7 ms·

This is a failure in leadership at UberEats. Uber has more than one revenue source and delivery is in high demand, UberEats is severely losing to DoorDash in fo

This is a failure in leadership at UberEats. Uber has more than one revenue source and delivery is in high demand, UberEats is severely losing to DoorDash in food delivery, despite Uber having significantly more resources than DoorDash. Uber has billions in the bank, Doordash only has hundreds of millions. At the time of this posting, Doordash is currently number #13 in the App store, UberEats is sitting at #62. Uber has access to capital and reserve in the bank. Reserves are often used for a rainy day, well it is pouring now. They should be using their position to gain market share during this time of peak demand for deliveries, should not be losing to DoorDash.

tinyhouse 6y ago
Well, DoorDash focused on food delivery since day 1. It wasn't Uber's focus until recently. Even if they are doing a great job now, it will take time to close the gap.
- rockarage 6y ago
  UberEats was founded in August 2014, easy to Google.
  - sokoloff 6y ago
    Would you say though that Uber's focus was on food delivery in the five and a half years leading up to March of 2020?
    - rockarage 6y ago
      Yes, food was and is a major focus for Uber, it's part of their pitch for growth: they just don't do taxi/rideshare, they do deliveries one of the reasons they're valuation dwarfs Lyft.
madeofpalk 6y ago
I’m not sure what it’s like in the US, but at least in the UK I understand that food delivery demand has plummeted. I initially thought it would be higher due to people isolating and now shopping, but a lot of people now have less disposable income to spend on expensive food delivery. Also less availability (restaurants closing down)
- apexalpha 6y ago
  Here in NL it's exploded. During lunch and dinner times Uber / TakeAway / Deliveroo is all you see on the streets. For many restaurants this is the only income they have and it's highly encouraged to order some. Not many people have gone down in disposable income, though. That might be a factor.
  - MoBattah_ 6y ago
    Netherlands hasn't had increased unemployment due to COVID?
    - com 6y ago
      Not yet. A combination of work-from-home, a fairly limited lockdown and a variety of state and city schemes for income support for entrepreneurs, small business and a furlough program seem to have limited the impact for now. We’ll see in 5-6 months I guess.
    - apexalpha 6y ago
      No we don't have a full lockdown. Many work from home, some in A/B teams and if your business had to close (cafés, restaurants without delivery, pilot) you still get paid except your company can get it reimbursed via the government. So basically our economy kinda just runs on, even though a lot less is happening. Restaurants have switched to delivery if they can. Most people I know actually have more money now, since you can't really go out and spend it. And May is usually the month where Dutch people get their 13th month (bonus).
      - tdons 6y ago
        Our economy is in the toilet. Large parts of it at least (that aren't very visible). We'll see the wave of defaults and bankruptcies in a couple of months.
        jonny_eh 6y ago
ashtonkem 6y ago
I reinstalled Uber Eats after receiving several generous coupons. That app is awful. It took me six tries to login, because I genuinely couldn’t figure out that the “ok” button was a tiny black bar all the way at the bottom of the screen (I was using an iPad). I also struggled to change my default address from Chicago to LA, and almost ordered food in Chicago after changing my home address in the app. At multiple steps during the ordering process the UI randomly changed, making it really hard for me to find what I was looking for. I’m not surprised that Uber Eats isn’t winning. Once my coupons are done I’m uninstalling that app and going back to Door Dash.
- askafriend 6y ago
  The Uber Eats app is leagues better than the half-assed, buggy Doordash app.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    I can’t recall having seen bugs in Doordash, and my wife hasn’t complained about it. So YMMV I guess.
mav3rick 6y ago
A lot of my friends moved to Doordash since they teamed with Chase Sapphire Reserve for free delivery.
- xxpor 6y ago
  The timing of the CSR deal was amazing (for customers at least). All of my friends have switched to DD too because of it.
- ww520 6y ago
  Haven’t heard of the deal? How does it work? Using CSR as a payment method?
  - miked85 6y ago
    https://www.doordash.com/dashpass-v2/chase/sapphire-reserve/en-US https://www.doordash.com/dashpass-v2/chase/sapphire-reserve/...
    - geoelectric 6y ago
