How do you feel about online food delivery services? 🚗

[ElisabethB]

Hi folks! Do any of you utilize third-party courier and delivery platforms like DoorDash or UberEats? Have services like that helped your business or just made things more complicated? Share your thoughts and experiences with us below!

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @ElisabethB!  I’m going to weigh in here and, when I’m done, you’re probably going to regret ever having brought this subject up!  Here are my experience and my conclusions from that experience.

Yes, I’ve used them back when I had food service.  I started out with one called OrderUp, which is no more, and even used a local version.  Mostly, of course, I used DoorDash and Uber.  Keeping in mind that a restaurant’s bottom line return is 0-15%, and averages around 5-7%, if we add a cost of 30% to every delivery order, then that order actually loses us money if we don’t pass on all or some of the cost to our guests.  Of course, if we we increase our prices for items we deliver to recoup these new delivery costs, then our guests complain about the prices.  It’s a no-win situation.

The only way that delivery can be profitable, in my opinion, is for a restaurant to have delivery staff and charge delivery fees to cover the payroll costs of those employees.  Eventually our country will come to its senses and realize that delivery costs money, that they can’t get the freshest, hottest product via delivery, etc, and people will go back to leaving their houses to do pickup.  (You’ll notice I have strong opinions on this subject, but I’ll stop here! LOL)

Besides the cost, delivery definitely adds complications.  You have to figure out if everything in the kitchen is first-come-first-served, do you prioritize the people sitting in your dining room before deliveries, can you handle the extra volume and not have quality suffer, etc.  It’s not as easy as just saying I want a piece of that great new market and then tapping into it.  You have to seriously consider the fact that your entire business is going to be impacted and plan on how you are going to address the challenges it presents.

Lastly, I’ll say this.  Uber is a business.  DoorDash is a business.  As much as they like to tell you how much they care about your small business, how much they want you to succeed, etc, in reality they care about how much they can make on you.  When customers complain — and trust me they will — you are going to get the short end of the stick more often than not.  The end customer always wins, and the person in the middle usually gets hurt the most.  I found that the world of third-party delivery customers has more than its share of liars, cheats and people looking for a free meal which they will say anything to get.  You’ll notice that in my list of companies I’ve worked with I did not mention GrubHub.  I did try them once and was able to document that fully 1/3 of the orders delivered through their platform received complains about undelivered food, cold food, wrong food, etc.  That ONLY happened on GrubHub, which I then and there branded as the Delivery Service for Scofflaws!

If you need to delete this post, or hide it, I’ll understand.  But you did ask!  LOL

[ElisabethB]

Thank you for sharing, @TheRealChipA - and no regrets about asking! 😉 I appreciate you taking the time to detail your experiences which will be really helpful for other business owners who are considering third-party delivery. 🙌

[bungee13]

Thank you @TheRealChipA I agree with you 100%, just on a dollar we loose 19% between online services, taxes, over the last 3 years we are still standing making less money. All of our staff needed to learn more than food. They are all have a degree in technology 

[mksavage]

"You have to figure out if everything in the kitchen is first-come-first-served, do you prioritize the people sitting in your dining room before deliveries, can you handle the extra volume and not have quality suffer, etc.  It’s not as easy as just saying I want a piece of that great new market and then tapping into it."

@TheRealChipA As I've been considering adding the Square/DoorDash delivery integration, that has been one of my main hesitations. We have a pick-up option in our Online Store, which already brings up these questions/complications, especially on a really busy weekend day. I'm concerned that it will be much more hassle than it's worth, especially given the fees.

Thanks for sharing your experience and perspective -- super helpful!

[TheRealChipA]

You’re welcome, @mksavage.  While you may have already dealt with most of these things, here’s one that you haven’t, I’d bet.  Third party delivery drivers can be rude, insistent, impatient and more when things aren’t going exactly as they feel things should go.  From their point of view, all restaurants should prioritize delivery orders since for them time is money!  However, it doesn’t work that way, as we all know, and honestly they aren’t paid to see the big picture.  And, though it didn’t happen often, when I used them more than one or two delivery drivers blamed late food on me when it was not my fault at all.  I guess they didn’t know that the customer would check with me before they complained!  LOL

I guess the real point of all of that is the moment you let other people into your business, you become responsible for everything that could go wrong.  Be sure that you have good, solid procedures, notes, etc, so that when the inevitable complaints come in you have your evidence.  It will come in handy occasionally.

