[handy2000]

You are describing a completely different service though. Prep-meal delivery also works, but it's addressing a different usage pattern.

In the same way you could propose to replace Uber with... buses? 15 people get on the same bus at a specific time and get dropped off within 5 miles, thus optimizing the process.

[dragontamer]

UberEats is a "bus" that pretends otherwise.

I've seen the Uber drivers come in. They always grab like 4 or 5 orders, and possibly drive to a 2nd or 3rd restaraunt before they start delivering.

Its not like those UberEats drivers have a big penalty if they arrive late or if the food is cold.

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What I'm saying is, consolidated food delivery services is *already* what we have with DoorDash/UberEats/whatever, they just lie to you about the details.

The reason why Foodsby works (albeit on a smaller scale) is because they're honest about it. There's nothing wrong with consolidating orders to minimize driving time, the problem occurs because those other services _PRETEND_ they're a 1-to-1 order service with dedicated drivers. IE: Its the lies where things have gone wrong, not necessarily the practice.

If all the drivers are double-booking / consolidating orders anyway, then work it into the model. Embrace it, rather than pretend otherwise.

[Zircom]

>I've seen the Uber drivers come in. They always grab like 4 or 5 orders [from the same restaurant], and possibly drive to a 2nd or 3rd restaurant before they start delivering.

Having done Doordash/Ubereats in the past myself that is ABSOUTELY not the norm, god I wish it was that streamlined. Picking up a single order and delivering it straight to the customer is by far and away the most common scenario for the drivers.

They do have stacked orders which are the multiple pickups you're talking about, but I've never had more than 3 orders "stacked" together, and I would say it's more common to have stacked orders from multiple different restaurants rather than multiple orders from the same restaurant. And from the driver point of view stacks suck because almost always only one order in the stack will have a tip, the others will be no-tip orders they couldn't get someone else to deliver by themselves.

Doordash also recently changed how they pay out on these stacked orders to the drivers detriment. It used to be you'd get the base rate for each order in the stack, so 3 orders stacked together would be the base rate x 3 + whatever tips by each customer, but now they pay them out as one big order no matter how many orders are stacked together, so you get a single count of the base rate even if you're delivering two or more orders in a stack, which again are usually only a single order with a tip, so you're effectively delivering the other orders for free.

[dragontamer]

Thanks for the anecdotes. Good to hear how things work from someone who has actually experienced it.

All I've seen are the big orders that get handed to someone who immediately runs out the door and into a car that they left running (with the keys in and everything), lol. They're obviously stressed and trying to make time.

I guess the big orders / stacks are more noticeable to me and obvious what's going on. If a more "normal" driver comes in, it looks like any other internet order (like my own, except I'm picking it up personally).

[handy2000]

You are partially correct describing that some delivery drivers already batch their orders. But that's still a different use case. Foodsby can't scale to 15 min increments for all restaurants in the city. While some people can preplan and are OK ordering food from a specific restaurant that Foodsby works with, most people don't want that. How many people want to order food from an expensive Spanish (i.e. Spanish, not Mexican) restaurant I order from sometimes? So my options are going to be: #1 not ordering from this restaurant because it's not a common food preference and is expensive or #2 wait for 15 people to join the order for this restaurant and get food hours or days later.

It's a good business idea, it's just a different usage pattern. I order food when I am hungry. I don't preplan, don't like food from the majority of popular local places (pizza, Mexican, Chinese).

[dragontamer]

> Foodsby can't scale to 15 min increments for all restaurants in the city.

For some definition of increments and "all", yes they can.

Restaraunt#1 delivers at 10:15am.

Restaraunt#2 delivers at 10:30am.

Etc. etc. etc. Covering the entirety of lunch hours. This is how it works in practice, today.