      https://www.doordash.com/dashpass-v2/chase/sapphire-preferred/en-US https://www.doordash.com/dashpass-v2/chase/sapphire-preferre... ...shows some for Sapphire Preferred. Looks like a year of DashPass for free. https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Chase-Partnership?language=en_US https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Chase-Partners... I still have a huge problem with DD from their tip-handling, though. I know they revised it somewhat but they held out longest and have been the shadiest. I'm disappointed they're winning.
  - mav3rick 6y ago
    Yes you get DashPass for a year or two. Forgot. And then just filter stores by "DashPass". Same with Lyft and Lyft pass.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Thanks for the tip. I don't know if I'll ever use it because the options around where I live are pretty terrible. But maybe I'll be desperate some evening.
xwdv 6y ago
After a bad experience with Uber Eats, I swore to never use them again, and now I’m glad they are failing. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
- draw_down 6y ago
  Good grief, using that quote for that purpose. Madness
  - xwdv 6y ago
    I fail to see the issue.
    - fegul 6y ago
      Using that quote in this context essentially represents the epitome of first-world problems and privilege.
    - draw_down 6y ago
      Yeah, I bet you do.
- simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  As much as you can hate a service, please consider the the primary "victims" of a layoff are the workers, not the company itself. I don't think that any specific individual "deserves" to be punished for having worked at a company like Uber. There might be exceptions, and there might be a few specific individuals that crossed the line, but most people do their work and behave with honesty, and they don't deserve your negativity.
  - xwdv 6y ago
    They will find new work and recover. Uber will not.
    - simonebrunozzi 6y ago
leetcrew 6y ago
haven't tried in a while, but the last time I tried UberEats, it was much more expensive than DoorDash. IIRC, DoorDash is basically a flat delivery rate for each restaurant, while UberEats delivery pricing is more like hiring a point-to-point uber driver. if that's still the case, it's not hard to see why people would prefer DoorDash.
- mennis16 6y ago
  It's definitely more expensive than most delivery apps, but idt it is even because of the delivery fee, which usually appears reasonable. They kill you on the percentage based service charge. Which is maybe trying to makeup for different delivery logistics, but it definitely doesn't explicitly price based on delivery difficulty- which makes it much more annoying to me. The only other app I noticed doing this is Caviar. Perhaps they assume that people ordering from steakhouses will largely not care about the extra service fee, so it makes more business sense to jack up the price as much as possible. But personally it has stopped me from ordering on multiple occasions.
  - Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
    > The only other app I noticed doing this is Caviar. DoorDash does have a percentage fee. For me it shows "free" delivery and taxes and fees. Tap on taxes and fees and there's a service fee. I have a Dashpass, so my service fee is cheaper, but I think it's 11% without the pass based on looking at some of my past orders. I just tested a couple restaurants that are on both Uber Eats and DoorDash and it's pretty mixed in terms of cost. For some reason the delivery fees are really high on DoorDash for some restaurants, but for others they are "free" and the lower service fee tilts things in their favor. Sometimes the price of the items themselves is different. Shop around
mennis16 6y ago
Not sure how DoorDash compares but what often made me pause on ordering UberEats pre-pandemic was the way they do the service charge. It is a percentage (I believe 15%?) of the cost of what you are ordering, and it does not appear to go to driver at all (tip is a separate prompt + there is a delivery fee)/clearly doesn't go to the restaurant. I don't understand why I should pay Uber a percentage based on the cost of the meal, when GrubHub and some others operate on a flat rate service fee. I would sort of understand if it had to do with order size, but when you start adding higher end restaurants it really feels like a rip off. And it also makes their "deals" feel really hollow because who cares if delivery fee went from $3.99 to $0 when you will often still have a >$10 service fee?
- marcinzm 6y ago
