Topic: Why is it easier for an E-hailing company to move into food delivery? (Read 138 times)

Very simple it's because they already have the supply chain network knowledge. They have an established ecosystem of local supply chain and even more than that they know how can they integrate technology along with that and obviously their brand value from the existing E-business as well. The traditional restaurants aren't able to matchup with technology and even if they get technology it's almost impossible for them to tie up technology with their supply chain.

Uber is a technology business, not a delivery company. They can utilize their technology for shipping logistics, which is essentially what E-hauling is. It isn't a food business. Vertical integration of businesses to serve a counterpart is more difficult than people might realize. A restaurant business doesn't implement e-hailing without spending an immense amount of resources/capital in R&D in order to develop an effective service.

It's cheaper just to license Uber's technology, which is to say, have a restaurant listed in app and let Uber get a fee out of every order.

When Uber came out into the market, it had so much hype and potential. Uber also became popular here in my country. Shortly afterward, however, direct competitors came to the fore and took so much away from Uber. It eventually stopped operating in the country, although there were also legal issues involved.

If it's only about wages, it can easily be addressed, but if it's a lot more than that, then they could easily be defeated by competitors. Grab, for example, came out with better offers both for users and employees alike. And they successfully brought Uber to their knees, at least in certain parts of the world.

Anyway, I don't think Uber is owned by Saudi. It's a US company. Bin Salman may have invested in it, but he doesn't own it. He's not even the largest shareholder.

Is it not completely obvious to you? Companies like Uber are simple transport companies, they move people and can potentially move anything in those vehicles. They would have no extra outlay to accommodate such a change, except maybe making sure that drivers have appropriate extra insurance if required. Restaurants do not have fleets of vehicles or third party drivers, so would have to build up that infrastructure before they could move into the transportation arena. It's a huge upfront investment that would take years, if not decades, to start paying for itself - plus many of them already do have drivers if you look at places like dominos, so it's a completely moot and pointless discussion

Didn't quite get the exact gist of the topic, probably, but I'll answer
There is such a concept as "uber-ization of business". This is a whole, new, layer of different businesses operating according to the scheme that the business has built. It can be anything - transportation of passengers, mini-transfers, food, orders from the store, gifts, ..... And this is just us talking about the logistics vector. And you can "uberize" any other direction. The meaning of "uberization" is not a cab, it is a new approach to interaction and participation in business, and it can be both global international and microbusiness. In this case - extremely simple, comfortable conditions to become a participant of this business - both as a "seller" and "service"

You are mentioning deliveries, you change the passenger for food, it's that simple, if UBER or business is to go from point "A" to point "B", the merchandise varies, people or food.

There is called a labor liability that is not profitable for restaurants, so they give it to a third party, in fact you may see the KFC logo but it is a third party that is in charge, that is called "inhouse" it is an old technique of commercialization and marketing, basically you provide a service within a company but they are not your employees, it is like what happens with cleaning people.

Restaurants are in the food business and Uber is in the delivery business, even though KFC has its own delivery fleets they don't manage it, it's what's called outsourcing, it happens with cleaning, (e.g.)

Uber is also running out of cash. Well actually, they burn billions of dollars and have never ever had a profitable quarter, but they are owned by Saudia Arabia Public Investment Fund who have infinite money so that doesn't seem to bother them much.

These companies depend on drivers to deliver stuff for them on very cheap wages, so you'd think that all this stuff should be sustainable in the long term, it's actually not because the drivers can all strike like the Hollywood writers and actors, and screw Uber like that.

It is because of less services that they need to cover and only focusing on the deliver and as well as there's no need for them to have a physical restaurant and store to exist. Just like the digital days, it's just more of the service economy market that they're offering to the people and at the same time, they're having no problem of what the people is demanding but only to provide the service and the product is made by another third party. You're seeing this type of business everywhere and even in the digital marketplaces, outsourcing market is growing and it is widely spreading like wildfire.

For those of you who might not have a sense of history going back this far, there's an old documentary from 2001 called e-Dreams, and it's all about this former Goldman Sachs guy who wanted to get into the dot com boom by starting a delivery service in NYC (which expanded way faster than it should have), and they'd either pull stuff from their local warehouse or go somewhere to buy what you ordered and then deliver it to you via bike messenger.  If you ask me how in the holy hell this was considered a strictly internet business I couldn't give you a good answer, but my point is that what all of the current delivery services are doing isn't a new concept at all.  The business that does the delivering just jacks up the price of whatever it is your torpid ass can't get up and get yourself.

And there are plenty of businesses that do their own delivery.  But either the cost of the service is already baked into what they charge or they do it as a very nice customer relations feature (like my local mom-and-pop pharmacy, for instance).

