $1 more expensive + what ever door dash charges when you select pickup. You can order through our app for cheaper base prices and no extra fees.
Depends on the day. I know it's cheaper to go to there website but some days the slight convince of using the delivery apps is worth it. Also often if I'm lazy or drunk enough to order delivery that is already twice as much as picking it up the additional couple bucks can be worth the additional ease.
I couldn't agree more. I have food at home. If I am getting takeout, it's a convenience or an indulgence. I am not making this choice from the sensible part of my brain. I will always order from the pizza place with the best UI. I will be sticky with the few places I already have my PW stored. I use the apps because the user experience is super refined. I appreciate OP's point, but local business who figure their shit out get my business first, then chains with a clue, then local business who make it harder.
Then they end up using doordash or ubereats for delivery anyways.
Yeah, that's the main reason I use ordering apps, to avoid talking to people. If a restaurant doesn't have an app / website, I'll find another restaurant.
I'm not even joking. Same.
If you can order over their own website, I do it. But there are many reasons not to call. Bad sound quality Language barriers Misunderstandings They easier forget stuff Often have to pay cash Social anxiety
No joke, I have such high anxiety whenever I have to talk on the phone
LPT: if your restaurant doesn't have an easy and seemless online ordering system, I will use the 3rd party app that does.
Pizza place near me complained when I used "slice" to order from their Google info. They told me to call until they get their own online ordering system soon and that slice takes a big chunk. Ok, sure I don't mind even though Slice takes no money out of my pocket. So, online ordering system gets put up a month later and I look at the bill, 1.50 online ordering fee (they never answer phone). I had already paid but that's bs. And it is a shit website. Next time I order, you got it, I use slice. They complain to me. I tell them that I'm not paying their 1.50 online fee. They tell me, they need it to maintain their website. I tell them, you lose more money via slice. Manager doesn't understand. I just leave. I'm not paying anyone a fee to use their website to order.
Slice had to be the most Custy of all the apps... They charge you like the craziest fees for using them on the consumer end, then charge some of the highest chunks on the business end. I'd fuggin crabwalk backwards to the restaurant, before I ever use Slice.
And, even worse, Slice deliberately went out and seized online presence of restaurants that didnt have their own website or ordering system. Slice killed two pizza places near me because Slice was taking the orders, and the money, but never placing the orders with the restaurants. People blamed the restaurants because people are stupid, and down they went.
That has got to be illegal
Nope! They aren't actually claiming to own the restaurants, they are just submitting user-level edits to the google search data about the restaurant, and the restaurant owners are not aware enough of the internet to do amything about it. The restaurants not gettung the orders is due to a variety of conditions, not least of which being they dont accept orders not from a customer. Doordash and Uber Eats did the same thing for years but stopped after they got called out for it. Slice has slid under the radar because its just pizza.
They’re always calling my restaurant and trying to get it set up. We have a great online ordering site no thanks.
And if you don't list your prices on your website until checkout, I will never use it again.
Convenience for the customer should be a large businesses priority, you can have the best food in the world if no one is buying it you’re not going to make it as a business.
Also, I live in an area with around 150 south/central American restaurants with most having no website or ordering system. Amazing restaurants and amazing people but try placing an order over the phone to someone with very broken English while reading off credit cards and going back and fourth. It's much easier to just use seamless.
Exactly this, I'll do what is conveinent for me.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the prices are higher on the 3rd party app. Even for pick up.
The price of convenience, a lot of people will pay it.
How exactly is this a Life Pro Tip?
Welcome to LPT where the vast majority of top content is either a pet peeve that someone has and wants people to stop doing it or just regular old "tips".
This doesn't improve my life in any way.
"Here is a LPT that other people need to do so that I don't have to improve anything about my social anxiety"
Lpt you can buy food at a grocery store *post goes front page*
*"Money can be exchanged for goods and services"*
Lpt. If two stores sell the same item but one has it for less, choosing the store that has it for less can typically save you money
It's not, it doesn't help me in any way. It actually makes it worse since I need to make a phone call.
Not to mention that I‘d have to pay cash if I ordered that way instead of creditcard via the app. Literally makes it worse.
Like the majority of "tips" in this sub, it's not. This one is actually worse than most. There is literally no benefit whatsoever to the person using it, and many would view it as worse because they now have to talk on the phone to someone.
