Amazon leads $575M investment in Deliveroo

https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/16/amazon-takes-a-bite-into-deliveroo/

by mmq • 7 years ago

69 47 7 years ago

skilled• 7 years ago

With the speed that delivery services are growing, I am under the impression that I soon won't need to leave my chair to have everything I need at my doorstep in less than a few hours.

I have recently had to use a grocery delivery service so I can't complain. The time saved does add up if you're busy.

philliphaydon• 7 years ago

Here in Singapore. If I could work from home I would never need to leave home. I can get everything delivered already. A lot of same day delivery too.

dogma11384• 7 years ago

This been the case for London for a while now.

That said I’m not sure it’s a good thing.

PunchTornado• 7 years ago

why? because something forces you to move?

voltagex_• 7 years ago

I'm in a wheelchair, being able to get groceries delivered has been hugely beneficial.

rbinv• 7 years ago

Idiocracy seems more and more like a forecast.

jacquesm• 7 years ago

We've been tracking it for decades now.

- reality TV star as president of the United States: check

- mountains of garbage: check

- The movie 'Ass' (The Kardashians): check

and probably many more bits and pieces.

ericpearl• 7 years ago

That’s been the case in NYC for decades. A friend ordered a cup of coffe from the local diner and they delivered it without question.

heavenlyblue2• 7 years ago

Coffee...

I ordered bottled water a few times in London.

kayoone2• 7 years ago

I work for a competitor of Deliveroo and in asia you already have these all encompassing delivery apps that started with food and now deliver almost anything. Some also started as Uber competitors branching out into delivery like Uber does with UberEats. Grab, Go-Jek in Asia or Rappi in South America are moving fast into this direction.

k__• 7 years ago

In Germany there was a consolidation this year. Lieferando bought some competitors. Didn't even know Deliveroo was a big thing, thought this was some Berlin only thing.

kayoone2• 7 years ago

Yeah, Lieferando (takeaway.com) bought the german business of Delivery Hero (Lieferheld, pizza.de, Foodora) for close to a billion. They had a long fight in Europe but DH is now focusing on Asia, but they still have a considerable share in takeaway.

mattmanser• 7 years ago

It's big in the UK (where it started) and apparently operates in 200 cities now.

keymone• 7 years ago

has there ever been a delivery service that is food focused rather than food-vendor focused? i just want to order a good burrito, i don't care who makes it. or i'm having a party and we want to order a few burritos, couple pizzas and some sushi - we don't want to make separate orders for all of that. which vendor executed the order can be than rated and future vendors selected by rating and personal preferences.

is this even viable?

lotsofpulp• 7 years ago

As long as there is a sufficient quantity of people who have limited means of other income, and they can drive, it should be viable.

dogma11384• 7 years ago

As long as you can convince different restaurants to produce the same thing exactly sure it can work but thats rather a tall task.

Most people I know would select the place they want to get food from first since there is a huge variance in quality and personal tastes.

icebraining2• 7 years ago

I don't think you need to convince them to produce the same thing. The delivery company would just have single preferred suppliers for each different kind of meal.

Curiously another post on the frontpage is about the success of Aldi, which has a similar model as a grocery store (very limited selection of good quality products). I could see the Aldi of meal delivery working.

miller_joe• 7 years ago

This reminds of a service named Sprig we had in SF. It closed down a couple years ago, however, after a short run.

davidbarker• 7 years ago

Interestingly, I was only yesterday thinking about Deliverance[1]. They were a food delivery company in London that did just that — they cooked all of the meals and then delivered them, but they closed down a few years ago.

[1] https://twitter.com/deliverancefood

dintech2• 7 years ago

I remember these guys. It was one of the best ways to order food to the office that pleased everyone. It was comparatively good food vs its competitors back in the day.

matthewmacleod• 7 years ago

Deliveroo has basically doing this kind of thing in the UK for a while. They operate "dark kitchens" (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/28/deliveroo-d...) which are industrial-zone food prep facilities combining a variety of different vendors on one site. There's still a brand associated with it and everything, which I would guess is actually quite important for customer comprehension.

morrbo2• 7 years ago

I hope to god Deliveroo takes some of Amazon's customer service tips/experience. Deliveroo's customer service is the absolute worst of any company i've ever experienced. So much so that they've had news articles[1] published in the UK about how much they try and screw people over.

Deliveroo, Uber Eats, Just Eat also (again, speaking for the UK) do not list restaurants' food safety/hygienic ratings, which is a requirement to run a restaurant in the UK[2]. This has lead to people like a comedian here (Joe Lycett) making a restaurant in a skip (a big industrial waste disposal unit) and getting food delivered to himself to see if it would work[3]...and it did.

If that wasn't bad enough, in London, Deliveroo actively masks restaurants' locations. For example, you order from "my 5 star restaurant" but the food might not actually come from the restaurant, instead it comes from a metal shipping container, under a bridge, next to a train track. These, are made by Deliveroo and, again, have no safety ratings/hygienic information.[4]

[1] (example) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/deliveroo-food-o...

[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-45888709

[3] https://twitter.com/joelycett/status/1085924299339452420?lan...

[4] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/oct/28/deliveroo-d...