[mksavage]

@TheRealChipA "I guess the real point of all of that is the moment you let other people into your business, you become responsible for everything that could go wrong." <- I think this is one of the main takeaways from this thread, and my research/thinking about 3rd party services. I am very picky about who I partner with in my business, and that needs to extend to anyone who is touching/delivery our orders. 

We haven't ever actually signed up with any 3rd party delivery systems, but several have had us listed on their platforms (with outdated menus, of course), and the experience with drivers has been exactly like you described. And, the customer ultimately suffers, which then impacts our business.

The more I think about it, the more I think this isn't a good fit for us. Really appreciate everyone's insights and learning from your experiences!

[Donnie-M]

@mksavage The "scraping" was a big deal for me.  It is bad for us, bad for customer, and makes it bad for customers.

[Ballywhack]

I 100% agree with Chip  and Bungee.  Could not have explained it better.  We opened our doors in mid 2019 and when 2020 came around and everyone wanted delivery we were bombarded by the third party businesses trying to make a buck off of us.  To the point that my other big issue is how they create fake menu's on-line and diverting honest dinners to their websites and then placing orders with us as if they were the honest customer.  When delivery drivers arrive for pickup they want print-outs, pictures, receipts and they don't know what was ordered.  This is not how we engage with our customers.  We are a walk up window only anyway and much of our sales is depended upon meeting the customer, checking their orders with them and maybe they want to tack on an new item or two at the time.  Being that our sandwiches, dogs, and lattes depend on being fresh made and consumed when ordered, it is imperative that time and temperature is considered and quality maintained for the health and enjoyment of all our consumers.  I refuse the third party.  We do accept call in orders and pick-up for our direct customers.  (of course, cost for this delivery service is way beyond acceptable for our menu items)

[allwhowander]

Hi @ElisabethB, we were on the first wave of using Door Dash Drive with Square a couple years ago, and beta tested alcohol delivery. We have always tried to be as positive as possible about the service, but the problem is the delivery companies are just not consistent. My specific gripe is that with the DDD integration into Square, theres really no brand difference between them and us. As far as our customer knows they are just placing an order on our site, and the food (hopefully) shows up - whether it's our in-house driver or 3rd party, it doesn't matter to them. That's really cool, until the driver sucks or no-shows. Then it looks bad on us. 

We ONLY use DDD with Square integration, so you can't find us on Door Dash's website because that's a different setup. So in essence, we're really just doing it out of convenience for our existing customers who want delivery, there's no creation of new customers because we don't have the full Door Dash marketing platform. Because of this, we've been considering going to the full Door Dash experience, but I'm very concerned that if we have a higher volume of deliveries, we will have a higher volume of no-shows (right now, we get about a 20% no-show rate.)

I'm very interested to see what experience others have. I want it to be worth it, but I'm skeptical between the high commission costs and the inconsistency of quality drivers.

[Millib]

I have used  Uber, Grub Hub and now a local delivery company.  During Covid it was an absolute must to offer some kind of delivery.  We are a small family owned bakery/deli well known in our local area.  We found the delivery services to be unreliable, the drivers not well screened and the fees too much to absorb.  We were offered a "special" pricing by Door Dash which we did not accept.  Door Dash has contracts with the big players McDonalds, Wendys etc.  The drivers have special access for pickups so there would be lines of them waiting while our food went cold and had to be replaced several times before they arrived IF they arrived.  I canceled all 3rd party delivery and then because we are popular and the only Soul Food Deli in our area, Door Dash started taking orders without a contract with us. They posted old menus that found online and then they would call in a pickup order for a customer.  Their driver would arrive with a "red Card" to pay for and pickup the order.  When we figured out what they were doing and refused their orders they listed us as "unavailable".  Once folks started calling to see if we were out of business I tried to contact them (Door Dash) we went online and tried to delete them, which we couldn't because we didn't have an account.  We did have an account with Uber and it was hacked. GrubHub posted specials and sales without our ok and we discovered when we signed their contract the wording allowed "their assistance with marketing".  Believe me I read every line of those contracts and I did not see how they could do that or that the 6% for advertising was actually tacked on to our price to the customer. That was another nightmare. I say all this just to give you and idea of what

we went through.  They are still calling me offering "special pricing".  The independent local company we still try to use however,  they just aren't big enough to compete against the big players.  They are forced to contract with Uber for drivers.  Our business is cognizant of our reputation and of course our bottom line.  We are first class and will continue to be so without the third party delivery services.

