8 ms·

In at least some cases ... the prices you see on grubhub may be higher than the actual prices the restaurant is charging. E.g $17.99 vs $14.99

chrisseaton 6y ago
So the restaurants are getting the option of delivery and the increased customer base and advertising... for absolutely no change to themselves? And the customers who use delivery are the ones paying for it? And if they don't want to pay it they can still go straight to the restaurant who will again make the same money? Sounds like a win to absolutely everyone involved. What is everyone's problem? Why do we want to interfere with this?
- yellow_postit 6y ago
  Option implies that restaurants can opt in/out which for cases like GrubHub isn’t possible. These apps can lead to poor experience and perception of the restaurant due to the delivery short comings and customers tend to transfer any unhappiness with the delivery as being the restaurants fault (eg late delivery and cold food).
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > Option implies that restaurants can opt in/out which for cases like GrubHub isn’t possible. Should a manufacturer have the right to say that you can't re-sell something that you bought from them fairly? That doesn't sound great to me. If Doordash fairly buy the food then they can sell it to me (as long as they follow food regulations). That sounds fine, doesn't it?
    - greenshackle2 6y ago
      If the reseller is pretty much pretending to be the manufacturer, and goes on yelp and change the manufacturer's phone number to their own.. I don't know if they have the right, but it's pretty scummy.
    - YuPro 6y ago
      It shouldn't have the right to restrict re-selling but sure it's ok to have the right to not sell to somebody anymore.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        They've already got that right.
- 0x202020 6y ago
  I think people get lured in by no delivery fee and reduced prices originally so they order at basically the normal price. But then once the introductory prices go away and the fees go up they get mad at the restaurant, not the delivery service
- jiofih 6y ago
  There are plenty of “proxy shipping” services that operate under this model. They don’t conceal the fact that they are a third party unaffiliated with the provider. In addition, most restaurants will not just accept takeout orders from a random person that shows up on a bike, it’s an organized partnership. I wonder how they even achieve that.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - umanwizard 6y ago
    > most restaurants will not just accept takeout orders from a random person that shows up on a bike Why not?
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      I don't think most restaurants have a takeout service in the first place.
    - jiofih 6y ago
      A variety of pedestrian reasons: - they don’t have the appropriate packaging, ie don’t actually do delivery - it’s inconvenient for their order pipeline / system - they can’t vouch for the carrier handling, is the food going to arrive still hot? A shaken mess? - is the carrier going to add or remove something before it reaches the customer? Any of those can be damaging for the restaurant, losing a customer, or even downright dangerous in the case of incorrect handling.
- treis 6y ago
  It's falsifying the restaurants prices. Grubhub shouldn't be able to say a dish costs $15 when it actually costs $10. It's a false statement that harms the restaurant. Sure, they will get some deliveries but what about the people that would buy at $10 but not $15? And what about the people that won't dine in because they think prices are 50% higher than they are. GrubHub is skimming valuable customers while discarding others. That's good for them but ultimately harmful for the restaurant.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    > It's falsifying the restaurants prices. It's marking them up... yeah. Is that a problem? Do you realise when you go to a store all the products are 'falsified' by marking them up on top of what the producer sells them to the retailer for?
    - spideymans 6y ago
      Imagine Google Shopping marks up all BestBuy items by 50 percent. And then you decide to never shop at BestBuy, whether it be in person or online, because Google’s marked up pricing lead you to believe that BestBuy’s prices are outrageous.
    - treis 6y ago
      No, because since the beginning of retail stores that is how it has worked and everyone understands that. For food delivery it has always been that you buy from the restaurant and pay menu price + delivery charge. Grubhub et.al. have come along and used that understanding along with an implied relationship to the restaurant to deceive the customer.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        I don't really get it. Doordash or whatever says 'for $x we will put a WhateverBurger burger into your hand'. As long as that's what they achieve, this seems fundamentally honest to me. As a consumer I don't really care where that $x goes to - Doordash, WhateverBurger, delivery person... doesn't seem my business to interfere in people's private financial agreements. The diner gets offered a deal and can take it or not. The restaurant gets offered a deal and can take it or not. The delivery person gets offered a deal and can take it or not. Seems to me like everyone is acting ethically here, and everyone is accepting a deal they're presumably happy with. If they aren't, they can turn it down and go elsewhere.
