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

Themain selling point of burger and chips is that it's cheap and the kids like it. And sometimes, getting it delivered is the only way because you can't just bundle the kids in the car or one is sleeping or whatever. I would have thought that's obvious? I mean, I agree -if I"m having mcdonalds, I'd rather get it direct. But 90% of the time we get mcDonalds, I'm not eating it anyway and it's a lot easier for us than either driving for 15-20 minutes to our nearest drive through or having to pay for parking and walk to our local one in our town centre.

It’s pedestrian and delivery only. So they are up down bollards so as a pedestrian your meant to always be on alert for a vans and emergency services but the delivery moped drivers just whiz though never stopped even if police around so presumably they are falling under “delivery”.

My understanding is that these services were dirt cheap when they were first invented, because they were deliberately operated at a loss to try and develop the momentum of the business, with the plan of raising prices later on once people had developed an addiction to using the apps.

I think what has happened is that people got lulled into the delivery habit while the prices were low, are vaguely noticing that "ordering food is now more expensive" but are vaguely ascribing this to inflation or COL or something else, rather than realizing that the actual markup going to Deliveroo etc. has really increased a lot as well.

The deals are a bit of a red herring though. Or at least where I am. I often get a 30% Uber eats discount. Put the order through, then compare it to the buying direct, and it's still cheaper to buy direct! Because the costs for everything else on the app are so expensive.

But, i've also noticed not all places allow you to order direct from anyway anymore. But I now always do so if I can.

Waving to you, @DoAWheelie! I’m hearing impaired and use a mobility scooter to get around. DH also has health issues. We get absolutely everything delivered including medication and food. The food delivery apps are absolutely wonderful for disabled people!

I agree OP. I've swapped over to doing the same as I want the money to all go to the actual businesses doing the work and providing the food

Well, if I'm in walking in what is supposed to be a pedestrian-only area and a moped comes whizzing past me, that's going to be just...lovely, isn't it?

I don't want mopeds in pedestrianized areas and they shouldn't be there.

"Exceptions for delivery vehicles" should take the form of "essential deliveries of large goods to shops are acceptable before 10:00 each morning" or something like that. It should not include mopeds zooming about at random times because someone wants a bloody Burger King.

Frankly, this goes to the heart of why these services are unethical and horrible.

why don’t they just put a surcharge on prices if you use deliveroo?

Because it's a condition of the contract with Deliveroo that they won't. Same with Booking dot com for hotels. The site might use a mystery shoppers to phone up and negotiate a lower price than the site, and then impose penalties on places that are undercutting them. Welcome to late-stage capitalism.

Our Domino’s you order directly from their site and they deliver it themselves

We always collect from restaurant, reasons being it is much quicker.

But most importantly, my dp has a couple of delivery driver friends. They often eat some of the takeaway before you get it. Chips, kebab meat being the easiest to take without the customer noticing… Apparently it’s a common thing

Personally. I’ve never seen an issue in our town centre with the pedestrian delivery section but then maybe ours is set differently to others in the fact that despite me and you not being able to drive though there is very clearly still road and pavement different bricks and heights so if you choose to walk in the road by Burger King knowing you have just walked by the G4 van who’s parked up unloading the local bank and Starbucks delivery you would be a bit silly to be in the road part anyway.

Doesn’t seem to be set times for delivery’s unless you are talking Lorry’s and they tend go into the underground bit.

This makes sense, I genuinely hadn't considered that people might be picking somewhere to eat for the kids' preference. I dunno if this makes us selfish parents but we always do the picking (but the sprog is only little so that is bound to change).

None of these services deliver to our address so it's a moot point for us at the moment. But even though some places deliver directly we rarely use them because they don't have their menus online. I can cope with ordering on the phone but I need to know what my options are! I don't want to have to squint at a sideways photo of their menu from two years ago on their FB page. IF we had the delivery services I would use them purely for the easy access to that basic information.

Give it time... <said in the tone of doom>

Also wait until they're teenagers and you unexpectedly have to feed 5 starving 14 year olds....

Honestly, there's a place that's quite far from us but does deliver to our area via Deliveroo.... the food is good but not amazing. It is our most used takeawy restaraunt because... it's one of those place that does mutliple types of food. So DD gets a burger, DS gets a pizza, I get ribs and DH gets something else entirely! having kids is torture when it comes to takeaway sometimes!

A lot of the places near me put the person with the worst English on the phone.

One offers a discount if you call them direct though.

Capitalism is the only system that empowers you to choose. And people choose to enrich billionaires and overseas private equity funds because they value convenience over local community.

Next time you complain about capitalism, remember who's making the choices in the system. Think about that next time you order a pack of AA batteries from Amazon because they've sucked you in to Prime and because you're too important to spend money in a local shop.

I can still order online direct to the takeaways where I am. So I do that rather than by phone

But if the takeaway goes bust due to the crippling costs what are you going to do

That's why I order direct, as I don't want them going bust.

The restaurants who take orders and deliver often have just one or two delivery drivers, so you wait 1.5 hours for an order than would take 30 mins with Deliveroo.

I like the convenience of ordering online and not having to get up. We don't get takeaways often, when we do it's because we want to be as lazy as possible. I will order on their own website if they have one, but still only if they deliver and take online payment because I rarely have cash. Businesses need to move with the times.

In my town there Is no shortage of takeaways opening.

The business choose to use the apps so they need to factor it into the prices charged.

The problem is …. (At our local food anyway) The prices include the “delivery charge” so if you walk and collect you are still paying too much. I want my food hot and quick, not sloshing around the L plate idiots bike … Ours gives us free drinks for collecting ourselves ….

Plus the extra charges they add on top of the delivery fee. Service charge plus inflated food prices?

Most of the Indian and Chinese round here do their own deliveries even though they are on the Deliveroo/uber eats platform.

Who was it

they absolutely do increase the prices though - look at the supermarkets on there for a start.

FWIW I would order direct and collect but I don’t drive. But increasingly I’m finding that most takeaway is an over-rated expensive rip-off. these days you can afford to eat out for the price of the average takeaway.