  >GrubHub and some others operate on a flat rate service fee GrubHub charges the restaurant a percentage, it just hides that in the cost of the food on it's platform rather than making it explicit.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    A lot of these companies do this scummy thing. They charge delivery fees, "service charges" and silently inflate the prices or charge the restaurant a commission which means the price of the food itself is still higher than what they actually pay out to the restaurant.
MattGaiser 6y ago
DoorDash just gives away coupons and if you order frequently, DashPass is a great deal. I don't know how DoorDash is functioning in a way that is so much cheaper to me the consumer. I'm surprised to learn that DoorDash doesn't have the resources as they are giving away a lot of coupons.
jariel 6y ago
Unfortunately, none of these facts necessarily line up to support your claim. Uber Eats does not have 'billions' - Uber does. The 'cost' of that market share is unknown - who is subsidising and by how much more? Maybe 'Uber Eats' is a 'marginal strategy' in that they can leverage the slack time of their drivers into doing something else. Market Share varies from country to country. They may actually be using their $ to gain market share right now, why would you imply otherwise. Their layoff could be for any number of reasons: convenient opportunity to trim the fat, close down some projects and do a 'one time writeoff', it maybe mostly just a covid reality. It's possible they are laying off more heavily in areas that don't have Uber Eats. Billions in the Bank is not for a 'rainy day' it's for any and all sorts of things. It would take some specific information with respect to Uber Eats to see how well they were doing with it.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
asdff 6y ago
I've switched to running my own delivery and just grabbing takeout. Cheaper, faster, warmer food, restaurant gets more money, such a win win.
kingbirdy 6y ago
I don't use UberEats because I've found it to be dramatically more expensive. The same order from DoorDash, GrubHub, etc are often $5-10 more expensive on UE due to both higher prices from merchants and Uber charging higher fees. The only people I know who use UE for delivery are already "locked in" to Uber with their credit card, having lots of points in their rewards program, etc.
- hcnews 6y ago
  That's probably because UberEats isn't subsidizing those purchases and reflecting real underlying costs. DoorDash is still a private company and has the leeway to subsidize a lot more.
Vadoff 6y ago
The primary reason I don't use them is they have 0 customer service, it's impossible to talk to a real person for help when your order gets screwed up or your driver is a no show (happens a lot). UberEats app is somewhat buggy too. I also feel they lose out when it comes to overall restaurant selection.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  Their support is outsourced to monkeys which is most likely by design to make you give up. If you persevere enough they will "magically" (for no good reason, given the circumstances haven't changed) give you a refund to shut you up, and if not, you have enough evidence for a chargeback anyway. Charging back those orders would be the right thing to do to discourage such behaviour.
shrimpx 6y ago
UberEats is suffering from some brand confusion. "It's Uber but for food." "It Ubers your food." Lots of ordinary people didn't bother to understand what this service does, even though they use both Uber (for rides) and other food delivery services. When I saw the first UberEats ads, admittedly just out of the corner of my eye without bothering to dig in, it sounded like a service that will give me a ride to dinner.
epylar 6y ago
I ordered some things from UberEats early on in the quarantine. The restaurants made several errors and eventually UberEats said they wouldn't refund because I was having too many issues with my food, and it was 'unlikely' that a person would have that many issues. So I don't use them any more.
- mifreewil 6y ago
  Similar - I use DoorDash all the time and refuse to use UberEats ever again, absent they change their refund policy. UberEats treats customers like garbage. Just read the App Store reviews for UberEats. If a driver isn’t able to deliver successfully they just cancel the order and blame the customer by default. Contacting customer support is met with robotic replies and they refuse refund. Last time I just did a chargeback and won’t use them again.
  - koolba 6y ago
    If you get banned from UberEats do they blacklist you from Uber as well?
    - mifreewil 6y ago
      I’m not banned, just refuse to be treated like garbage. My guess is not.
    - timc13 6y ago
      the inverse is true. I am banned from Uber and cannot sign up for UberEats
