[bluetidepro]

> "Postmates is limiting the free deliveries to orders over $30, which make up about 50% of the orders"

1. I guess as a single person, I don't fall in this 50%. I never have orders that large, which makes this service something I'm obviously not that interested in. They should have made it appeal to all 100% of their users, like Amazon Prime. They could have made it so it was free delivery based on just select places where it made sense. Why cut off 50% of your user base for the subscription service?

> "..free delivery on all orders from over 3,000 Plus merchants..."

2. This is incredibly misleading. "over 3,000" has to refer to their entire market because here in Chicago, I've only ever seen about 10-15 places that show up in the "Plus" section. That's a pretty limited amount of restaurants in the "Plus". That list has also only changed maybe once or twice in the months they have had "Plus". And it's a very small variety (of honestly, not that amazing places). I wonder with the addition of this service they actually end up beefing that number up in their various markets because right now, that stat is just marketing fluff.

As you can see on my two points above, I'm not sold this is going to play out anywhere as well as Amazon Prime did. I bet they see a pretty slow adoption rate on this until they make it much more compelling. Or I also assume a lot of people are going to sign up for this only to be disappointed by the lack of options I mentioned in my 2nd note above. They are definitely marketing it in a misleading way.

Also, it's worth mentioning that Postmates has one of the worst custom support teams I've ever seen. On two separate occasions I have sent an order issues support ticket to never get a response back. Which was even more frustrating when it said they always get back to you within 24 hours after I submitted the issues. I had to eventually complain about it on Twitter before I finally got a reply from them. Quite the bummer.

EDIT: I do want to add a quick note to this. While I'm very critical above, I do indeed think Postmates has the best UX and app of the similar services available. Once they can just iron out some of the kinks I mentioned above, I think the potential of the service is indeed high.

[bastian]

Postmates Co-founder here:

1. We will bring this down over time, give us a few weeks. ;)

2. We have over 3,000 Plus merchants across the markets we're operating in. I can't think of a direct competitor who has more and we're adding many, many every week.

3. Our customer service has been suffering lately - this is a totally valid point. At some point we didn't catch up well enough with our growth. I'm personally working with the team and we're doing many things to improve this. I hope we can move the needle here soon.

[bluetidepro]

I appreciate the (quick) response, bastian! I do like the UX of Postmates, and I hope this subscription service ends up panning out well for everyone! I don't think I'm in that target market for the subscription service just yet, but I will be excited when I am! Hoping you can ramp up the CX side of things, too. Best of luck to you and your team!

[Artistry121]

I just used your service for the first time in Austin. I"m excited to see how it goes. The experience that I had through the online ordering portal my first time was near perfect. Wait time for delivery is acceptable too - although faster is always better.

This is a really tough industry to solve - particularly at the scale you are trying to solve it at - and managing growth concerns and the right markets to be in at the right time is really hard. Good job right now!

[Artistry121]

I think the move by Postmates is better than you give it credit for.

1. For single people with roommates or friends who come over (or even who just order multiple meals at a time) or aren't price sensitive this will work. It's only those who can't or won't afford it that it won't appeal to. (Their old service will still work fine) The higher price may allow for scaling the customer service side up before being overrun by orders - thus keeping high-margin customers on the service early - and slowly dipping down into the lower-margin side of the market. (This kind of goes to point 2 - resources are not unlimited for postmates - for Amazon they are).

2. They can then sell the Plus plan to restaurants as a way of getting more customers - this benefit will diminish to each restaurant that joins but will provide an incentive in the short term to restaurant owners to join Plus. They can develop a good process for dealing with the restaurants and review restaurants to ensure good service before adding them to Plus - improving the experience for all.

2.b. This shouldn't mislead customers as long as the catalog of Plus and non-Plus customers is available before signing up for the plan. In fact it will lead them to see which restaurants they should work with most to add to Plus as customers complain if they don't sign up.

Postmates plan looks shrewd, calculated and smart for all parties involved.

(bluetidepro's response to Postmates's worker seems match with some of these views)

[pfarnsworth]

Their customer service is really terrible. On my very first attempt to use them, I ended up being charged more for less food because Postmates had the wrong prices on their menu. I order something like 20 pieces for $25 and instead got charged $35 for 10 pieces.

Instead of taking ownership of their error and giving me a refund for the difference (I just wanted to pay the amount they advertised for 10 pieces on their website, I didn't ask for a full refund), they stonewalled me and kept responding with the same message over and over again. I ended up charging back the difference, and I tell everyone that they suck.