4 ms·

These services are super expensive nowadays. By the time you add service fee, delivery fee and tips, your cold and soggy burger starts to get quite expensive.

Matticus_Rex 2y ago
They ran out of investor money to subsidize it with. Now you have to pay the full cost.
Muromec 2y ago
Well your can’t have the economic benefits of the caste system without social cost of it, so either it’s subsidized by investors to feel rich or makes no sense
photonthug 2y ago
The math is always kind of mind boggling, I mean you assume it adds up somehow but it feels like 15+15+15 for three sandwiches is about 82 dollars. News yesterday said food generally is up 20-25% since Covid, but maybe the reason that even this high number feels quite low for restaurants/delivery is that it really is creeping up on 33% or more after you account for shrinkflation as well as markup
- bombcar 2y ago
  I don’t understand how Dominos can deliver hot pizza for a $5-10 fee+tip and keep their drivers happy (everyone I’ve ever talked to who drove for Dominos liked doing it and the money was good and remembered fondly even if they’d moved on to better employment). Yet these apps charge something like $20-50 for delivery?
  - Retric 2y ago
    Apps have a lot more overhead built into their deliveries. Dominoes has a small radius around it often enabling multiple drop offs before returning. Dominoes drivers always return to the restaurant after a delivery, and the restaurant is optimized for that handoff generally with a dedicated parking space etc. Apps do longer deliveries from more restaurants who don’t prioritize their time etc. Apps also need to be inherently profitable thus some of the charge is paying for the app itself. Really Apps are like someone took an extremely efficient system and thought how can we make this worse in every possible way.
    - ackbar03 2y ago
      Maybe there should instead be lots of locally organized delivery services instead for areas within local radius? Wasn't there some guy who made a local version of some delivery service or something and was profitable on day one? I remember there was a hn link on it that came up a couple of times
  - passwordoops 2y ago
    Because Dominos as a business has good fundamentals that can afford decent pay and benefits, subsidizing the cost of delivery with profits from the food. Delivery apps are ultimately pyramid schemes that were initially funded by zero-interest investors who eventually cashed out to greater fools at a profit. Now that the investment funding has dried up, they need to get money from somewhere and that is by adding a ridiculous overhead
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    Pizzas stack. The order volume:driver ratio is better. The margin on pizza is generally better.
  - coderjames 2y ago
    I used to order pizza delivery 2-4 times a month. The drivers worked for the store, knew my address, and provided prompt delivery. My local Pizza Hut has since outsourced their delivery to DoorDash. Now, even though I'm only two miles away from the store, it takes 30+ minutes for the DoorDash driver to bring my order once the store says its "out for delivery". I no longer order pizza delivery.
    - ryandrake 2y ago
      Same here, most of our town's local pizza deliveries have moved away from having in-house staff deliver, and are now outsourced to DoorDash. And the service is slower, the pizzas sometimes arrive cold, and it's more expensive for customers than in-house deliver used to be. We've also stopped getting delivery.
  - 5555624 2y ago
    Because delivery is part of Domino's business model. Sure, you can walk in an get a pizza; but, they expect to deliver pizzas and their prices are based on that. A driver leaves with several orders, because they use a smaller delivery area and can optimize deliveries. Doordash et al. normally have a driver picking up one order and delivering it. I've seen a driver picking up two orders; but, it's rare.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    I feel that problem really is the middle-man here squandering lot of money. Restaurants have tight margins so issues are not likely there. Delivery people paid hourly rate is not that high, so even just 2 or 3 deliveries per hour should not be massively expensive. So all of this money must end up with middle-man. That is payment processors or these platforms? How come they get the big cut? While they have most scalable costs. Shouldn't they be there only taking tens of cents per order? Maybe they should outsource the work more to cheaper people.
  - petersteinberg 2y ago
    For one, there are twice as many businesses trying to make a profit with the apps as compared to dominoes. The owner of the Domino’s Pizza wants to make a profit, so he pays his drivers to get the pizza there fast. One company. When it comes to food delivered by an app, but the restaurant and the company providing the app both want to make a profit. (Yes, the franchise fee paid Domino’s Corporate technically involves profit for another company but that ruins my argument so I’m conveniently leaving that out. But in all seriousness, there seems to be an economies of scale there that keeps the franchise fee low enough as to be a manageable cost.)
- pjc50 2y ago
  This kind of discourse always strikes me as "BREAKING NEWS: luxury items are expensive". Wide-ranging food delivery is very new and investor subsidized, when really it's a labour intensive luxury item.
sokoloff 2y ago
It turns out that hiring a private taxi for your burger is quite expensive.
- The_Colonel 2y ago
  It's fundamentally a political problem. For it to work, you just need enough second-class citizens.
  - Ekaros 2y ago
    To me it always comes down to cost of living... Lower limit of cost of living in west is not low enough to make these services viable. And that is really the political problem.
- wodenokoto 2y ago
  When just eat started in Europe it was a carpooling for burgers. I still feel like something to that effect must be able to make sense.
  - michaelt 2y ago
    If several people in a similar location want burgers from the same restaurant at the same time? Great. On the other hand, if they're in different parts of town? Can't carpool. If they order 30 minutes apart? Unless your service is slow as hell, can't carpool. If they order from different restaurants? One customer's food is going to be sitting around, maybe getting cold, while the driver stands around waiting to be served at the second restaurant. If that's not acceptable, can't carpool. If the customer density is high enough these things work out OK - but a lot of these services operate in areas where the customer density doesn't look high enough.