      - thr0w__4w4y 6y ago
        Appreciate the candor. Can I ask — what does it take to get banned by Uber?
        rajup 6y ago
servercobra 6y ago
Between high fees and more errors with UberEats, I've stopped using them. DoorDash has been decent, but not great. I reallllly wish DoorDash would add car make and color, then I'd have 0 reason to consider UberEats. I usually walk out of my complex around dinner time and there's between 2 and 5 cars waiting either to pick up riders or deliver food, so I get to go to each and ask if they're for me.
alaskamiller 6y ago
UberEats losing market share to DoorDash is indicative of UberEats leadership failure. DoorDash engineering is bad, DoorDash policies are bad, DoorDash feeds their PR machine often. Additionally, UE software is bloated and user-hostile compared to DD and GH.
sreekotay 6y ago
The problem? Pricey. The business model doesnt work.
tehwebguy 6y ago
My UberEats experience in west Los Angeles during quarantine has been perfect. When traffic is bad there are more delivery problems (and customer service is truly the worst ever) but recently it's been amazing. Fees are about to be a big issue though -- to the end user UberEats is a full $2.99 more expensive than Postmates for < $15 subtotal orders. I don't know if that means Postmates is taking an extra $2.99 from the restaurant for those orders. Either way though, the % of restaurants' orders going through delivery services surely just went up dramatically so those fees are now going to make a bigger impact, I'm sure we'll see the ecosystem change soon.
mulmen 6y ago
I tried to order food with DoorDash. I couldn't figure out how to use the app. I entered my address and selected a nearby restaurant. I picked a couple things on the menu and added them to my order. Never was able to figure out what to do from there. There didn't seem to be a cart or order or anything and there was no call to action. I gave up after a few minutes and deleted the app.
- grandmczeb 6y ago
  A “view cart” button appears at the bottom of the screen when I add an item to my order (iOS).
  - mulmen 6y ago
    Yes I saw that icon, nothing ever showed up there. No badge and when I touched it I never saw what I had already added. I started by tapping the first restaurant they suggested. I viewed the menu, picked an item and set the quantity and added it to cart. Then I picked another item and did the same. I figured that would feed me so I tried to order it. No evidence of any previous interaction was discernible. The cart was empty. Any time I touched the cart icon I just ended up back on the main page of the app and had to pick my restaurant again. I thought maybe I was picking a restaurant "outside of my delivery range" so I made sure location services were on. No change. The first thing it does is ask for an address, I shouldn't even have to give it my GPS coordinates but hey, who would test that right? When I enter the address I shouldn't even be able to see restaurants that don't deliver to me so I doubt that was the problem. It just simply did not work at all. I'm not dumb, I tried to give them my money and couldn't figure it out, maybe I finally got old. Maybe I got hit by a cosmic ray. I can call the local pizza place and submit a delivery order in under 11 seconds: "Hello mulmen, would you like to hear our specials?" ~2s "No, thanks" ~1s "Ok, would you like to repeat your last order?" ~2s "Yes" <1s "Is the card ending in 1234 still valid?" ~2s "Yes" <1s "Thanks, we will be at 1234 Main St #1 in 45 minutes." ~3s <click> Seriously, I timed it. 11 seconds is my best. They have a local call center for their many locations so they pick up almost immediately. Order takers only take orders. I can place an order on their webpage (they don't have an app, why would they?) in under a minute. Pickup orders from other nearby spots is similar. I don't understand the value these delivery services supposedly offer.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
In general I would agree with you. My sense is that UberEats can't possibly absorb the huge loss of business of Uber's "main" product line. I also feel that Uber's problems will persist for at least 15-18 months, if not for longer. In this case, you still need to considerably cut your workforce, to be able to use that cash for a "very long" rainy day. Just IMHO. I can be completely wrong on all accounts.
Animats 6y ago
Doordash seems to have restaurant delivery reasonably well worked out. I've had minor problems with Doordash, and customer service fixes them. You get to see where the delivery person is on a map. Uber isn't that good when they can't afford to operate at a loss. Their real edge was too much money from Softbank.

