8 ms·

I find the niche answer to this fascinating. With kosher restaurants (captive audience) in my city: 1. They increase their prices on skipthedishes and friends,

by cik 7y ago

I find the niche answer to this fascinating. With kosher restaurants (captive audience) in my city: 1. They increase their prices on skipthedishes and friends, in order to account for the price difference. 2. They add a piece of paper to EVERY ORDER indicating that if you call or text your food would be 30% cheaper, which includes a flat $3 delivery fee, and no need to tip the driver. 3. Many of them run targeted sub-brands on these platforms, under 'regular' (re: non kosher) restaurants and do the exact same thing, thereby expanding their reach.

danShumway 7y ago
> They add a piece of paper to EVERY ORDER indicating that if you call or text... That's really clever, given that many of these delivery apps work by inserting themselves invisibly in front of the business. Having a communication channel that you know will reach the customer and that you know the delivery app can't block is a way of getting around some of the constant fight of "how do I make my real site show up above Grubhub's when my name is Googled?"
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  Businesses are deluding themselves here. People use the big apps because they don't want to install a billion different special-case apps, set up their payments, set up their address etc etc etc, or literally phoning the restaurant (people don't want to speak on the phone anymore, they find it awkward.) Hotels try to berate you for booking through a third-party but I ain't got time to go poking around on their individual websites. Same with taxis - 'don't use Uber, just install this local app' - nice idea, but I really don't have time or space for a trillion local apps for the cities I visit all working slightly differently and needing different accounts - I try to keep it simple. I don't care if it's 5% better or 5% cheaper - it's 100% overhead compared to a single app and I don't want it.
  - koolba 7y ago
    > I try to keep it simple. I don't care if it's 5% better or 5% cheaper - it's 100% overhead compared to a single app and I don't want it. It’s not 5% though. It’s more like 50-100%. I’d wager you’re in the minority and most people are not willing to pay a premium if they could avoid (or maybe even knew about it).
  - danShumway 7y ago
    I would agree with you in theory, but the restaurants we're talking about just take phone calls. Most local chains that are fighting with Grubhub (at least in my area) aren't pushing their own custom apps. They just either have A) an order form on a website, or B) a phone number I don't think it's unreasonable for them to say, "hey, we know you have a working phone. Instead of launching the Grubhub app, send us a text message and we'll knock X% off of your price."
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      > hey, we know you have a working phone Sounds like a rebuke. I'd be pretty offended if a business tried to call me out like this for using an app that (presumably) they're willingly taking orders from. If they don't want to be on there then don't, but don't have a go at me about it.
      - danShumway 7y ago
        Part of the issue is that restaurants don't always sign up for Grubhub. When you place an order with a food delivery service, there may not be a special infrastructure or agreement set up -- the food delivery service may just call the restaurant and pretend to be a customer[0]. People assume that there's a strong relationship here, like selling a product in Walmart. Very often, there's not. I'm not in the food service industry, maybe it's just expected that you monitor all of these things and manually request your restaurant to be removed every time a new one launches. But it's not crazy to me that someone could get fed up and say, "no, I don't need to pay attention to every VC backed startup that scrapes my website and starts advertising with my menu on top of my own business on Google. I just want to let customers know that a direct relationship with me is cheaper than a relationship with a middleperson." Is offering a discount to someone having a go at them? If I was ordering through Grubhub, and I could save even just $5 by ordering directly, I'd want to know the option existed. I might not take advantage of it if it was a tiny amount of money. But I'd like to be informed; choices are nice. [0]: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/01/13/park-ridge-restaurant-complains-that-grubhub-is-selling-its-food-for-delivery-without-permission/ https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/01/13/park-ridge-restauran...
vzidex 7y ago
#2 is a great idea for them - lets them dodge the UberEats/Foodora/etc fees I guess. A shawarma place near my last job did the same with Ritual orders, whenever the owner noticed a regular he would ask them to just call the restaurant instead of ordering on the app.
- RandallBrown 7y ago
  #2 is a great way to get kicked off those platforms as that's almost certainly against the rules of the platform.
  - jamil7 7y ago
    Really? I'm not familiar with the terms so those platforms but does that mean you couldn't run your own delivery service as well as being on ubereats?.
    - RandallBrown 7y ago
      I don't think they restrict you from running your own delivery service, but using UberEats to advertise your own is probably not allowed.
  - gruez 7y ago
    That's definitely not universal. I frequently see restaurants that have stickers for multiple delivery services.
simonsarris 7y ago
> They add a piece of paper to EVERY ORDER indicating that if you call or text This is very wise. Money and orders from Uber Eats aren't your revenue, they are a little recoup on your ad campaign. They're basically treating the service like a more successful Groupon.
sjg007 7y ago
This is the kitchens unlimited idea. You see famous places like Cantor's Deli do it.

