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Is it just me or are all these delivery apps pretty much the same thing, just with different restaurants? In SF at least Grubhub tends to have some of the more

Is it just me or are all these delivery apps pretty much the same thing, just with different restaurants? In SF at least Grubhub tends to have some of the more "typical delivery" choices (pizza, chinese food, thai) and decent customer service, Doordash seems to have the most variety but the dashers take their merry time on their way to you (and customer service is nonexistent), Uber Eats is somewhere in between grubhub and doordash in selection and has nonexistent customer service (but at least give you a refund if something goes wrong), caviar has a smaller selection but a lot of unique/higher end things (along with a terrible app but OK customer service), and Tock is targeting the "high end at home" market. There's also postmates which seems more expensive than the others for the same exact restaurants (but seems to have more traction in LA). At the end of the day, the search is really bad (clicking the healthy category includes deep dish pizza and fried chicken on almost all the apps), the drivers aren't adequately compensated so the customer experience is bad (your driver might make 4 stops on the way to you and your food will be cold), and the apps are slow and buggy. I'm convinced that significant improvements in search, recommendations, adding proper review support, and finding a way to not piss of restaurants in the process will determine the winner in this battle. The differences in selection are too small (in SF caviar which is owned by doordash and tock being the exceptions) to really crown a winner on that front.

VWWHFSfQ 6y ago
I prefer Grubhub/Seamless in NYC. They're typically on bicycles or scooters and will bring the order up to your apartment door. Uber Eats people usually want you to come down outside so they don't have to double-park. I'm not giving you a $10 delivery tip to drive my Five Guys order eight blocks.. You gotta get out and come up the stairs to my door.
- replyguy912 6y ago
  or you could, ya know, walk 8 blocks and keep the restaurant in business, but hey, we all have our limits.
  - greeniron 6y ago
    wait... this comment is confusing. how is he not contributing towards "keeping the restaurant in business" by ordering delivery vs picking it up in person?
    - hedora 6y ago
      When you order through a delivery service, the restaurant is generally paid less than their normal menu price, and none of the tips go to the kitchen staff. In addition to charging the restaurant, the delivery service charges the customer a higher price than the restaurant would. They add delivery fees and service fees. On top of that, the online menus in the delivery service apps often have higher prices than the restaurant’s “real” menu. Restaurants often negotiate special deals with the delivery services, so all these details can vary. However, delivery app margins are much lower than carry out or dine in margins.
      - aesyondu 6y ago
        Yes, but a restaurant wouldn't be entering into these special deals if it wasn't beneficial to them as well. Even if the margins are much lower, it could be offset by the increase in number of customers/orders.
        lz400 6y ago
        I've talked to people who run restaurants and in their words uber eats is not worth it economically. They just do it, barely breaking even, as a marketing thing, hoping people will like the food and go to the real place.
        AgloeDreams 6y ago
        Bingo, plus if they don't do it, their competitors will and then nobody comes to them.
        6y ago
silentsea90 6y ago
Why is cold food a problem? It is easy to heat it up in a microwave right?
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > Why is cold food a problem? It is easy to heat it up in a microwave right? I think its dependent on the type of food. As some foods simply don't hold well, and shouldn't be offered as a to-go 'fried calamari,' 'pasta carbonara' 'tempura' or sushi etc... and cannot be re-heated. But, even other things like fries taste pretty poorly when cold and could spoil an entire meal. Whereas, drunken noodles, pizza or a chiptole burrito can easily be re-heated and taste just as good. I've ordered Doordash 5 times over that observation period, and all but one time the food was pretty warm, but that's because I tipped $5-10 and the restaurants I ordered from were near by and less than a 4 miles radius from my home. Since it was simply re-heatedable stuff I didn't mind, also, I wasn't really interested in the food so much as data aggregation.
randycupertino 6y ago
> Doordash seems to have the most variety but the dashers take their merry time on their way to you (and customer service is nonexistent) I was picking up sandwiches from a popular sandwich joint last week and the Doordash drivers were picking up multiple orders each time. So most likely the "delay" is really them stopping at other houses to drop off food on their way to you, or vice versa.
- AgloeDreams 6y ago
  Both GH and DD do this now, honestly it feels like a massive bait and switch because you don't know which order # you'll be and the system never clarifies that there can be others ahead of you. Notably, the other orders can be from other restaurants so your driver may have to stop and wait while your food is just in their car. If you don't live in a metro area the total out of the way time can be more than 25 minutes. This means that ordering a small hot meal over GH can show up 20 minutes after preparation or 45 minutes after. There's a very large difference between these two orders but they make you set the tip ahead of time and charge the same fee. I once ordered ice cream, they made a second stop. It was just goop. Just completely absurd. (This is a strange world where I can say... obviously Uber is more ethical here. The Uber X service is clearly labeled as such and has realistic arrival times and an option to pay for ensured rapid arrival)
Strom 6y ago
> Is it just me or are all these delivery apps pretty much the same thing, just with different restaurants? They're surprisingly different in both how good the software is and how efficiently they operate. I'll give three examples of my experiences with European apps. Wolt (Finnish) - Super polished native app. Very accurate to-the-minute ETA predictions, you can see GPS tracking of couriers as soon as they start heading towards the restaurant. The menus are polished and full of pictures. You can rate couriers and food. The app even includes a mini-game on the ETA screen. Payment by card associated with your account. Bolt (Estonian) - A comparatively new entry in food delivery with an ok native app. ETAs are all over the place as it keeps re-calculating, although eventually the delivery is reasonably paced. GPS tracking starts after the courier has picked up the food. About a third of the food items have pictures. No rating of food or couriers. No mini-games. Occasional crashes. Payment by card associated with your account. Lieferando (German - owned by Just Eat Takeway, the company buying Grubhub) - Complete dumpster fire. The "native app" is just a webview of some 2010 style webpage. No pictures of food, no GPS tracking. A static "ETA 30min" estimation that never changes or counts down, it's just always 30min. Payment is a per-order giant form of options that's super German, prioritizing cash-on-delivery. I made the mistake of paying by card. The food never arrived at all. The app itself doesn't give any notifications that there's a failed delivery or anything - the ETA was 30min even 48h later. Customer support is extremely hostile and only responds after several days. The iOS reviews are full of people complaining that they got scammed with no delivery. Ended up having to do a chargeback through my bank.
s_dev 6y ago
>Is it just me or are all these delivery apps pretty much the same thing, just with different restaurants? Yes. However the financial incentive is for these restaurants is to eventually have their own ordering systems.