Matticus_Rex 2y ago

They ran out of investor money to subsidize it with. Now you have to pay the full cost.

Muromec 2y ago

Well your can’t have the economic benefits of the caste system without social cost of it, so either it’s subsidized by investors to feel rich or makes no sense

photonthug 2y ago

The math is always kind of mind boggling, I mean you assume it adds up somehow but it feels like 15+15+15 for three sandwiches is about 82 dollars. News yesterday said food generally is up 20-25% since Covid, but maybe the reason that even this high number feels quite low for restaurants/delivery is that it really is creeping up on 33% or more after you account for shrinkflation as well as markup

bombcar 2y ago
I don’t understand how Dominos can deliver hot pizza for a $5-10 fee+tip and keep their drivers happy (everyone I’ve ever talked to who drove for Dominos liked doing it and the money was good and remembered fondly even if they’d moved on to better employment). Yet these apps charge something like $20-50 for delivery?
- Retric 2y ago
  Apps have a lot more overhead built into their deliveries. Dominoes has a small radius around it often enabling multiple drop offs before returning. Dominoes drivers always return to the restaurant after a delivery, and the restaurant is optimized for that handoff generally with a dedicated parking space etc. Apps do longer deliveries from more restaurants who don’t prioritize their time etc. Apps also need to be inherently profitable thus some of the charge is paying for the app itself. Really Apps are like someone took an extremely efficient system and thought how can we make this worse in every possible way.
  - ackbar03 2y ago
    Maybe there should instead be lots of locally organized delivery services instead for areas within local radius? Wasn't there some guy who made a local version of some delivery service or something and was profitable on day one? I remember there was a hn link on it that came up a couple of times
- passwordoops 2y ago
  Because Dominos as a business has good fundamentals that can afford decent pay and benefits, subsidizing the cost of delivery with profits from the food. Delivery apps are ultimately pyramid schemes that were initially funded by zero-interest investors who eventually cashed out to greater fools at a profit. Now that the investment funding has dried up, they need to get money from somewhere and that is by adding a ridiculous overhead
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  Pizzas stack. The order volume:driver ratio is better. The margin on pizza is generally better.
- coderjames 2y ago
  I used to order pizza delivery 2-4 times a month. The drivers worked for the store, knew my address, and provided prompt delivery. My local Pizza Hut has since outsourced their delivery to DoorDash. Now, even though I'm only two miles away from the store, it takes 30+ minutes for the DoorDash driver to bring my order once the store says its "out for delivery". I no longer order pizza delivery.
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Same here, most of our town's local pizza deliveries have moved away from having in-house staff deliver, and are now outsourced to DoorDash. And the service is slower, the pizzas sometimes arrive cold, and it's more expensive for customers than in-house deliver used to be. We've also stopped getting delivery.
- 5555624 2y ago
  Because delivery is part of Domino's business model. Sure, you can walk in an get a pizza; but, they expect to deliver pizzas and their prices are based on that. A driver leaves with several orders, because they use a smaller delivery area and can optimize deliveries. Doordash et al. normally have a driver picking up one order and delivering it. I've seen a driver picking up two orders; but, it's rare.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  I feel that problem really is the middle-man here squandering lot of money. Restaurants have tight margins so issues are not likely there. Delivery people paid hourly rate is not that high, so even just 2 or 3 deliveries per hour should not be massively expensive. So all of this money must end up with middle-man. That is payment processors or these platforms? How come they get the big cut? While they have most scalable costs. Shouldn't they be there only taking tens of cents per order? Maybe they should outsource the work more to cheaper people.
- petersteinberg 2y ago
  For one, there are twice as many businesses trying to make a profit with the apps as compared to dominoes. The owner of the Domino’s Pizza wants to make a profit, so he pays his drivers to get the pizza there fast. One company. When it comes to food delivered by an app, but the restaurant and the company providing the app both want to make a profit. (Yes, the franchise fee paid Domino’s Corporate technically involves profit for another company but that ruins my argument so I’m conveniently leaving that out. But in all seriousness, there seems to be an economies of scale there that keeps the franchise fee low enough as to be a manageable cost.)
pjc50 2y ago
This kind of discourse always strikes me as "BREAKING NEWS: luxury items are expensive". Wide-ranging food delivery is very new and investor subsidized, when really it's a labour intensive luxury item.

sokoloff 2y ago

It turns out that hiring a private taxi for your burger is quite expensive.

The_Colonel 2y ago
It's fundamentally a political problem. For it to work, you just need enough second-class citizens.
- Ekaros 2y ago
  To me it always comes down to cost of living... Lower limit of cost of living in west is not low enough to make these services viable. And that is really the political problem.
wodenokoto 2y ago
When just eat started in Europe it was a carpooling for burgers. I still feel like something to that effect must be able to make sense.
- michaelt 2y ago
  If several people in a similar location want burgers from the same restaurant at the same time? Great. On the other hand, if they're in different parts of town? Can't carpool. If they order 30 minutes apart? Unless your service is slow as hell, can't carpool. If they order from different restaurants? One customer's food is going to be sitting around, maybe getting cold, while the driver stands around waiting to be served at the second restaurant. If that's not acceptable, can't carpool. If the customer density is high enough these things work out OK - but a lot of these services operate in areas where the customer density doesn't look high enough.