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by NaughtyShiba 1688 days ago
As almost-daily user of Wolt, I'm interested to see how this will impact me. Maybe I finally won't have to pay 3 euros for McDonalds to get delivered for a 10minute walking distance.
8 comments

Jesus, this is exactly the problem, If you don't want to pay the people who deliver your food to your lazy ass a fair salary don't use food delivery. Go get your own food.

In my opinion it should be even more than €3 for most deliveries, I think this is subsidized by VC money and unfair conditions to the delivery people.

Wolt charges 3 euros for McD delivery, because McD refuses to pay 30% tax. It's end-user who pays Wolt tax, rather than restaurant.
Which tax are you referring to and in which country? Is this especially applied to deliveries?
Wolt takes 30% from order.
It's not just lazy people that rely on these services. It's disabled people too.
In Germany we have services commonly referred to as "Essen auf Rädern" (Meals on Wheels). A quick search shows that the concept actually originated in the 40s in the UK and has also made it to the US in the 60s [1].

Disabled and elderly people not being able to procure their own food isn't really a new problem and also isn't a problem that most first world societies have ignored.

So I'm not really sure what disabled people using a service have to do with the (allegedly) unfair wages of the delivery drivers.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meals_on_Wheels

It has nothing to do with it.

It was a direct response to the idea that the only people ordering from food delivery services are lazy, which is simply not true. I was incapacitated last year due to an injury and wasn't able to leave the house for a couple of weeks. I would have really struggled without Wolt.

Fair enough, sorry then. I mistook it as an argument against delivery fees.

If you're incapacitated for a longer time, you might still want to check out if any meals on wheels services are available to you. I actually know a few colleagues (in their 30s) that started getting those since working 100% from home. It can be quite a bit cheaper. And if you're like me it would also be healthier, because every time I order food it turns out to be something like burgers with fries ;-)

For a mcdonalds meal worth of 5-7e, 3e delivery is a complete highway robbery.

If people will go get their own food, try to guess how much the delivery guy earn then when the whole business goes down?

From user of the service point-of-view, the salary of a middleman delivery guy is irrelevant. It's only about what service is being given and how much does it cost. If the cost is too high then people will simply not buy the service. Food delivery is not a necessity after all.

The cost of delivery doesn't really depend on price of order. Not even size of order, unless it's extreme.

3€ for delivery isn't really unreasonable, it's actually quite cheap. Let's say that it takes 10 minutes all together with going to restaurant pick-up/waiting, then going to drop off. With full utilization that would be 18€ an hour. Now remove 24% of VAT: 13.68€. Rest of the taxes and so on... In the end 3€ is probably too low. Even with some 30% from whole order price.

Is 3 euros such a high price to pay someone to bike over to the restaurant and bring you a still warm meal?
Depends how you look at it.

Here in China (major cities) delivery is often free and when buying from delivery apps there are additional discount available that you can't get when visiting the restaurant.

So basically it's often cheaper to get food delivered to your home than going to the restaurant itself.

If you had to guess how the economics of that work out, how do you think the delivery person is getting paid, and by whom?
I'd guess that the restaurant is paying for all of it, and it offsets having to pay more money for more physical dining space.
In Greece, delivery in all stores is free (ie included in the price). To go from "free" to "3 EUR" when the average order is 5-7 EUR is unworkable and you'll never be able to compete.
Pretty much everything else is under 1.5 euro or free.
Depends on the economics. The food delivery companies take around 25-30% here in Finland (Wolt & Foodora). If the delivery fees were free, I'd order more food and Wolt would get more of the tax they charge restaurants. And maybe the restaurants can make up that loss by having more orders.

Delivery prices are astronomical here. For something 5min away with car (assuming no traffic) I have to pay around 7.90e. For something 1 minute drive away I pay 1.90e. Then there's ranges inbetween from 3.90 to 5.90.

My experiences with Wolt are that the food comes in a car and is not warm.
I've seen a lot of Wolt carriers using public transit in Helsinki. The whole delivery system seems pretty Laissez-faire in a country that's usually pretty strict with regulations.
I imagine there's way less of that on the Espoo side.
Free delivery deals are nice, but it is not exactly fun looking at driver going around the town for 40 minutes. And then order missing stuff...
I once had twister ankle, so couldn't bother walking 3min to pizza place. It took 30mins to deliver it by car, and it arrived cold.
It definitely won't get cheaper. 3 euros seems a completely reasonable price for this delivery.
Most other deliveries are cheaper even if they are 15mins driving distance. And some of them are free. The only reason McDonalds delivery is 3euros, because they refuse to pay 30% tax - so Wolt puts that tax on end-user.
So you expect that Mc will suddenly start giving them the 30%? Or that they’re going to start delivering completely for free (no fee & no cut from the restaurant)?
McD has razor thin margins. Your expectations are completely unrealistic.
This is not meant to be condescending, but do you have any form of disability or health issues that prevent you from getting the food yourself? In cases like this it would be fair for these apps to show support and maybe even drop the delivery charges.
wait-- you are saying the unit of work is minimal ("a 10 minute walk") so you don't want to pay it, but you also aren't willing to do it yourself ('almost-daily user').

so by your actions you basically agree that in your case it is worth it, otherwise you'd just take the 10 minute walk.

Did I miss something?

In German we have an expression for your condition: Wohlstandsverwahrlosung.
As someone who has used both Wolt and DoorDash I would say don't hold your breath on decreased fees. Probably it'll just get more opaque and restaurant menu prices will increase 10-20% while the additional fees stay the same so they can book more revenue without you feeling like you're paying more (because who is also googling the restaurant menu at the same time to compare?)
This is exactly what I see happening. Restaurants are increasing prices to cover the “Wolt tax”. My local McDonald’s does this.
Can confirm, I work in the POS space and most of the restaurants we work with increase their prices to cover the comission charges from the delivery service. DoorDash has a policy that pickup prices have to match in-store (restaurants are still charged comission though), but delivery can be marked up by whatever you want.

That and the extra service fees they charge to customers (they are a lot more in the US [0]), means you can end up paying double what it would be if you got off your ass and walked down the street to order :-)

[0] https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/technology/uber-eat...

Any contract that prohibits price differentiation between sales channels should be flat out illegal. Those kind of contracts are nothing short of evil.
Most pizza-places here attempt to avoid the "(wolt|foodora) tax" price increase for pickups by offering free drinks if you call and order instead of doing it through the app.

Wouldn't be surprised if they start splitting into separate legal entities soon to get out of the pickup price matching restrictions.

And how is this worse? I'd prefer an upfront 20% increase instead of it being added later anyway in fees
It's just less transparent
That sounds about right for the administrative overhead. The expensive bit isn't the walk.
They also take up to 30% from the price of the food, in addition to the delivery fee.