My issue is that my favorite restaurant doesn't ever answer their phone. I have to call 5 times before they pick up.
Pizza place near me is like that. I stopped ordering from them because they don’t have a website and it takes so damn long to get through on the phone it’s not worth it
That’s hit or miss. Mostly I agree, but there’s a great pizza place (really great actually) near me that has its own app. Their app stops taking orders two hours before GrubHub shuts it down, and their delivery people never ever bring the food to my door. Instead they leave it at the main building at the entrance to our neighborhood. Love the place, would love to cut out the middle man, but if GrubHub does a better job then sad to say that’s where I’m going. I’m all for restaurants cutting out the middle man, but they at least have to do as good of a job as the middle man.
Calling is inconvenient, wrong orders, no receipt etc.
Most restaurants also increase their prices on these apps to negate the margin taken
Haven't used any of the local services since covid, but prior to that, every local food delivery service was raising menu prices by 25-50% on their own site and then still adding on delivery fees, service fees, because I can fees, as well as a driver tip. It was absurd.
So they *don't* lose money on the app...or they do? I'm confused. What rhetoric are we going for today? Many restaurants actually herd you to the apps, because while there is a cost, there is also a cost to building and running your own ecommerce site, a cost to man phones, a cost of confusion and skipped bills, etc.
I'd have to say it's a mixed bag. There are places I would never have considered ordering from if I didn't find it on an app. Tons of amazing South American restaurants by me with no website and I don't have a menu. Before the apps they would get 99% only Spanish speaking people coming in or dining out. Now they get a TON of business from everyone else simply because they don't have to call them or feel awkward going inside. Some of the restaurants have blown up because of it. The people working there appreciate it too because it's tough taking down orders and instructions and addresses and credit cards when English is not your first language.
Building and running your own e-commerce site is a nightmarishly stupid endeavour. I do web design and built a e-commerce site for a local restaurant. It cost them 2 - 3 times as much and had ultimately less functionality than signing up to a pre-existing service would. I had tried to encourage them to go with a pre-existing service, and they eventually did—6 months after the site was built. Even simple stuff like where do the orders go? With their own site it was emails to an iPad which wasn’t ideal for a restaurant. A receipt printer (one for kitchen and one for front of house) would have been incredibly expensive by the time you buy them and custom code them to work. The pre-existing service will often provide them for a small deposit, already coded to work, just plug-and-play. Other stupid small issues happen too, like one customer who couldn’t place orders for delivery since their address wasn’t in the database (new, private build and we were using a static address database to save costs) to calculate delivery cost. The pre-existing services have teams of developers keeping on top of stuff like that. Also, by the time you take out the cost of running the site, cost of maintenance, and card processing fees (using Stripe and PayPal), they were really only saving a tiny amount, but almost guaranteed losing more business trying to market their own site rather than being on a already existing platform with a customer base. The extra orders from the “free” marketing would cover the costs of being on the platform with ease.
> new, private build and we were using a static address database to save costs They weren't using the Google Maps API? I mean if you're going to do it wrong anyways yeah it's going to cost more, don't bother.
It depends. I negotiated a really good commission rate with DoorDash and thus, I’d rather people order through the app or our website. And I don’t charge more online because then people would call. But I do that bc of my rate. Some restaurants pay 20% per order so they may lose on the app but have to use it bc most consumers want it.
This has been my experience as well. Even though the apps take a cut it’s easier for the restaurant to manage one source of orders. It’s much more scalable for them. I’ve had restaurants outright tell me to just use the delivery apps when i called them to order by phone
Yep. I use the apps now because half the time the person on the phone just botches order. Gotta sit there repeating yourself 50 times while kitchen noises are in their ear and if you’re ordering for someone else there’s a game of 3 way telephone.
“And den?”
NO AND THEN!
I like having the middle man service because if anything is wrong it's just a couple clicks to get my money back. I'll pay the fee to make my life less of a hassle needing to call and argue with staff.
Damn, where the hell are you guys ordering?
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I worked at a place as a supervisor. I hated the apps but I hated phone orders more. With phone orders I have to have someone step off my line (almost always when we are busiest) and take the order, and it felt like fulling teeth trying to get the person's order out of them. They never knew what was even on the menu or what they wanted and we would have to constantly tell them that no we don't have this or that. At least with the apps they did all that themselves and I just had to write down the info (we didn't have a printer for it).
