Hacker News Reader

Comment by austhrow743 | Hacker News Reader

20-30% to not have to have a dining area and be in a trendy location sounds pretty good.

You just described a ghost kitchen, a restaurant without a store front. Honestly, I don’t like delivered food that much. It’s usually cold, often gets screwed up (e.g. regular Pepsi instead of Diet Pepsi), and maybe low quality in general. I’m already hesitant to order with Deliveroo most of the time anyway, and if prices go up, I might just finally learn to cook.

Deliveroo pulled out of Germany when it was decided that their drivers weren't self employed. In their absence, we were left with a terrible service called Lieferando ("deliver-ando"), which were not more expensive, but have an unimpressive app, with little incentive to keep you updated on a timescale or deliver things in a very timely manner (leading to colder, soggier food).

However, in the last year or so, that's all changed (in Berlin at least) with the introduction of the Finnish "Wolt" (which everyone here is pronouncing like "volt", but come to think of it, perhaps should be pronounced the English way). Like lieferando, they have salaried employees, but the app is much more akin to the deliveroo experience, with people who are on-time and great pictures/food etc. Prices are comparable with what deliveroo had before.

I'm sure VC money has something to do with the ability to execute, but assuming that deliveroo had the same, it doesn't seem impossible to run a food delivery service with real employees without huge price hikes.

I hope they can keep making it work!

TBH, I find it pretty amazing that anyone with a semblance of a kitchen hasn't been cooking over the past year. I admittedly don't have a lot of good options around where I live but I haven't gotten delivery in years and don't get takeout--from my local pizza place--very often.

Sure, but you could always do that and be delivery-only without paying anyone. I think the service you're getting here is primarily the exposure of being on a popular platform.

That and them handling the order process.

So do it? I really don't see the problem. I get that Deliveroo puts you on their platform even if you don't agree (the apps where I live don't do this), but if that's the case the restaurant is still getting the full price for selling their food. The customer pays the extra 20%.

> The customer pays the extra 20%.

Which means they might order less food than they would have with lower prices. Or that they might decide it's too expensive, and order from another restaurant.

Some restaurant owners don't like this. It gives the impression that the restaurant is charging that extra money.

Yeah, there should be a regulation that lets restaurants opt-out, or enforces price transparency on the delivery company's app (must show both original price from the restaurant in addition to final price).

> but you could always do that and be delivery-only without paying anyone

Ok so if that's an option then what's the problem?! I don't get the fury here.

Restaurants are free to partner with delivery companies.

Restaurants are free to not partner with delivery companies.

Delivery companies are free to buy and resell product from restaurants and add their own markup.

Restaurants are free to decline to sell product to delivery companies who add their own markup.

Everyone can do what they want here.

> Delivery companies are free to buy and resell product from restaurants and add their own markup.

Which is fine. I think the problem is that they are representing themselves as if they are the restaurant, not a reseller. Customers might go to the website the delivery company setup (restaurant-name-location.com instead of restaurant-name.com or whatever their pattern is) instead of the restaurant's website, see the high prices, and decide to try a cheaper place.

A number of people don’t like it because the delivery company messes up the order (delivers cold, etc) and the restaurant takes the blame.

This situation is no different to any other resale situation - you address your complaint to the person your transaction was with.

A customer buys from a restaurant on a platform, gets the food served cold, and instead of blaming the platform for bad coordination, blames the restaurant for serving it cold, or blames the driver for serving it cold, often by publicly posting on the same platform which screwed their order, hence deflecting blame from the platform onto the driver or the restaurant.

Realistically people don’t do that. Last touch of any transaction gets all the blame.

> Last touch of any transaction gets all the blame.

That's exactly my point - and your last touch is the Deliveroo worker. So take it up with them. They can then take it up with the restaurant if it was the restaurant's fault, but that's their job as the reseller.

Only if, both options exist.

Option A - 100% for a dining area at a trendy location

Option B - 80% w/o dining area at a trendy location

There are many cases where people say it is Option B but Option A doesn't exist.

With on-premises service a restaurant must hire waiting staff and manage the tables (tablecloth, dishes, cutlery, etc).

Preparing food for takeaway actually saves a lot and that's why restaurants that traditionally offer takeaway in addition to on-premises service often offer 10-15% discount for takeway as a matter of course.

Deliveroo is not "robbing" restaurants if they charge 20%...

Are you sure the discount is not due to different taxes applying? In my country, there is a 19% tax on most goods and services, but only a 6% or so tax on food. Sitting down means you pay the high tax, and takeout means you pay the low tax.

It depends on the jurisdiction. In the UK I believe that hot food is taxed in the same way whether it is on-premises or takeaway.

Anyway, at least in the UK and some other EU countries there is no obligation to lower the price because tax is lower (since prices to consumers are inclusive of all taxes) so if tax is indeed lower it can be a bonus for the restaurant (on top of cost savings), which makes Deliveroo's fee even less of a "robbery".

Many of the restaurants on Deliveroo were/are already exclusively takeaways though. I think that in many cases these services have the whiff of rentier capitalism. A third party has inserted themselves into a situation where you previously dealt directly with the restaurant with the intent of extracting value by making both sides dependent on them.

The other factor here is the absurd losses these players are chasing. The capital being pumped in to prop them up feels like a hugely distorting factor that is hiding the actual costs of the sector and preventing new entrants/alternatives from entering the market.

The upside is convenience. I definitely prefer paying by card/web based ordering but I wonder if there's a way of providing the benefits of these services without handing control over to that middleman.

> Many of the restaurants on Deliveroo were/are already exclusively takeaways though.

That's not my impression, but the pandemic has had a radical effect.

> I wonder if there's a way of providing the benefits of these services without handing control over to that middleman.

There is but again this has a cost and if you're an independent restaurant it may make more sense to outsource all of this by using a platform. Some platforms allow you to only use them for handling online order taking and payments (Just Eat?) if you think handling delivery in-house makes sense (but I think it often does not).

> Some platforms allow you to only use them for handling online order taking and payments (Just Eat?)

Deliveroo allows this too, but frankly I'd happily pay a premium to have those restaurants deliver using Deliveroo rather than themselves, as when it's the restaurant themselves you lose visibility of how far along the delivery is in the app. As a result, for restaurants that deliver themselves that will count against them when I consider where I want to order from.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com