to ask you to order from your takeaway directly not via Deliveroo/Uber Eats if possible?

[roses2]

I was having a chat with my local takeaway owner last week and he said he gets a lot of orders from Deliveroo/Uber Eats and the fees are crippling and he is now selling his business.

Deliveroo and Uber Eats take 30% + vat commission which he just can't sustain. This is also contributing to the high prices and low quality.

I am lucky that all my favourite take aways are walking distance so always order direct and collect.

If you want to save your local takeaway please go direct where you can

We order directly from our favourite takeaway online, no need to call

There is only one chippy around here that isn't partnered with a courier company. Its cash only.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

And the addition of take-away apps and need to meet the orders quickly has absolutely destroyed the dining out experience - slow service, crowds of delivery drivers at the door and bumping past tables, lower quality food and the list goes on.

It will get to the stage when all food is coming out of dark kitchens and people will complain that their high street no longer has the restaurants/take aways

Also book direct with hotels even though the cut from hotel comparison websites is a lot less than 30%.

2 of my local fave takeaways are actually more expensive to order directly 🤷‍♀️

Our favourite takeaway is literally 20% more expensive if we use Deliveroo compared to ordering directly, and if we order and collect it ourselves we get a further 10% off. I never use Deliveroo anymore.

THIS. Seriously.

The revealed preference of so many people is to spend their lives sitting on their bottoms playing with apps and eating, while moaning vaguely about the state of their high street and why they can't seem to keep the weight off.

Dark kitchens which give unscrupulous people an outlet to employ those not entitled to work in the UK.

Don’t worry OP, I’ve never ordered from Deliveroo or any of the delivery companies as we live too far away from the nearest town. I occasionally buy fish and chips on the way home from a trip into the city and eat them in the car whilst parked up overlooking the sea. We call it “having a car picnic”. It’s another 20mins drive home afterwards. 😁

Yep, this. Takeaways so often get orders wrong, and trying to get a refund is a nightmare. They claim they'll bring the missing thing out, but you end up waiting an hour for it if it turns up at all and there's no chance they'll ever refund you.

Just Eat etc, its really simple to get the refund.

So his business wasn't sustainable without deliveroo anyway?

So how is it hot when it's delivered? Get an insulated bag. My DH has been known to use our heated seat function when collecting but I appreciate not everyone has that option 😆

Part of this is a generational thing I think. Loads of people hate having a conversation on the phone with someone even if it costs them more.

I'd rather go for the cheaper option myself— pick it up myself or call up and pay cash at the door like people have been doing since takeaways were invented.

@roses2 That's a good point I hadn't thought about. Having said that I will remember that in the future, where I can contact someone directly. Sometimes though if I want a delivery from a particular place, I have no option except to use Just Eat or Scoffable.

Takeaways in this house, usually only happen, when for a number of different reasons it isn't suitable to go and collect and it will save time, or can be delivered if family have dropped in unexpectedly. Something along those lines

Fair point though as I said earlier

I don't drive so can't pick up, all the takeaways are some distance away and most don't offer delivery or if they do it's very expensive and slow and impossible to track
Deliveroo is convenient, reliable and allows me to buy food from different places.
I don't think I have any choice but to use them if I want s take away.

Our local ones always add the 30% on to the deliveroo prices and reduce their offering so it's worth it for them.

Then in shop customers pay regular prices with full menu

If the take aways themself had a good website id order direct via their website. As I do for our pizza place. My chippy we walk to.

However anything else is all Justeat or uber for Burger King. Like others had said it’s much easier to get a refund if there is a problem, you can track it and the menus upto date. Just eat also do stamp cards for X amount of orders or cheeky Tuesdays and such.

Where’s the incentive to ring up a take away, shout down the phone to be told item 65 no longer exists or is sold out and now I need to find another take away anyway. Online won’t let me add it if sold it.

In my experience it often is 30% more expensive but people don't always think to compare.

I use UberEats for convenience and am happy to do so.

We get takeaway usually 2-3 times a week, either from traditional takeaways or a restaurant, sometimes a McDonalds brekkie or lunch if we've been out the night before. There's no way we could do this if we were going to collect every time.

We have about 200 places that deliver on UberEats, so there's loads of variety and we've tried places that we otherwise never would have.

Generally their 'on app' prices are more expensive to compensate for the commission taken by Uber/Deliveroo etc, and that's fine. We subscribe to UberOne which gives us free delivery and money off fees, so it probably balances out.

We do order direct from our local Indian, who deliver for free and a big discount for ordering direct.

Customer service is the other big thing. Nothing worse than screaming your order at someone in a noisy takeaway only for it to turn up wrong/items missing and there being nothing you can do about it.

Will probably get some hate for this, but in 2024 I resent paying cash in hand to takeaways who are only putting one in three orders through the till to fiddle the tax man.

If some takeaways can't operate in the modern market, they need to adapt like the majority who can.

I mostly agree, and I always ask if places have a direct menu, but my local chippy actually only does Justeat so we wouldn't be able to use them at all for deliveries if we didn't use Justeat at all. Clearly for them it's worth the money to not have the headache of managing their own deliveries.

I can't order a delivery from our nearest Prezzo unless I use Deliveroo, Uber Eats or Just Eat. I can do Click and Collect but looking right now it says it's not available.

I won't use Uber Eats again anyway. 1/2 our order got left behind and they sent it via push bike (a good 1/2hr ride in rural countryside) rather than car. It kind of defeated the object of treating ourselves. I did get 1/2 the cost refunded but still.

Everything was cold on arrival aswell.

Forgive me if I sound thick here but I thought this was why it's so much more expensive to order things on Deliveroo etc. - the apps take a chunk, so they raise the prices to compensate.

My local take away only takes cash if I order directly, so I’ll continue ordering through a third party.

Most places charge higher prices on the delivery apps though - maybe suggest that to your local take away. Or that they come off the apps altogether and only offer delivery direct. They could operate their own website to facilitate it too.

Businesses should make business decisions to entice a customer in a profitable way. It’s not for the customer to go out of their way to make their business viable.

Total side point, and not singling anyone out here, but I also never understood why anyone would get McDonalds or Burger King delivered— the main selling point of burger and chips is that it's pretty cheap and it's hot, so getting it lukewarm and congealed and a third extra cost seems like it defeats the purpose.

Dont forget to tip the driver even if it’s £1. Makes such a big difference to their shift