- castlecrasher2 6y ago
  >What is everyone's problem? Why do we want to interfere with this? Because customers who order through Grubhub/Doordash blame the restaurant for issues such as high prices and wrong orders instead of Grubhub/Doordash. So on one hand, the restaurant gets increased business but on the other they never interact with the customer directly and so their business' reputation depends on Grubhub/Doordash/etc to not fuck up, which is unlikely.
  - admax88q 6y ago
    That's a messaging/marketing issue, which we regulate all the time. It would be better and fairer to legislate that GrubHub and others must be clear about where their pricing comes from rather than legislating what their prices should be.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      That's what this does. They can still charge whatever they want for their fee. They just can't hide their fee in the list price of your sushi.
      - admax88q 6y ago
        What? Are we reading the same article? As far as I can tell this new rule caps fees at 10%, it doesn't say anything about charging whatever they want, while being more transparent or disclosing the fees more clearly.
        ceejayoz 6y ago
        The headline says "Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge RESTAURANTS". There's no cap on what they can charge customers. Legal: "Your pizza is $10. Our fee is $3, delivery is $5. Total bill $18." Restaurant gets $10. Not legal: "Your pizza is $10 (but we quietly take $3 of that). Our fee is $3 (but we hid an extra $3 in the pizza!). Delivery is $5. Total bill $18." Restaurant gets $7. Legal: "Your pizza is $7. Our fee is $6, delivery is $5. Total bill $18." Restaurant gets $7. Legal: "Your pizza is $10. Our fee is $6, delivery is $5. Total bill $21." Restaurant gets $10. Legal (but not great for business): "Your pizza is $10. Our fee is $600 because 'fuck you, we have VCs to pay', delivery is $5. Total bill $615." Restaurant gets $10.
- idrios 6y ago
  Are you sure these companies are getting an increased customer base? These services are giving them advertising but also giving advertising to all their competitors so I would assume it cancels out to a degree. Also the negative reviews for high prices or food being served cold probably hurt more than they help
- jowiar 6y ago
  Part of the problem is that there ends up being an effect where, when customers go first to the big delivery apps rather than to restaurants themselves to look for delivery, the delivery apps become the only way to get delivery business. The option to run their own delivery system is no longer available.
- delfinom 6y ago
  Actually many times it works agaisnt the restaurant. It misleads consumers into thinking they have high prices for real and many times their own reputation is harmed because these apps use call centers to place the orders and fuck up royally.
- nabilhat 6y ago
  > Sounds like a win to absolutely everyone involved. Let's pare it down to only you and the unsolicited service - You come home from work and the neighbor kid from six blocks down you've never met bills you for mowing your lawn while you were away. Let's pare it down to only the unsolicited service and the business - Hi, we put out a bunch of ads that say we're you and have a bunch of customers lined up ready to order. We'll tell you who they are for a 10% service fee. Also we lied to your customers about your prices. Imagine you bought a new car two months ago, then find out the sales person was just some guy who hangs out on the lot, told you he works for the dealership, and charged you a 10% markup over the dealership's actual price. Imagine your elderly neighbors fell for a door-to-door roofing scam that works the same way.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    But Doordash don't charge for an unsolicited service. They aren't charging the restaurant at all in this case. They're paying the restaurant's full price for food. Like anyone could. Then they charge the customer for an additional service actually rendered - the delivery. They charge this as a delivery fee and a markup that they can vary on more expensive items. This is pretty normal for a retail business to do.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      The Grubhub UX makes a specific claim, though: "Restaurant X charges $10 for a burger, and we will deliver it for $5". When they're marking the item price up, that claim is false. Given these apps' SEO juice and ubiquity, users are left with the false impression that Restaurant X sells a pretty expensive burger.