If you're in a location with lots of Foodsby usage, then you might have 3 or 4 different Foodsby locations to check within a reasonable distance, which dramatically increases the restaurants and timeslots available. Like 1x Foodsby is already fine, but if you're in an area with 5x walking-distance Foodsby dropoff points like I am, things start to get really convenient, and the selection becomes dramatically wider.

It also means for the drivers, that one "trip" can hit 3, 4, 5 offices in one drive. I'm sure that on Foodsby days, these drivers are delivering multiple dozens of meals. In fact, the *MANAGER* of one local Restaurant was the driver for one of my recent orders (we recognize each other's faces because I visited his restaraunt a lot, so it surprised me to see the manager making delivery runs). So its more fulfilling work than typical grunt labor, since they're making so many deliveries on relatively low effort. If he's got ~30 orders, that's $60 ($2 per meal) in less than 30 minutes of driving/delivering, which is certainly more money flowing than most UberEats / DoorDash setups.

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Now yes, you may be arguing that "its not what you want". But... when that Spanish Restaraunt says "We're offering $2 delivery (no tip) 3 days from now at X-oclock"... I think you'll be thinking of using Foodsby that day.

Or maybe you check the website to see today's Restaraunts and whether or not your favorite is on the list.

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In any case, _THIS_ is innovation. Actually playing with models and finding things that are better for everyone (chefs, restaraunt owners, drivers, users) as a whole. I'm sure other models can work too, for some sliding scale of individualism, bulk deliveries and whatnot.

But as far as the personalized 1-to-1 service? Its dead, its so dead I'm convinced it never even existed. UberEats _never_ promised a driver on the standby ready to personally serve you, and months/years of using the service has made it obvious to everyone.

There's only so many times that I get a meal 1.5 hours too late that causes me to give up on UberEats (and similar) services.

[somethoughts]

Interestingly in Silicon Valley, there's an angel funded startup founded by an ex-Google foodie who worked with some of the more notable Asian restaurants (the super popular ones with long lines).

She arrange it such that users from a given neighborhood could order via the website app by 4:30 from a specific set of 2-3 restaurants per day. The orders from a given neighborhood are bulk ordered for 3-4 drivers to pick up from the 2-3 restaurants and delivered to the same neighborhood between 6-7pm.

The list of 2-3 restaurants for a given neighborhood are shared a week in advance and in cooperation with the restaurants so they can handle the surge. Since the restaurants no it will likely be reheated the packaging is optimized.

Because there is a rotation of the restaurant - it paradoxically avoids the tyranny of choice issues with picking a restaurant and actually feels fresher in a discover new restaurants type of way.

During ZIRP/Covid the menu prices were sometimes lower and there was no delivery fee. Post Covid they do have a membership option or a very modest delivery fee.

[4b11b4]

Hello, what is the name of this? I am currently working with a few restaurants to launch almost the exact model. The idea is to transition from on-demand to in-advance.

[handy2000]

> In any case, _THIS_ is innovation. Actually playing with models and finding things that are better for everyone

Yup, that's a good point. The current model doesn't seem to be sustinable.

[dragontamer]

The Food Truck model also seems to be taking off in my area.

Which is somewhat different than internet-based calling of food, but still a convenient walk that gets me lunch.

[OkayPhysicist]

Uber was experimenting with that exact process before covid. For a lower fare, you let Uber dynamically re-route your driver to pick up more people headed in roughly the same direction as you. Worked alright, maybe took 1.5x as long for you to reach your destination while you paid about half as much as you did usually.

[lozenge]

Busses work, though. If you removed busses, there is no amount of Ubers you could add to the roads to "fix" the system. It's clearly impractical for each office worker to pay for even half an hour of someone's time every day to deliver a meal just to them. While most counter services can serve 20 meals with the same half hour of wages.

Uber Eats is doing it here in London with "ghost kitchens". 15 fast casual brands cooking (mostly reheating really) from 3 kitchens in 1 building. A much better chance for delivery drivers to be able to pick up multiple orders. It still isn't enough optimising though, as the destinations are still scattered.