4 ms·

And it's not a defensible business model because anyone can start such a company with very little expenses. I remember using waitersonwheels.com in the mid 90'

And it's not a defensible business model because anyone can start such a company with very little expenses. I remember using waitersonwheels.com in the mid 90's and it wasn't any better than what's available now. Also, I know waiter.com has been around a long time and makes very good money. Perhaps the SF Bay Area is a unicorn where there are so many people with disposable income that their time is worth more than overpaying for things that it can sustain many delivery services? I don't think the business model would work in rural Michigan but it would work anywhere with high property values and/or high incomes.

ghaff 7y ago
In general, food delivery doesn't work well well in rural areas. Where I live is more ex-urban than rural and I'm just 40 miles from a major city and almost next door to a couple minor cities. But I have very few delivery options. I apparently have a few more these days through a couple of the online delivery apps although I haven't used them yet.
- sjg007 7y ago
  I find pizza shows up reliably! We have 5 pizza delivery options and only 2 stop lights in town.
jfengel 7y ago
You can start such a company, but there's an overhead in getting on the minds of users and restaurant owners. Users don't want to have to keep multiple apps on their phone, or remember that the local Olive Garden uses OnlineFood but that the Greek place uses FoodNGo. We can have them order through the restaurant's web site and let them make the decision, but they're going to get frustrated if the drivers are fragmented across the different services. If every driver has every app, then it's really just adding overhead. All people and restaurants want is somebody to get the food from point A to point B, without a lot of differentiation. Much like ride share services replacing taxis: people don't really care what they get, and multiple taxi services don't provide useful differentiators. I really think that taxis might have survived better if they had come together to develop an app instead of letting somebody else take that space. As for prices... people are willing to pay to save time. If they really wanted to save money, they'd cook. People go to restaurants so they don't have to cook, but they still pay the time to go and sit and wait. Faced with a choice of $20 Olive Garden + $20 delivery fee, and wait at home playing video games, or $40 at the steakhouse sitting at a table waiting for their food, it might be a tossup. Lots of people do that today. If all they wanted was calories, they'd spent $5 at McDs.
- matthewowen 7y ago
  > they're going to get frustrated if the drivers are fragmented across the different services Why would consumers care about this? For decades (centuries even!) restaurants managed to make delivery work with their own delivery people. And admittedly pooling delivery people is effective for restaurants that don't do a lot of delivery volume, but there's still really a lot of room for fragmentation. > All people and restaurants want is somebody to get the food from point A to point B, without a lot of differentiation Here's the thing though: there's a lot of differentiation! In my experience, delivery that's managed by restaurants tends to be orders of magnitude better than from the apps. The app delivery services bundle a bunch of deliveries together in such a way that your food sits around at the restaurant, then goes all over the city, then eventually reaches you an hour after it was made. This kind of thing rarely happens for me when restaurants manage delivery themselves. > People go to restaurants so they don't have to cook, but they still pay the time to go and sit and wait I mean... some people go to restaurants for this reason, I suppose, especially at the low-end of the market. But it's really hard for me to believe this is the primary reason people go to restaurants. If it were, you'd expect restaurants to be quite different.
  - jfengel 7y ago
    I was unclear: I meant that the restauranteurs would become frustrated if they had to search over multiple apps to find one with an available driver.
- fjp 7y ago
  I'm mid-20s and everyone I know has like 6 food delivery apps on their phone. I'm somewhat of minimalist with trying to keep a low number of apps on my phone but whenever I see my friends phones they have hundreds of apps

ghaff 7y ago

In general, food delivery doesn't work well well in rural areas. Where I live is more ex-urban than rural and I'm just 40 miles from a major city and almost next door to a couple minor cities. But I have very few delivery options. I apparently have a few more these days through a couple of the online delivery apps although I haven't used them yet.

sjg007 7y ago
I find pizza shows up reliably! We have 5 pizza delivery options and only 2 stop lights in town.

jfengel 7y ago

You can start such a company, but there's an overhead in getting on the minds of users and restaurant owners. Users don't want to have to keep multiple apps on their phone, or remember that the local Olive Garden uses OnlineFood but that the Greek place uses FoodNGo. We can have them order through the restaurant's web site and let them make the decision, but they're going to get frustrated if the drivers are fragmented across the different services. If every driver has every app, then it's really just adding overhead. All people and restaurants want is somebody to get the food from point A to point B, without a lot of differentiation. Much like ride share services replacing taxis: people don't really care what they get, and multiple taxi services don't provide useful differentiators. I really think that taxis might have survived better if they had come together to develop an app instead of letting somebody else take that space. As for prices... people are willing to pay to save time. If they really wanted to save money, they'd cook. People go to restaurants so they don't have to cook, but they still pay the time to go and sit and wait. Faced with a choice of $20 Olive Garden + $20 delivery fee, and wait at home playing video games, or $40 at the steakhouse sitting at a table waiting for their food, it might be a tossup. Lots of people do that today. If all they wanted was calories, they'd spent $5 at McDs.

matthewowen 7y ago
> they're going to get frustrated if the drivers are fragmented across the different services Why would consumers care about this? For decades (centuries even!) restaurants managed to make delivery work with their own delivery people. And admittedly pooling delivery people is effective for restaurants that don't do a lot of delivery volume, but there's still really a lot of room for fragmentation. > All people and restaurants want is somebody to get the food from point A to point B, without a lot of differentiation Here's the thing though: there's a lot of differentiation! In my experience, delivery that's managed by restaurants tends to be orders of magnitude better than from the apps. The app delivery services bundle a bunch of deliveries together in such a way that your food sits around at the restaurant, then goes all over the city, then eventually reaches you an hour after it was made. This kind of thing rarely happens for me when restaurants manage delivery themselves. > People go to restaurants so they don't have to cook, but they still pay the time to go and sit and wait I mean... some people go to restaurants for this reason, I suppose, especially at the low-end of the market. But it's really hard for me to believe this is the primary reason people go to restaurants. If it were, you'd expect restaurants to be quite different.
- jfengel 7y ago
  I was unclear: I meant that the restauranteurs would become frustrated if they had to search over multiple apps to find one with an available driver.
fjp 7y ago
I'm mid-20s and everyone I know has like 6 food delivery apps on their phone. I'm somewhat of minimalist with trying to keep a low number of apps on my phone but whenever I see my friends phones they have hundreds of apps