      - chrisseaton 6y ago
        Do they really specifically say 'Restaurant X charges $10 for a burger'? Or do they just say 'the burger costs $10'? Like when you shop on Amazon - they say 'the TV is $x and our delivery fee is $y' - really the manufacturer charged them < $y but they mark up and then also charge a delivery fee, don't they? Nobody looses their mind at this.
- stopratelimit 6y ago
  >What is everyone's problem? Why do we want to interfere with this? Pricing is very important. There's a reason a lot of manufactures won't allow a company to discount their prices. If my discount pizza shop who usually sells a large cheese pie for $8 gets a reputation for selling a large cheese pie for $15, it could negatively effect branding. The $8 pie place doesn't want to compete with gourmet pizza shops, and a way they do that is by pricing. Having someone inflate your prices without consent could put your restaurant out of business.
- stickfigure 6y ago
  I'm generally sympathetic to this perspective, but the problem is that the restaurant receives the reputation hit when GrubHub delivers late, cold, overpriced food. Customers don't understand what they're buying, and when something goes wrong, they leave bad reviews on Yelp et al. This seems like an information problem rather than a pricing problem. As long as the customers understand the relationship between GrubHub and the restaurant, I don't see any problem with GH charging whatever the market will bear. But right now they seem to be deliberately misleading the customer by listing fake prices separate from the delivery fee.
adrianmsmith 6y ago
What's wrong with that? If the restaurants are getting the price they want to charge, and if the customers are prepared to pay the higher price, seems everything's OK? I agree that it's scammy that grubhub etc. is pretending to be the restaurant. But if they made it clear, we are a delivery service giving you access to this restaurant, if you want to order this food you can do so for $17.99, I think everything would be fine with that business model.
- jiofih 6y ago
  If, but that’s not what they are doing. So there’s everything wrong with that.
  - adrianmsmith 6y ago
    Understood. But then the law should ban pretending to be someone else (it probably does, but evidently not effectively enough). Having a cap of x% on fees won't solve this problem. It will solve another problem which wasn't a problem in the first place.

chrisseaton 6y ago

So the restaurants are getting the option of delivery and the increased customer base and advertising... for absolutely no change to themselves? And the customers who use delivery are the ones paying for it? And if they don't want to pay it they can still go straight to the restaurant who will again make the same money? Sounds like a win to absolutely everyone involved. What is everyone's problem? Why do we want to interfere with this?

yellow_postit 6y ago
Option implies that restaurants can opt in/out which for cases like GrubHub isn’t possible. These apps can lead to poor experience and perception of the restaurant due to the delivery short comings and customers tend to transfer any unhappiness with the delivery as being the restaurants fault (eg late delivery and cold food).
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > Option implies that restaurants can opt in/out which for cases like GrubHub isn’t possible. Should a manufacturer have the right to say that you can't re-sell something that you bought from them fairly? That doesn't sound great to me. If Doordash fairly buy the food then they can sell it to me (as long as they follow food regulations). That sounds fine, doesn't it?
  - greenshackle2 6y ago
    If the reseller is pretty much pretending to be the manufacturer, and goes on yelp and change the manufacturer's phone number to their own.. I don't know if they have the right, but it's pretty scummy.
  - YuPro 6y ago
    It shouldn't have the right to restrict re-selling but sure it's ok to have the right to not sell to somebody anymore.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      They've already got that right.
0x202020 6y ago
I think people get lured in by no delivery fee and reduced prices originally so they order at basically the normal price. But then once the introductory prices go away and the fees go up they get mad at the restaurant, not the delivery service
jiofih 6y ago
There are plenty of “proxy shipping” services that operate under this model. They don’t conceal the fact that they are a third party unaffiliated with the provider. In addition, most restaurants will not just accept takeout orders from a random person that shows up on a bike, it’s an organized partnership. I wonder how they even achieve that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- umanwizard 6y ago
  > most restaurants will not just accept takeout orders from a random person that shows up on a bike Why not?