This has been my experience, several times, it really isn't a unique experience. Their policy seems to be to cut corners and hold on to money as much as physically possible. Don't get me wrong, i love the idea, and convenience of it all and use all 3 apps pretty regularly. Given the amount of money they make they should all seriously step up their game in terms of just not being shady bastards.

jmkd3• 7 years ago

Deliveroo actively masks restaurants' locations

This is what allows you to order from a restaurant that is otherwise too far away from you. It's arguably of great benefit to those who do not live in that delivery area.

it comes from a metal shipping container, under a bridge, next to a train track

The metal shipping container has been outfitted to modern standards precisely for this purpose, as opposed to down some stairs in a windowless Victorian cellar, under a bridge, next to a traintrack, which many 'real' restaurant kitchens are like.

These, are made by Deliveroo

No they are not, the chefs are employed by the restaurant, and are making the same dishes to the same standards.

morrbo2• 7 years ago

This is what allows you to order from a restaurant that is otherwise too far away from you. It's arguably of great benefit to those who do not live in that delivery area.

So? They still do it, this is shady business practices which is what the whole point of my post was about. They've started adding a badge "5 star restaurant affiliate" or something similar. They only did this after they were called out on it by the mainstream news.

The metal shipping container has been outfitted to modern standards precisely for this purpose, as opposed to down some stairs in a windowless Victorian cellar, under a bridge, next to a traintrack, which many 'real' restaurant kitchens are like.

It still comes from somewhere which is not where i ordered it from. Agree with me or not, the food still comes from (literally) a metal shipping container which has not been certified to the British food health/safety regulations, and is rented out to different restaurants/people from one day to the next. Also that "windowless Victorian cellar" WOULD have been given a food hygiene rating, otherwise it wouldn't be able to operate. Whether or not that rating is good is not the point, the point is that a government official has gone in and rigorously tested it, it is subject to surprise visits, etc. You should be able to easily view this information as you already can online at https://ratings.food.gov.uk. Can you say the same about the shipping containers which don't have a postcode (so you can't check)?

No they are not, the chefs are employed by the restaurant, and are making the same dishes to the same standards.

I didn't mean the food, i meant the containers. But if we are talking about the food, you can almost guarantee that "5 star restaurant" isn't going to be sending their best chefs away from the proper kitchen into a metal box. Again, this is shady as hell and deceptive.

wjoe• 7 years ago

I hope to god Deliveroo takes some of Amazon's customer service tips/experience.

My experience of Amazon and Deliveroo's customer service has been pretty similar. I don't get to talk to a human, but if I do raise an issue (late delivery from Amazon, missing items from a Deliveroo order) I fairly quickly get a response apologising for it and giving me some free credit.

Interesting points about the way they handle restaurants though. I've noticed a few of the ones that you describe, that are not actually real restaurants. Since Deliveroo is useless at showing reviews and ratings, I'll usually search for places online before I order from there, if I haven't heard of them. A bunch of the takeaways on Deliveroo in my area all have the same address, an industrial estate - as you say, by a train track, probably in a metal shipping container.

I've not had bad expeirences with those "restaurants" to be fair, but it does highlight that Deliveroo is cheating the system and hiding how they actually do things. I hadn't considered the hygiene aspect, that is worrying that they can get away with selling food without the usually required safety/hygiene levels.

It's interesting that Deliveroo has beaten Amazon at their own game in the UK. Amazon Restaurants was a thing for a while as their answer to Deliveroo, but it didn't take off. I think it still exists, but last time I checked there were about 5 restaurants available in my area, compared to 50+ on Deliveroo and Uber Eats. Deliveroo's tactics really don't feel that far removed from Amazon's though.

dintech2• 7 years ago

This hasn’t been my experience. Any problems with an order, they refund immediately no questions asked and add an extra £5 as an apology. Over the years, this has been consistent.

Uber Eats customer service is like pulling teeth. Never had a refund after several incidents and we try not to use them any more.

Nextgrid• 7 years ago

Until they ban you for “abusing” it despite providing evidence every time. They shut down my account with over 4k£ spent in a year because of that. Haven’t regularly used them since then.

jquery• 7 years ago

Not my experience with Eats at all. Refunds always, no questions except during a brief stint I was asking for a lot of refunds in a short time. YMMV.

rounce• 7 years ago

They're not _quite_ as bad as you used to be. They still do not show an address or registered business name. So many will still find it next to impossible to see a rating unless they do some sleuthing. As without this basic information you cannot search for the rating.

The thing I thought was most cheeky was that they put a link to the now useless FSA rating search page. Not to the kitchen rating page. That still seems pretty shady to me.

ubercow133• 7 years ago

Yes and in London it's still significantly more expensive than grabbing food from a brick and mortar restaurant IME. It's crazy that they do not produce the food on restaurant premises, do not have to pay normal London rents and are still more expensive than normal restaurants, even when including delivery by restaurants which offer their own delivery. Is that extra money all going to their drivers?

jmkd3• 7 years ago

Deliveroo have the ambition to own food, so it's no surprise this appeals to Amazon. Delivery is just their first tactic in a far larger strategy.

naveen99• 7 years ago

Does this increase the reputation of Uber? In the past people contrasted amazon reinvestment of profits to uber’s expenses. Now Amazon is following uber eats...

Amazon leads $575M investment in Deliveroo

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