by cik 7y ago

danShumway 7y ago

> They add a piece of paper to EVERY ORDER indicating that if you call or text... That's really clever, given that many of these delivery apps work by inserting themselves invisibly in front of the business. Having a communication channel that you know will reach the customer and that you know the delivery app can't block is a way of getting around some of the constant fight of "how do I make my real site show up above Grubhub's when my name is Googled?"

chrisseaton 7y ago
Businesses are deluding themselves here. People use the big apps because they don't want to install a billion different special-case apps, set up their payments, set up their address etc etc etc, or literally phoning the restaurant (people don't want to speak on the phone anymore, they find it awkward.) Hotels try to berate you for booking through a third-party but I ain't got time to go poking around on their individual websites. Same with taxis - 'don't use Uber, just install this local app' - nice idea, but I really don't have time or space for a trillion local apps for the cities I visit all working slightly differently and needing different accounts - I try to keep it simple. I don't care if it's 5% better or 5% cheaper - it's 100% overhead compared to a single app and I don't want it.
- koolba 7y ago
  > I try to keep it simple. I don't care if it's 5% better or 5% cheaper - it's 100% overhead compared to a single app and I don't want it. It’s not 5% though. It’s more like 50-100%. I’d wager you’re in the minority and most people are not willing to pay a premium if they could avoid (or maybe even knew about it).
- danShumway 7y ago
  I would agree with you in theory, but the restaurants we're talking about just take phone calls. Most local chains that are fighting with Grubhub (at least in my area) aren't pushing their own custom apps. They just either have A) an order form on a website, or B) a phone number I don't think it's unreasonable for them to say, "hey, we know you have a working phone. Instead of launching the Grubhub app, send us a text message and we'll knock X% off of your price."
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    > hey, we know you have a working phone Sounds like a rebuke. I'd be pretty offended if a business tried to call me out like this for using an app that (presumably) they're willingly taking orders from. If they don't want to be on there then don't, but don't have a go at me about it.
    - danShumway 7y ago
      Part of the issue is that restaurants don't always sign up for Grubhub. When you place an order with a food delivery service, there may not be a special infrastructure or agreement set up -- the food delivery service may just call the restaurant and pretend to be a customer[0]. People assume that there's a strong relationship here, like selling a product in Walmart. Very often, there's not. I'm not in the food service industry, maybe it's just expected that you monitor all of these things and manually request your restaurant to be removed every time a new one launches. But it's not crazy to me that someone could get fed up and say, "no, I don't need to pay attention to every VC backed startup that scrapes my website and starts advertising with my menu on top of my own business on Google. I just want to let customers know that a direct relationship with me is cheaper than a relationship with a middleperson." Is offering a discount to someone having a go at them? If I was ordering through Grubhub, and I could save even just $5 by ordering directly, I'd want to know the option existed. I might not take advantage of it if it was a tiny amount of money. But I'd like to be informed; choices are nice. [0]: https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/01/13/park-ridge-restaurant-complains-that-grubhub-is-selling-its-food-for-delivery-without-permission/ https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/01/13/park-ridge-restauran...

vzidex 7y ago

#2 is a great idea for them - lets them dodge the UberEats/Foodora/etc fees I guess. A shawarma place near my last job did the same with Ritual orders, whenever the owner noticed a regular he would ask them to just call the restaurant instead of ordering on the app.

RandallBrown 7y ago
#2 is a great way to get kicked off those platforms as that's almost certainly against the rules of the platform.
- jamil7 7y ago
  Really? I'm not familiar with the terms so those platforms but does that mean you couldn't run your own delivery service as well as being on ubereats?.
  - RandallBrown 7y ago
    I don't think they restrict you from running your own delivery service, but using UberEats to advertise your own is probably not allowed.
- gruez 7y ago
  That's definitely not universal. I frequently see restaurants that have stickers for multiple delivery services.

simonsarris 7y ago

> They add a piece of paper to EVERY ORDER indicating that if you call or text This is very wise. Money and orders from Uber Eats aren't your revenue, they are a little recoup on your ad campaign. They're basically treating the service like a more successful Groupon.

sjg007 7y ago

This is the kitchens unlimited idea. You see famous places like Cantor's Deli do it.