5 ms·

I recently canceled my membership after a year. I love the idea, and the food is good too, but the dish prices have skyrocketed recently. Now I know why. I l

I recently canceled my membership after a year. I love the idea, and the food is good too, but the dish prices have skyrocketed recently. Now I know why. I liked to order 4 or 5 dishes and eat them over the next couple days for lunch and dinner. It tastes way better than frozen food, and is better quality than prepared dishes I could pick up at the grocery. However, their model seems to actively punish ordering multiple dishes. They have raised dish prices rather than delivery fees, and their rewards program rewards you per order rather than for dollars spent. Regardless, $10 is a psychologically significant limit for me per meal, and while they used to have a number of dishes under this price point, very few are now.

Analemma_ 10y ago
And that's why all of these companies are going to go under: as soon as they start having to charge real prices, instead of the artificial, VC-funded promo prices, people bail. Because, whoa, food delivery is actually expensive. Did none of these companies check, before moving in to "disrupt" the restaurant industry, that there was actually anything to disrupt? Restaraunts are not lazy incumbents growing fat on their unchallenged dominance: it's a cutthroat business. And their costs are almost entirely the food and the labor, which are, for all practical purposes, fixed. There are no margins to steal from here.
- rhizome 10y ago
  They're not going to go under per se, because I think the customers are probably pretty valuable. I think a more vivid hint as to their future is in their choosing someone from Simply Hired as their new (7/16) CEO: positioning Munchery for acquisition in a crowded marketplace.
  - Analemma_ 10y ago
    Honestly, I don't agree that the customers are very valuable. There doesn't seem to be either loyalty or lock-in with these delivery startups: as soon as they raise their prices, people just uninstall the app and grab another one. I don't see anything worth acquiring here, so an IPO is pretty much it for an exit strategy, if they can last that long.
    - rhizome 10y ago
      Could be, but the fact remains that they chose a new CEO whose most recent experience was winding a company down into acquisition.
- M_Grey 10y ago
  As far as I can tell the problem is a series of disconnected motives. The VC's have money to burn and want to become the next level of rich, which requires striking gold, often in fields they have no real conception of. The "disruptors" also want to strike it rich, but they can do that just by getting the VC capital and chalking the devastating losses they wont' personally suffer up to "valuable experience". Then of course success isn't necessarily contingent on providing a reasonable service at a sustainable price... see: Uber.
moonka 10y ago
We used it very frequently for awhile, and than stopped as we got tired of the dishes they seem to rotate though. When we went to order again recently I was pretty surprised at the jump. One main and side seemed to cost about what we would have paid for 2 mains and a side before.

Analemma_ 10y ago

And that's why all of these companies are going to go under: as soon as they start having to charge real prices, instead of the artificial, VC-funded promo prices, people bail. Because, whoa, food delivery is actually expensive. Did none of these companies check, before moving in to "disrupt" the restaurant industry, that there was actually anything to disrupt? Restaraunts are not lazy incumbents growing fat on their unchallenged dominance: it's a cutthroat business. And their costs are almost entirely the food and the labor, which are, for all practical purposes, fixed. There are no margins to steal from here.

rhizome 10y ago
They're not going to go under per se, because I think the customers are probably pretty valuable. I think a more vivid hint as to their future is in their choosing someone from Simply Hired as their new (7/16) CEO: positioning Munchery for acquisition in a crowded marketplace.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  Honestly, I don't agree that the customers are very valuable. There doesn't seem to be either loyalty or lock-in with these delivery startups: as soon as they raise their prices, people just uninstall the app and grab another one. I don't see anything worth acquiring here, so an IPO is pretty much it for an exit strategy, if they can last that long.
  - rhizome 10y ago
    Could be, but the fact remains that they chose a new CEO whose most recent experience was winding a company down into acquisition.
M_Grey 10y ago
As far as I can tell the problem is a series of disconnected motives. The VC's have money to burn and want to become the next level of rich, which requires striking gold, often in fields they have no real conception of. The "disruptors" also want to strike it rich, but they can do that just by getting the VC capital and chalking the devastating losses they wont' personally suffer up to "valuable experience". Then of course success isn't necessarily contingent on providing a reasonable service at a sustainable price... see: Uber.

moonka 10y ago

We used it very frequently for awhile, and than stopped as we got tired of the dishes they seem to rotate though. When we went to order again recently I was pretty surprised at the jump. One main and side seemed to cost about what we would have paid for 2 mains and a side before.