tinyhouse 6y ago

Well, DoorDash focused on food delivery since day 1. It wasn't Uber's focus until recently. Even if they are doing a great job now, it will take time to close the gap.

rockarage 6y ago
UberEats was founded in August 2014, easy to Google.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  Would you say though that Uber's focus was on food delivery in the five and a half years leading up to March of 2020?
  - rockarage 6y ago
    Yes, food was and is a major focus for Uber, it's part of their pitch for growth: they just don't do taxi/rideshare, they do deliveries one of the reasons they're valuation dwarfs Lyft.

madeofpalk 6y ago

I’m not sure what it’s like in the US, but at least in the UK I understand that food delivery demand has plummeted. I initially thought it would be higher due to people isolating and now shopping, but a lot of people now have less disposable income to spend on expensive food delivery. Also less availability (restaurants closing down)

apexalpha 6y ago
Here in NL it's exploded. During lunch and dinner times Uber / TakeAway / Deliveroo is all you see on the streets. For many restaurants this is the only income they have and it's highly encouraged to order some. Not many people have gone down in disposable income, though. That might be a factor.
- MoBattah_ 6y ago
  Netherlands hasn't had increased unemployment due to COVID?
  - com 6y ago
    Not yet. A combination of work-from-home, a fairly limited lockdown and a variety of state and city schemes for income support for entrepreneurs, small business and a furlough program seem to have limited the impact for now. We’ll see in 5-6 months I guess.
  - apexalpha 6y ago
    No we don't have a full lockdown. Many work from home, some in A/B teams and if your business had to close (cafés, restaurants without delivery, pilot) you still get paid except your company can get it reimbursed via the government. So basically our economy kinda just runs on, even though a lot less is happening. Restaurants have switched to delivery if they can. Most people I know actually have more money now, since you can't really go out and spend it. And May is usually the month where Dutch people get their 13th month (bonus).
    - tdons 6y ago
      Our economy is in the toilet. Large parts of it at least (that aren't very visible). We'll see the wave of defaults and bankruptcies in a couple of months.
      - jonny_eh 6y ago

ashtonkem 6y ago

I reinstalled Uber Eats after receiving several generous coupons. That app is awful. It took me six tries to login, because I genuinely couldn’t figure out that the “ok” button was a tiny black bar all the way at the bottom of the screen (I was using an iPad). I also struggled to change my default address from Chicago to LA, and almost ordered food in Chicago after changing my home address in the app. At multiple steps during the ordering process the UI randomly changed, making it really hard for me to find what I was looking for. I’m not surprised that Uber Eats isn’t winning. Once my coupons are done I’m uninstalling that app and going back to Door Dash.

askafriend 6y ago
The Uber Eats app is leagues better than the half-assed, buggy Doordash app.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  I can’t recall having seen bugs in Doordash, and my wife hasn’t complained about it. So YMMV I guess.

mav3rick 6y ago

A lot of my friends moved to Doordash since they teamed with Chase Sapphire Reserve for free delivery.

xxpor 6y ago
The timing of the CSR deal was amazing (for customers at least). All of my friends have switched to DD too because of it.
ww520 6y ago
Haven’t heard of the deal? How does it work? Using CSR as a payment method?
- miked85 6y ago
  https://www.doordash.com/dashpass-v2/chase/sapphire-reserve/en-US https://www.doordash.com/dashpass-v2/chase/sapphire-reserve/...
  - geoelectric 6y ago
    https://www.doordash.com/dashpass-v2/chase/sapphire-preferred/en-US https://www.doordash.com/dashpass-v2/chase/sapphire-preferre... ...shows some for Sapphire Preferred. Looks like a year of DashPass for free. https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Chase-Partnership?language=en_US https://help.doordash.com/consumers/s/article/Chase-Partners... I still have a huge problem with DD from their tip-handling, though. I know they revised it somewhat but they held out longest and have been the shadiest. I'm disappointed they're winning.
- mav3rick 6y ago
  Yes you get DashPass for a year or two. Forgot. And then just filter stores by "DashPass". Same with Lyft and Lyft pass.
ghaff 6y ago
Thanks for the tip. I don't know if I'll ever use it because the options around where I live are pretty terrible. But maybe I'll be desperate some evening.

