News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies still struggle to profit. Parent comment

Re:America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies sti... by chipotle_coyote on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @04:44PM (#23171628)
Food delivery doesn't necessarily let you share delivery routes, either. If you're paying for groceries, yes. If you're paying for two theoretically freshly-cooked dinners from a local restaurant, you want that food to come directly from the restaurant to you. The difference between ten minutes and forty minutes can substantially affect food quality and customer satisfaction.

As for food delivery robots, I mean, sure, but building a business that only succeeds if other people deliver world-changing technology at scale before you run out of capital seems a wee bit on the risky side.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies sti... by SilasX on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @06:00PM (#23172328)
>Food delivery doesn't necessarily let you share delivery routes, either.

Right, that's my thinking (and anyone is free to steal this idea with my encouragement): there should be a way for someone to commit to some dish, started at some time, and then others can "hook" onto the order for a discount. Then you get economies of scale: it costs a lot less than O(n) to batch it up to n orders.

That's a surplus that can be shared between the tech platform, the restaurant, and the end user.

Similar logic for delivering that same food to people who are close to each other.

Earlier post on the model:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23093747

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies sti... by aianus on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @07:36PM (#23173173)
> there should be a way for someone to commit to some dish, started at some time, and then others can "hook" onto the order for a discount

This is how Uber Eats already works in Toronto.

There is a section in the app with restaurants that have orders already in progress and with a timer on each one and if you order within that limited time, the delivery fee is $0.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies sti... by SilasX on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @07:39PM (#23173199)
Oh nice! That's awesome!
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies sti... by lenzm on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @06:40PM (#23172680)
Ritual kind of does what you're describing without the delivery. They're targeting offices. One person orders and the rest of the office is alerted. The first person picks up orders for anyone else that puts an order in within a few minutes.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies sti... by bestnameever on Wednesday May 13, 2020 @07:29PM (#23173109)
Uber eats used to do that with their own selected dishes.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:America is stuck at home, but food-delivery companies sti... by wutbrodo on Thursday May 14, 2020 @01:33PM (#23182584)
I'm pretty sure I saw this at some point in the last few weeks, either in sf or LA
[ Parent | on HN ]