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    I don't think most restaurants have a takeout service in the first place.
  - jiofih 6y ago
    A variety of pedestrian reasons: - they don’t have the appropriate packaging, ie don’t actually do delivery - it’s inconvenient for their order pipeline / system - they can’t vouch for the carrier handling, is the food going to arrive still hot? A shaken mess? - is the carrier going to add or remove something before it reaches the customer? Any of those can be damaging for the restaurant, losing a customer, or even downright dangerous in the case of incorrect handling.
treis 6y ago
It's falsifying the restaurants prices. Grubhub shouldn't be able to say a dish costs $15 when it actually costs $10. It's a false statement that harms the restaurant. Sure, they will get some deliveries but what about the people that would buy at $10 but not $15? And what about the people that won't dine in because they think prices are 50% higher than they are. GrubHub is skimming valuable customers while discarding others. That's good for them but ultimately harmful for the restaurant.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  > It's falsifying the restaurants prices. It's marking them up... yeah. Is that a problem? Do you realise when you go to a store all the products are 'falsified' by marking them up on top of what the producer sells them to the retailer for?
  - spideymans 6y ago
    Imagine Google Shopping marks up all BestBuy items by 50 percent. And then you decide to never shop at BestBuy, whether it be in person or online, because Google’s marked up pricing lead you to believe that BestBuy’s prices are outrageous.
  - treis 6y ago
    No, because since the beginning of retail stores that is how it has worked and everyone understands that. For food delivery it has always been that you buy from the restaurant and pay menu price + delivery charge. Grubhub et.al. have come along and used that understanding along with an implied relationship to the restaurant to deceive the customer.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      I don't really get it. Doordash or whatever says 'for $x we will put a WhateverBurger burger into your hand'. As long as that's what they achieve, this seems fundamentally honest to me. As a consumer I don't really care where that $x goes to - Doordash, WhateverBurger, delivery person... doesn't seem my business to interfere in people's private financial agreements. The diner gets offered a deal and can take it or not. The restaurant gets offered a deal and can take it or not. The delivery person gets offered a deal and can take it or not. Seems to me like everyone is acting ethically here, and everyone is accepting a deal they're presumably happy with. If they aren't, they can turn it down and go elsewhere.
castlecrasher2 6y ago
>What is everyone's problem? Why do we want to interfere with this? Because customers who order through Grubhub/Doordash blame the restaurant for issues such as high prices and wrong orders instead of Grubhub/Doordash. So on one hand, the restaurant gets increased business but on the other they never interact with the customer directly and so their business' reputation depends on Grubhub/Doordash/etc to not fuck up, which is unlikely.
- admax88q 6y ago
  That's a messaging/marketing issue, which we regulate all the time. It would be better and fairer to legislate that GrubHub and others must be clear about where their pricing comes from rather than legislating what their prices should be.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    That's what this does. They can still charge whatever they want for their fee. They just can't hide their fee in the list price of your sushi.
    - admax88q 6y ago
      What? Are we reading the same article? As far as I can tell this new rule caps fees at 10%, it doesn't say anything about charging whatever they want, while being more transparent or disclosing the fees more clearly.
      - ceejayoz 6y ago
        The headline says "Portland approves 10% cap on fees that food delivery apps can charge RESTAURANTS". There's no cap on what they can charge customers. Legal: "Your pizza is $10. Our fee is $3, delivery is $5. Total bill $18." Restaurant gets $10. Not legal: "Your pizza is $10 (but we quietly take $3 of that). Our fee is $3 (but we hid an extra $3 in the pizza!). Delivery is $5. Total bill $18." Restaurant gets $7. Legal: "Your pizza is $7. Our fee is $6, delivery is $5. Total bill $18." Restaurant gets $7. Legal: "Your pizza is $10. Our fee is $6, delivery is $5. Total bill $21." Restaurant gets $10. Legal (but not great for business): "Your pizza is $10. Our fee is $600 because 'fuck you, we have VCs to pay', delivery is $5. Total bill $615." Restaurant gets $10.