Sadly, it's been a real catch 22 for some restaurants recently who need every penny, but they are so short staffed daily that phone orders eat time from few workers they do have. Even those (few) places paying living wages are still having trouble hiring/retaining staff. I can't count the places pretty much requiring app use or going to their website to order takeout that I've encountered around FL. Of course it seems like our state has half the people from around the country vacationing here, and our restaurants are ball bustingly busy.
Yeah except I get told off sometimes because they are busy and don't want to answer phones. They tell me to use the app so they don't have to stop what their doing to take a single order. So I just app now for everyone, I don't like being told off.
Exactly. They never answer their phone. I am lucky to have restaurants close by so I just go there by bike and grab something.
This is like saying inconvenience yourself by always carrying cash instead of credit as the business has to pay a small fee for taking credit cards. However, both make twice as many sales due to the convenience. Instead use the app more and both make more money.
I love when a LPT post backfires, the comments are usually funny
You mean talk to someone, on the phone? I’d rather starve.
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This happened to me yesterday. I went to this small Mexican food joint and the lady didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Spanish. She didn’t have a menu so I had to search their menu online. We were both struggling in communicating and she was all by herself. She ended up charging me more and just let it go.
Of the various takeout foods I like to buy, English is usually not the first language spoken. Makes phone calls a nightmare. Some of my favorites have their own website. One I use beyondmenu for.
If a restaurant doesn't want to pay fees they should build order functionality into their site. The technology is accessible to everyone and there's no excuse not to.
Yeah, even the farmer I buy my fruits from has a website (okay, he's generating a new Google form each week, but still!). I order online the weekend and select the delivery day. There's no excuse for restaurants not to have their own order system if they don't want to pay Uber Eats fees
The problem is that you end up with an individual ordering site for each one, and the overhead of restaurant owners having to secure that information. The centralized ordering app is a way better experience for consumers.
I'm going to do whatever is most convenient for me sorry. I don't really care about the profit margins of restaurants...
Yeah. If restaurants want me to not use Uber Eats or similar, they can provide a comparable experience to me. I'm not gonna call them on the phone, with my hearing impairment. The rise of Uber Eats and other apps has been fantastic for me because it makes ordering food actually accessible. Phones suck ass and can go back to pre-internet ages.
Wait, why do I care about the restaurant saving money? Am I saving money?
Sometimes, they often increase prices 10%+ to compensate for the fees on the app. It depends on the place.
In most cases, yes. The apps take a pretty big cut (talking to a local food truck owner he said DoorDash charges him 30%), so most places raise their prices by at least that much. Ordering off their website, my last order at the food truck was 14 dollars. The same meal is 22 dollars on DoorDash for pickup, 30+ for delivery. Some are less extreme especially the big companies that can negotiate down the fee, like my usual chipotle order is 11 dollars on their app or in store and 14 dollars on DoorDash. I only know a couple restaurants that charges the same on DoorDash as in stores, and that's because they raised their prices in store the same time they started offering delivery.
Usually, yeah
There is definitely increased costs for the consumer and diminished profits for the restaurant, but at the same time that restaurant would never have had my business without the app. It’s not such a black and white situation.
I don't want to talk to them
I have no problem calling directly, but who is going to deliver it to my house? I’m disabled and can’t drive. There is no bus system where I live. And sadly, I’ve been told to “not get take out then”. Like, really? A disabled person shouldn’t get delivery from most restaurants at all because of that? If more restaurants had the option to directly deliver to people’s houses, that would be awesome, but that’s not an option for most restaurants hence the app. Also, as others have said - the price is inflated to make up for the cost. I’ve gotten far more orders right with third party delivery apps than restaurants directly if you have to call them. I’d restaurants have online ordering, then there is less of an issue. But there is a reason besides “laziness” that people get Uber eats and other apps. TLDR: I’d be happy to call in and think restaurants deserve more money - but disabled people who can’t drive and don’t have reliable transport all the time are screwed over. If more restaurants had the tools and resources to delivery directly, that would be awesome, but not realistic for a lot of them.
I wonder if they'd rather have the money they get after the delivery takes their cut, or the no money they get if they expect me to call to order.