Um.  That scenario could only apply to a minute percentage of any food-ordering population at any given time, and I'm picturing somebody who can't fit through a door frame ordering food from all of those places at once.  You never know what someone like that would prefer. 

Back in the real world, people who don't have money to waste on middle-man delivery services are probably going to just order from some restaurant that does deliver, like Domino's or the like.  They're still not super cheap, but the alternatives are highway robbery IMO.

There's something to do with pandemic happen where hailing company should adopt to the changes since they cannot do there usual activity like getting passenger since this one prohibited to lessen up the spreading of the virus. So they adopt to the changes and deliver food since to many demands at that time and to many people used the app since they don't want to go outside due to the pandemic scare.

It's easy for the E-hailing companies to dive into the food delivery business, and will be easy for them to dive into any other delivery package for that matter because they are already in the transportation system. For example, Uber is already in the system, they are popular. Therefore, it's just for them to alter an app and call it whatever name they want, let it is known to the people, and the business starts.

As for restaurants, I don't believe it's difficult for them too, that's if they want to introduce it into their business, especially when they are popular and have all it takes like KFC. Only that it might not be part of their business focus. They could just make it known and bring experts in the distribution and E-hailing field. Although, some would consider the cost-effectiveness of it and rather partner with services like Uber Eats.

After all, a partnership is part of the business, you don't always own it all.

KFC do offer home delivery, so you're wrong if you say a successful restaurant don't have their own e-hailing service.

But obviously general e-hailing service is better than each restaurant offer their own e-hailing service because you in general e-hailing service you have an option to view every restaurants or foods that you want to order. Let's say you want to order from KFC, Subway, McDonald, Pizza Hut and Starbucks at the same time, will you choose to use ubereats or 5 applications from each restaurant?

That's quite a good question, Well the answer is in your post, which is that e-hailing companies already have transportation networks already built. Like new companies which are not e-hailing like KFC etc. do not have any transportation network built so in order to do that they first have to spend a lot of time and money on that. But i think now they have reached a place where they don't have to deliver your food to your doorstep because they are brands like MacDonalds etc.

So this maybe a reason for them not to shift to E-hailing. Instead, they use other E-Hailing services like of uber, etc. Because Uber drivers are using bikes, cycles, etc. to deliver food from one place to another and those places are like what 1 or 2 blocks away from each other. Which is not that big distance.

One reason I noticed is that first they have discounts than the actual app of the restaurant, and also people keep changing their minds on what food to eat. Just imagine if you only open the app of that specific restaurant but you want other food. That is why it is best to have one app that has multiple restaurants that you can choose from. This is also one of the reasons why I choose it over using the restaurant's app. Also, I found sometimes that the restaurant's app was very buggy and not accessible.

Instead of moving I'd use the word adapting. E-hailing company are able to do that because they already have the man power and vehicle to do that job. Fast food chains or restaurants, on the other hand, will have to hire their own drivers/riders and get their own vehicles for it. Moreover, they also have to pay these rider/drivers the same salary as their regular employees. With the many food delivery options on the go like Uber eats around then I'm sure they would rather do that instead.

I think the reason why a fast food place doesn’t have their own drivers is because they would need to be paid as
An employee and there are probably hours during the day when there are no deliveries and they would still need to get paid. Maybe McDonald’s can do this but every other restaurant can’t hence most just use Uber Eats.

The issue lately with Uber Eats is the price. The menu is marked up and you need to pay a delivery fee and tip. Many people don’t want to tip because it’s already expenses. Sometimes like $25-30 for a BigMac meal. So they don’t tip and then no driver takes the order and it doesn’t get filled. Great for Uber bad for the drivers and customers.

Because of their all-in-one app. Uber provides convenience. That's basically what they offer.

Many years ago, we had a phone number for each of the major taxi company. If one doesn't answer or doesn't have an available unit near where you want to be picked up, you'd call another taxi company. This inconvenience is addressed with the kind of solution Uber provides. The same goes to hotels and resorts and other accommodations. There are now Uber-like apps for them, too. And now this kind of solution is also made available in the food services.

I think your Uber Eats driver got your wrong order of mushrooms!
That or your cat cracked your windows password again!

This is how Uber eats work:
Many companies similar to Uber Eats do the same thing. And as we know, Uber is an E-hailing company however, they have spread their business tentacles into food delivery. The question for discussion is, why is it easier for an E-hailing company to move into food delivery than for a successful restaurant to add E-hailing services to what they do? A perfect example would be KFC moving into E-hailing.

*Edited thanks @stompix