xwdv 6y ago

After a bad experience with Uber Eats, I swore to never use them again, and now I’m glad they are failing. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

draw_down 6y ago
Good grief, using that quote for that purpose. Madness
- xwdv 6y ago
  I fail to see the issue.
  - fegul 6y ago
    Using that quote in this context essentially represents the epitome of first-world problems and privilege.
  - draw_down 6y ago
    Yeah, I bet you do.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
As much as you can hate a service, please consider the the primary "victims" of a layoff are the workers, not the company itself. I don't think that any specific individual "deserves" to be punished for having worked at a company like Uber. There might be exceptions, and there might be a few specific individuals that crossed the line, but most people do their work and behave with honesty, and they don't deserve your negativity.
- xwdv 6y ago
  They will find new work and recover. Uber will not.
  - simonebrunozzi 6y ago

leetcrew 6y ago

haven't tried in a while, but the last time I tried UberEats, it was much more expensive than DoorDash. IIRC, DoorDash is basically a flat delivery rate for each restaurant, while UberEats delivery pricing is more like hiring a point-to-point uber driver. if that's still the case, it's not hard to see why people would prefer DoorDash.

mennis16 6y ago
It's definitely more expensive than most delivery apps, but idt it is even because of the delivery fee, which usually appears reasonable. They kill you on the percentage based service charge. Which is maybe trying to makeup for different delivery logistics, but it definitely doesn't explicitly price based on delivery difficulty- which makes it much more annoying to me. The only other app I noticed doing this is Caviar. Perhaps they assume that people ordering from steakhouses will largely not care about the extra service fee, so it makes more business sense to jack up the price as much as possible. But personally it has stopped me from ordering on multiple occasions.
- Zach_the_Lizard 6y ago
  > The only other app I noticed doing this is Caviar. DoorDash does have a percentage fee. For me it shows "free" delivery and taxes and fees. Tap on taxes and fees and there's a service fee. I have a Dashpass, so my service fee is cheaper, but I think it's 11% without the pass based on looking at some of my past orders. I just tested a couple restaurants that are on both Uber Eats and DoorDash and it's pretty mixed in terms of cost. For some reason the delivery fees are really high on DoorDash for some restaurants, but for others they are "free" and the lower service fee tilts things in their favor. Sometimes the price of the items themselves is different. Shop around

mennis16 6y ago

Not sure how DoorDash compares but what often made me pause on ordering UberEats pre-pandemic was the way they do the service charge. It is a percentage (I believe 15%?) of the cost of what you are ordering, and it does not appear to go to driver at all (tip is a separate prompt + there is a delivery fee)/clearly doesn't go to the restaurant. I don't understand why I should pay Uber a percentage based on the cost of the meal, when GrubHub and some others operate on a flat rate service fee. I would sort of understand if it had to do with order size, but when you start adding higher end restaurants it really feels like a rip off. And it also makes their "deals" feel really hollow because who cares if delivery fee went from $3.99 to $0 when you will often still have a >$10 service fee?

marcinzm 6y ago
>GrubHub and some others operate on a flat rate service fee GrubHub charges the restaurant a percentage, it just hides that in the cost of the food on it's platform rather than making it explicit.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  A lot of these companies do this scummy thing. They charge delivery fees, "service charges" and silently inflate the prices or charge the restaurant a commission which means the price of the food itself is still higher than what they actually pay out to the restaurant.