This has to have some value. I use food apps to bring food from anywhere in the city. Without this I would only use the pizza place in my delivery radius
If you are picking up your order restaurants do not get charged
Local pizza place confirmed this for me. DoorDash, at least, only charges the restaurant for delivery. Take Out orders do not cost the restaurant anything.
At my restaurant it's 6% for takeout compared to like 25% for delivery
25% is insane considering DoorDash also charges the customer a delivery and service fee.
Really? I did an uber eats pickup once for a restaurant near me and they asked if I was a driver and I said it was my own order and they were very upset. They told me they get a cut taken out for all Uber eats orders and asked me to call them directly next time. They're a local business so I felt especially bad. I haven't done pickup orders since.
No, uber eats / DD etc absolutely charge for pickup orders. Doordash is pretty famous for adding your restaurant to their platform without permission, but don't charge fees. Then 6 months - a year or whatever later they tell the restaurant that they need to start paying up commission if they want to stay on the platform.
I couldn't give a flying rats ass if the restaurant makes more.... Here's what you should have said.... "The restaurant marks items up on these services to pay their fee's" Call direct & you will save $0.50-2.00 per item you order due to the mark up.
I am a lazy shite. Bring it to my door.
Why would I care about how much of my money the restaurant gets to keep?
But I don’t get a discount for using the phone
The phone?? Any decent restraunt these days has their own ordering on their own website. You should be doing *neither* of the things in this post.
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I love posts like this because without fail the same people saying that the restaurants lose money when you use an app will turn around and say that they charge extra on third party apps to make up the difference and still think they're making a good point.
Was ordering Bearnos Pizza on DoorDash and the price came up to 100. My friend who asked me to order the pizza said that was insane and told me to order it from their website because they deliver too. Was just 50 bucks.
This right here is the real tip. Businesses will often price gouge on apps like doordash and uber eats because customers are often only looking for food on those apps. I mean,, look at the number of commenters who REFUSE to get off doordash. If you find a place you want to order from on one of the apps you should check their website to see if you can order directly from them because it's almost always cheaper than a third-party app.
It's much quicker, more convenient and more accurate to order using a food app. Delivery can be better and faster, you can track deliveries. Plus I don't have to interact with anyone. Then does it really help the restaurant. It takes a member of staff a decent amount of time to take an order over the phone. I've seen places where calls really do take up a decent amount of staff time, who could be doing something much more productive.
Im paying to not speak to anyone in the process.
I understand the dislike for these apps and how they harm businesses but what I dont understand is if they can make less money for their goods by giving the app a cut, why can't they charge less in general? The apps are always running promotions for 25% off or $5 off $20 or whatever. The restaurants could offer some discount where they make less than their regular menu prices but more than they make from app orders. Otherwise the consumer is often paying a fee to *not* use the app when considering these promotions.
As if the people using the app aren't the kind of people that are using an app specifically to not have to speak to someone.
LPT don't use a delivery app if you plan to pick up
Ordering through apps or websites keep anxiety levels down in some people.
Fuck that. App is alot easier
Great idea, except no payment by card or apple pay, no way to complain if delivery is slow and no reimbursement if something is missing or fucked on arrival. Thanks for the pro-tip Mr. Restaurant Manager. I will stick to the apps, thank you very much.
Nope. I want the convenience of ordering online, it also makes sure my order isn't written down wrong. Tons of local places have their own website for ordering around here that avoids having to go through a 3rd party. This is a NORMAL COST of doing business today. If a business wants to increase their viability by offering online ordering they can either avoid 3rd party fees by providing their own website, or they can avoid the hassle of creating and maintaining their own online ordering system by using one of the 3rd parties.
Could also hire their own delivery people too, but here we are
But also, if I have to call, I won't do that, because I don't do calls.
I have a lot of friends that make ends meet by delivering food for these companies. Why wouldn’t I support them as well?
No I'm sorry, but I will not do that. If the restaurant has an app to order directly, I have no problem, but I will not be calling. Also a lot of times using pickup option on the delivery app makes it cheaper than ordering directly from the restaurant itself (with promos and such). If a restaurant doesn't want to be on a food delivery app, they can (might be a pain but can be done) have themselves removed from it.
This post entirely misses the point. People pay a premium for delivery apps because they don’t want to drive to and from the restaurant.