VWWHFSfQ 6y ago

I prefer Grubhub/Seamless in NYC. They're typically on bicycles or scooters and will bring the order up to your apartment door. Uber Eats people usually want you to come down outside so they don't have to double-park. I'm not giving you a $10 delivery tip to drive my Five Guys order eight blocks.. You gotta get out and come up the stairs to my door.

replyguy912 6y ago
or you could, ya know, walk 8 blocks and keep the restaurant in business, but hey, we all have our limits.
- greeniron 6y ago
  wait... this comment is confusing. how is he not contributing towards "keeping the restaurant in business" by ordering delivery vs picking it up in person?
  - hedora 6y ago
    When you order through a delivery service, the restaurant is generally paid less than their normal menu price, and none of the tips go to the kitchen staff. In addition to charging the restaurant, the delivery service charges the customer a higher price than the restaurant would. They add delivery fees and service fees. On top of that, the online menus in the delivery service apps often have higher prices than the restaurant’s “real” menu. Restaurants often negotiate special deals with the delivery services, so all these details can vary. However, delivery app margins are much lower than carry out or dine in margins.
    - aesyondu 6y ago
      Yes, but a restaurant wouldn't be entering into these special deals if it wasn't beneficial to them as well. Even if the margins are much lower, it could be offset by the increase in number of customers/orders.
      - lz400 6y ago
        I've talked to people who run restaurants and in their words uber eats is not worth it economically. They just do it, barely breaking even, as a marketing thing, hoping people will like the food and go to the real place.
        AgloeDreams 6y ago
        Bingo, plus if they don't do it, their competitors will and then nobody comes to them.
        6y ago

silentsea90 6y ago

Why is cold food a problem? It is easy to heat it up in a microwave right?

Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Why is cold food a problem? It is easy to heat it up in a microwave right? I think its dependent on the type of food. As some foods simply don't hold well, and shouldn't be offered as a to-go 'fried calamari,' 'pasta carbonara' 'tempura' or sushi etc... and cannot be re-heated. But, even other things like fries taste pretty poorly when cold and could spoil an entire meal. Whereas, drunken noodles, pizza or a chiptole burrito can easily be re-heated and taste just as good. I've ordered Doordash 5 times over that observation period, and all but one time the food was pretty warm, but that's because I tipped $5-10 and the restaurants I ordered from were near by and less than a 4 miles radius from my home. Since it was simply re-heatedable stuff I didn't mind, also, I wasn't really interested in the food so much as data aggregation.

randycupertino 6y ago

> Doordash seems to have the most variety but the dashers take their merry time on their way to you (and customer service is nonexistent) I was picking up sandwiches from a popular sandwich joint last week and the Doordash drivers were picking up multiple orders each time. So most likely the "delay" is really them stopping at other houses to drop off food on their way to you, or vice versa.

AgloeDreams 6y ago
Both GH and DD do this now, honestly it feels like a massive bait and switch because you don't know which order # you'll be and the system never clarifies that there can be others ahead of you. Notably, the other orders can be from other restaurants so your driver may have to stop and wait while your food is just in their car. If you don't live in a metro area the total out of the way time can be more than 25 minutes. This means that ordering a small hot meal over GH can show up 20 minutes after preparation or 45 minutes after. There's a very large difference between these two orders but they make you set the tip ahead of time and charge the same fee. I once ordered ice cream, they made a second stop. It was just goop. Just completely absurd. (This is a strange world where I can say... obviously Uber is more ethical here. The Uber X service is clearly labeled as such and has realistic arrival times and an option to pay for ensured rapid arrival)

Strom 6y ago

> Is it just me or are all these delivery apps pretty much the same thing, just with different restaurants? They're surprisingly different in both how good the software is and how efficiently they operate. I'll give three examples of my experiences with European apps. Wolt (Finnish) - Super polished native app. Very accurate to-the-minute ETA predictions, you can see GPS tracking of couriers as soon as they start heading towards the restaurant. The menus are polished and full of pictures. You can rate couriers and food. The app even includes a mini-game on the ETA screen. Payment by card associated with your account. Bolt (Estonian) - A comparatively new entry in food delivery with an ok native app. ETAs are all over the place as it keeps re-calculating, although eventually the delivery is reasonably paced. GPS tracking starts after the courier has picked up the food. About a third of the food items have pictures. No rating of food or couriers. No mini-games. Occasional crashes. Payment by card associated with your account. Lieferando (German - owned by Just Eat Takeway, the company buying Grubhub) - Complete dumpster fire. The "native app" is just a webview of some 2010 style webpage. No pictures of food, no GPS tracking. A static "ETA 30min" estimation that never changes or counts down, it's just always 30min. Payment is a per-order giant form of options that's super German, prioritizing cash-on-delivery. I made the mistake of paying by card. The food never arrived at all. The app itself doesn't give any notifications that there's a failed delivery or anything - the ETA was 30min even 48h later. Customer support is extremely hostile and only responds after several days. The iOS reviews are full of people complaining that they got scammed with no delivery. Ended up having to do a chargeback through my bank.

s_dev 6y ago

>Is it just me or are all these delivery apps pretty much the same thing, just with different restaurants? Yes. However the financial incentive is for these restaurants is to eventually have their own ordering systems.