The Economy Is Pooped: How Do We Help

[The_Rural_Juror]

Food delivery is a pretty crappy job.

[D'z Nutz]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Why don't they hire their own delivery people then? Rehire the servers they laid off.

Every business is barely treading water right now. Adapt.

I think part of it is the laziness of people. My sister got a temp job at Superstore and she said she's able to get extra hours all the time because the staff there came to the conclusion they could just not work at all and collect CERB.

That said, I know some businesses have adjusted their delivery model since the epidemic started. For example it used to be free delivery within X number of kilometers, but now they'll do city wide for free.

Look at Pio (GREAT food, BTW):
https://www.pioperu.com/

Free delivery city wide with CHOWNOW. In House delivery drivers, 10% off takeout (minimum spend $25-40)

That's definitely new for them. I'm pretty sure they used to do free deliveries only within a certain radius.

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I've tried to convince my coworkers and colleagues to order directly at certain opportunities and they are too lazy to do so. So many people do things thinking it doesn't make a difference and it snowballs, so annoying.

Again, laziness and convenience. I've never used Skip the Dishes (or any delivery service) before, but I'm assuming you can do all your ordering on the app? Don't need to call in? I can see why that would appeal to people.

[flipstah]

In this age, having a well thought out app makes a difference. Between ordering at a place through Skip vs ordering at a place through Fantuan, which is an Asian restaurant equivalent of Skip... You can tell the R&D was spent on Skip.

[ThePenIsMightier]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

...

Again, laziness and convenience. I've never used Skip the Dishes (or any delivery service) before, but I'm assuming you can do all your ordering on the app? Don't need to call in? I can see why that would appeal to people.

I've never used Skip The Dishes, either. Maybe I'm missing something, but shouldn't the driver literally kill you when you answer your door? Shouldn't this be like that cruise ship bit from Bill Burr about the world not needing that group of people? You are too lazy to be on earth and BRRAPP, you dead?!!?

Ok, so I ordered $8 worth of food from Burger King and despite the fact that they have a drive thru and they are minutes down the road and I could literally wear a Borat swimsuit to get my food and no one would be the wiser, I'm still going to pay some other weirdo to bring me $8 worth of food.
And that costs, what? Maybe $6 + tip I'm assuming???! Oh, and my food takes WAY the fuck longer than if I drive my mongoloid ass there, myself?

Sweet! $8 of food is now $15 and it took forever, so it's cold and even shittier than if I got off my twat and went there, myself.
Where do I sign?!!!!?

[tirebob]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Good idea. I also wonder why they don’t do that? Insurance, maybe?

Because people don’t look anywhere but skip and if a restaurant doesn’t let themselves be held hostage by them people no longer find them. Just having delivery doesn’t matter if people don’t look anywhere but skip. They are forced to be on it or not be seen nowadays. I avoid these predatory service companies raping small businesses.

I internet search and I will order right from a restaurant and if they have delivery then great. If not I will go pick up or you can always get a secondary delivery service to pick up. I would rather the bit extra legwork and not screw the restaurant out of their profit for my laziness these days.

Being a small biz owner I guess I think more about these things than the average joe public does. I hope more are starting to realize now what they think of as convenience can actually do to their communities. We just get programmed to think easier is better but it isn’t always the case and need to consider the effect overall.

[msommers]

There's a nice French bakery in Okotoks we like supporting. Oddly they now only allow online orders Wednesday evening to pickup or for delivery on Saturday. Well this time we go through the checkout and they tried to auto provide themselves a 20% tip. Cancelled that shit promptly. Like fuck I want to support people but that was so greasy I just could not do it.

[killramos]

I love skip, doordash etc.

No one is forcing a business to use them, and it is so fucking convenient. Its not without its flaqs, but i think its a positive disruptive force in the world.

Honestly for 4 bucks delivery or less on most things, its easily worth it to me to not have to cart my ass across town and get food.

Its dangerous though and ordering food on skip all the time is $$$

[ExtraSlow]

Well, it's not just $4, because they jack the price on the menu items too.

But yeah, the apps are super convenient. I can't blame people for using them, because I get it, I really do.

[ThePenIsMightier]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

I love skip, doordash etc.

No one is forcing a business to use them, and it is so fucking convenient. Its not without its flaqs, but i think its a positive disruptive force in the world.