idrios 6y ago
Are you sure these companies are getting an increased customer base? These services are giving them advertising but also giving advertising to all their competitors so I would assume it cancels out to a degree. Also the negative reviews for high prices or food being served cold probably hurt more than they help
jowiar 6y ago
Part of the problem is that there ends up being an effect where, when customers go first to the big delivery apps rather than to restaurants themselves to look for delivery, the delivery apps become the only way to get delivery business. The option to run their own delivery system is no longer available.
delfinom 6y ago
Actually many times it works agaisnt the restaurant. It misleads consumers into thinking they have high prices for real and many times their own reputation is harmed because these apps use call centers to place the orders and fuck up royally.
nabilhat 6y ago
> Sounds like a win to absolutely everyone involved. Let's pare it down to only you and the unsolicited service - You come home from work and the neighbor kid from six blocks down you've never met bills you for mowing your lawn while you were away. Let's pare it down to only the unsolicited service and the business - Hi, we put out a bunch of ads that say we're you and have a bunch of customers lined up ready to order. We'll tell you who they are for a 10% service fee. Also we lied to your customers about your prices. Imagine you bought a new car two months ago, then find out the sales person was just some guy who hangs out on the lot, told you he works for the dealership, and charged you a 10% markup over the dealership's actual price. Imagine your elderly neighbors fell for a door-to-door roofing scam that works the same way.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  But Doordash don't charge for an unsolicited service. They aren't charging the restaurant at all in this case. They're paying the restaurant's full price for food. Like anyone could. Then they charge the customer for an additional service actually rendered - the delivery. They charge this as a delivery fee and a markup that they can vary on more expensive items. This is pretty normal for a retail business to do.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    The Grubhub UX makes a specific claim, though: "Restaurant X charges $10 for a burger, and we will deliver it for $5". When they're marking the item price up, that claim is false. Given these apps' SEO juice and ubiquity, users are left with the false impression that Restaurant X sells a pretty expensive burger.
    - chrisseaton 6y ago
      Do they really specifically say 'Restaurant X charges $10 for a burger'? Or do they just say 'the burger costs $10'? Like when you shop on Amazon - they say 'the TV is $x and our delivery fee is $y' - really the manufacturer charged them < $y but they mark up and then also charge a delivery fee, don't they? Nobody looses their mind at this.
stopratelimit 6y ago
>What is everyone's problem? Why do we want to interfere with this? Pricing is very important. There's a reason a lot of manufactures won't allow a company to discount their prices. If my discount pizza shop who usually sells a large cheese pie for $8 gets a reputation for selling a large cheese pie for $15, it could negatively effect branding. The $8 pie place doesn't want to compete with gourmet pizza shops, and a way they do that is by pricing. Having someone inflate your prices without consent could put your restaurant out of business.
stickfigure 6y ago
I'm generally sympathetic to this perspective, but the problem is that the restaurant receives the reputation hit when GrubHub delivers late, cold, overpriced food. Customers don't understand what they're buying, and when something goes wrong, they leave bad reviews on Yelp et al. This seems like an information problem rather than a pricing problem. As long as the customers understand the relationship between GrubHub and the restaurant, I don't see any problem with GH charging whatever the market will bear. But right now they seem to be deliberately misleading the customer by listing fake prices separate from the delivery fee.

adrianmsmith 6y ago

What's wrong with that? If the restaurants are getting the price they want to charge, and if the customers are prepared to pay the higher price, seems everything's OK? I agree that it's scammy that grubhub etc. is pretending to be the restaurant. But if they made it clear, we are a delivery service giving you access to this restaurant, if you want to order this food you can do so for $17.99, I think everything would be fine with that business model.

jiofih 6y ago
If, but that’s not what they are doing. So there’s everything wrong with that.
- adrianmsmith 6y ago
  Understood. But then the law should ban pretending to be someone else (it probably does, but evidently not effectively enough). Having a cap of x% on fees won't solve this problem. It will solve another problem which wasn't a problem in the first place.