[mksavage]

These are super helpful insights, @allwhowander. Thank you for sharing this!

Especially: "My specific gripe is that with the DDD integration into Square, theres really no brand difference between them and us. As far as our customer knows they are just placing an order on our site, and the food (hopefully) shows up." This puts words to one of my biggest concerns -- that it's our brand/name on the line. If the food is a poor quality because of the driver's error/delay, it's going to reflect poorly on us, not them. More than just the exorbitant fees, this is my main hesitation with partnering with a 3rd party service to deliver our food. 

I also appreciated your point about the Square delivery integration not really generating new customers since it doesn't have the marketing/reach of the actual DoorDash platform. We've been considering the Square/delivery integration for quite a while, but I didn't think about the fact that we wouldn't really benefit from the increased reach piece that is one of the main benefits of these 3rd party services. 

Thanks again for your feedback on this -- it's given me a lot to think about!

[newlinecheckout]

You can have your own branded mobile ordering integrated with DoorDash and Square! That way your customers have a direct connection with your brand on their phones  - https://getorda.com/doordash

[dhegel]

I am actually surprised at the number of small businesses that think 3rd party delivery is a good idea - the delivery service takes virtually all of your profit dollars in most businesses andthey don't understand your business so as mentioned above - all customers complain to you - the product provider - for any issues they have.  I have briefly tried 3 different services to see if I was wrong.... I was not.  Never say never, but, Never again. 

[Ladya28]

I am definitely not a fan of door dash, I feel that they hire anyone to bring your food, they do not hold their delivery drivers to any standards. One dasher actually sat my food outside on the concreate in the rain and immediately drove away. I was so upset and i had already given a tip. I cant trust people like that to deliver and bring my food, also our food was not fresh so not sure what all was done before bringing out my order. We send someone from our business to go get our lunch. We haven't tried Uber eats, too nervous!

[peculiarproj]

Our cafe opened in 2019 and as such, delivery was ingrained into our culture. Many restaurants look at Delivery orders as a nuisance but delivery is so integrated into our workflow, etc that we actually find walk-in/dine-in more challenging. To this day, about 75% of our restaurant's orders come in via Square Online and are fulfilled with delivery. We approach delivery slightly differently than most restaurants. Most of the industry either uses 3rd party delivery services (DoorDash/GrubHub) or they hire W-2 delivery employees.  We opted to build our own delivery team *but* they are contractors (gig workers) that we pay "per-delivery". The delivery fee we charge covers most of our cost. We also equip them with our own driver dispatch mobile app and an integration with Square allows orders to (somewhat) automatically be dispatched.  We feel that we have the best of both worlds. Full disclosure...our cafe is actually on the DoorDash app too, but we use the "DoorDash Self-Delivery" service. Our DD orders flow into Square and our own drivers deliver them. This benefits us by having lower fees from DD while also controlling the customer's delivery experience.

[Ballywhack]

I am glad that works for you as it wounds as if you set up a business model for this very thing, whereas, myself, and others did not.  You should just be a ghost kitchen if interaction with customers is a hassle for you.  I have a completely different reason to be in this business as a food establishment.  Thank you for the input.  I've learned something.

[Millib]

Sounds like a great setup.  We looked at the possibility of something similar, however, the cost was prohibitive and to be honest we LOVE the interaction with our customers.  Our reviews show that our customers feel like family when they visit us.  That's the atmosphere we have created over 20 years in business. (My dad did the same for 40 years prior). We are the old-style Southern family "table". Customer service and personal interaction seems to have become a thing of the past.  I definitely recognize the need for technology & I really like what Square offers for a non-techie like me.  We use square online for pre-orders and invoicing and I like it a lot.   My kids, both Techies handle the heavy stuff. Step into our shop and you are in Grandma's kitchen, with a Square POS on the counter:)

[TCSlaguna]

Our business does not use it, but as a consumer I think food delivery services are too expensive. I'd rather drive the two to five miles to pick it up or eat there. 

[ElisabethB]

@TCSlaguna Have you seen that some of these companies are branching out into other areas? They've been offering to deliver from groceries and other retail places for a while, but I got an email recently from DoorDash saying they could also do package pickups/dropoffs for you (like for FedEx or UPS), which is interesting.

[TCSlaguna]

Oh.... interesting! I'll have to look into it. 

I guess I just like having an excuse to get out 😅