Honestly for 4 bucks delivery or less on most things, its easily worth it to me to not have to cart my ass across town and get food.

Its dangerous though and ordering food on skip all the time is $$$

I agree with Tirebob. While not literally "forced" to join, you will literally notice a drop in business if you're not part of their cartel.
Recall the claims of Yelp extortion a few years ago. If your restaurant didn't have good reviews on Yelp, you were fucked and the only way to keep the good reviews from getting buried was to pay Yelp "for advertising". Then that smart restaurant guy stuck his middle fingers in the air and started offering discounts to customers if they gave him a 1-star rating! LoL! His biz boomed, class action suits started against Yelp and their dominance faded into obscure.

[ExtraSlow]

For this short term economic crisis, if there's a restaurant I want to support, I'll do so as directly as possible and drive to pick up my food.
Longer term, I don't have a solution.

[dirtsniffer]

I sometimes use the skip app if a restaurant doesn't have a good menu, but I generally call the order in.

[flipstah]

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Well, it's not just $4, because they jack the price on the menu items too.

But yeah, the apps are super convenient. I can't blame people for using them, because I get it, I really do.

So true.

I was hungover and forgot to do a grocery run so I ordered OEB for eggs benny poutine. Look at the bill later and it was $30 all in

[killramos]

I think these delivery services are just plain And simple technological disruption. Complaining that they are hurting the businesses is like brick and mortar Complaining about amazon. Probably true, but that’s life and businesses need to adapt rather than scream predatory.

If these delivery services are taking such a fat slice from restaurants then it should be easy for restaurants to come up with their own service to undercut them. Or for a third party to provide a different type of solution for the businesses that undercuts.

There are several different companies in the market providing these services and more are cropping up every day. The market will determine the right balance.

End of the day, people like apps and having things brought to them. And you are going to miss out on a lot of business by sticking with phones and pickup orders even if it’s cheaper. A lot of people don’t care.

[ExtraSlow]

Yeah, I agree. I use Uber when I travel because the app solves a lot of problems for me, even though the business model is predatory.

[pheoxs]

Pretty much everyone i know uses skip or door dash. It's one app and you get a bunch of choices at once plus its easy to use. As much as I do try to call and do pickup some restaurants are so frustrating to order from. Still no online menus or ordering form and the only way is to look at pictures of a menu from yelp that are sometimes outdated or changed.

[RX_EVOLV]

Whole pandemic thing aside, I think the SKIP model works pretty good for restaurants. They don't have to deal with payroll and overheads like insurance, or the logistic of building a take out system, scheduling and hiring delivery staff, and fluctuation of takeout orders between weekdays and weekends. For a 30% commission, everything is taken care of and you only pay if you receive takeout orders. That's probably way cheaper than having their own delivery staff/system. Of course this model falls apart very quickly when they are still operating in the space (and all associated overheads) of a full size restaurant while relying on this as the only source of revenue.

Right now with working from home and a 1yo crawling around, we always order directly with restaurants and my wife and I would fight to see who gets to go out and pick it up. It's an excuse to get some fresh air and a break from everything (especially the baby). But yesterday we got a coupon from skip, and ended up ordering shaved ice and bubble teas from Jus fruits delivered right to our backyard for $10 including delivery and tips while we work on the yard. It was the greatest thing ever!

[msommers]

30% is probably more than most restaurants profit margins lol. The restaurant business is notorious for surviving on very thin margins.

[88CRX]

Glad I'm not the only one living in the stone age having never used Skip the Dishes.

[D'z Nutz]

Ordered a platter from Minas for lunch (and dinner, and tomorrow's lunch, and tomorrow's dinner) with a side of meat sweats.

They're offering 10% off pick up orders, which I gave back to them plus more in tip.



If there's one place I definitely get the impression they're going above and beyond for cleanliness, it's Minas. They're leaving out paper towels for you to open the door with, the bell to get their attention with is wrapped in plastic, there's spray bottles and towels everywhere, you gotta stand behind a roped fence to pick up, and they wouldn't even touch the money I gave them for tip; they requested I put it on the table haha

[killramos]

Oooof that looks good. Though you need to get the vinnegrette instead of whatever that red sauce is.

I could dummy an order of chicken hearts right now.