MattGaiser 6y ago

DoorDash just gives away coupons and if you order frequently, DashPass is a great deal. I don't know how DoorDash is functioning in a way that is so much cheaper to me the consumer. I'm surprised to learn that DoorDash doesn't have the resources as they are giving away a lot of coupons.

jariel 6y ago

Unfortunately, none of these facts necessarily line up to support your claim. Uber Eats does not have 'billions' - Uber does. The 'cost' of that market share is unknown - who is subsidising and by how much more? Maybe 'Uber Eats' is a 'marginal strategy' in that they can leverage the slack time of their drivers into doing something else. Market Share varies from country to country. They may actually be using their $ to gain market share right now, why would you imply otherwise. Their layoff could be for any number of reasons: convenient opportunity to trim the fat, close down some projects and do a 'one time writeoff', it maybe mostly just a covid reality. It's possible they are laying off more heavily in areas that don't have Uber Eats. Billions in the Bank is not for a 'rainy day' it's for any and all sorts of things. It would take some specific information with respect to Uber Eats to see how well they were doing with it.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

asdff 6y ago

I've switched to running my own delivery and just grabbing takeout. Cheaper, faster, warmer food, restaurant gets more money, such a win win.

kingbirdy 6y ago

I don't use UberEats because I've found it to be dramatically more expensive. The same order from DoorDash, GrubHub, etc are often $5-10 more expensive on UE due to both higher prices from merchants and Uber charging higher fees. The only people I know who use UE for delivery are already "locked in" to Uber with their credit card, having lots of points in their rewards program, etc.

hcnews 6y ago
That's probably because UberEats isn't subsidizing those purchases and reflecting real underlying costs. DoorDash is still a private company and has the leeway to subsidize a lot more.

Vadoff 6y ago

The primary reason I don't use them is they have 0 customer service, it's impossible to talk to a real person for help when your order gets screwed up or your driver is a no show (happens a lot). UberEats app is somewhat buggy too. I also feel they lose out when it comes to overall restaurant selection.

Nextgrid 6y ago
Their support is outsourced to monkeys which is most likely by design to make you give up. If you persevere enough they will "magically" (for no good reason, given the circumstances haven't changed) give you a refund to shut you up, and if not, you have enough evidence for a chargeback anyway. Charging back those orders would be the right thing to do to discourage such behaviour.

shrimpx 6y ago

UberEats is suffering from some brand confusion. "It's Uber but for food." "It Ubers your food." Lots of ordinary people didn't bother to understand what this service does, even though they use both Uber (for rides) and other food delivery services. When I saw the first UberEats ads, admittedly just out of the corner of my eye without bothering to dig in, it sounded like a service that will give me a ride to dinner.

epylar 6y ago

I ordered some things from UberEats early on in the quarantine. The restaurants made several errors and eventually UberEats said they wouldn't refund because I was having too many issues with my food, and it was 'unlikely' that a person would have that many issues. So I don't use them any more.

mifreewil 6y ago
Similar - I use DoorDash all the time and refuse to use UberEats ever again, absent they change their refund policy. UberEats treats customers like garbage. Just read the App Store reviews for UberEats. If a driver isn’t able to deliver successfully they just cancel the order and blame the customer by default. Contacting customer support is met with robotic replies and they refuse refund. Last time I just did a chargeback and won’t use them again.
- koolba 6y ago
  If you get banned from UberEats do they blacklist you from Uber as well?
  - mifreewil 6y ago
    I’m not banned, just refuse to be treated like garbage. My guess is not.
  - timc13 6y ago
    the inverse is true. I am banned from Uber and cannot sign up for UberEats
    - thr0w__4w4y 6y ago
      Appreciate the candor. Can I ask — what does it take to get banned by Uber?
      - rajup 6y ago

servercobra 6y ago

Between high fees and more errors with UberEats, I've stopped using them. DoorDash has been decent, but not great. I reallllly wish DoorDash would add car make and color, then I'd have 0 reason to consider UberEats. I usually walk out of my complex around dinner time and there's between 2 and 5 cars waiting either to pick up riders or deliver food, so I get to go to each and ask if they're for me.

alaskamiller 6y ago

UberEats losing market share to DoorDash is indicative of UberEats leadership failure. DoorDash engineering is bad, DoorDash policies are bad, DoorDash feeds their PR machine often. Additionally, UE software is bloated and user-hostile compared to DD and GH.

sreekotay 6y ago

The problem? Pricey. The business model doesnt work.

tehwebguy 6y ago

My UberEats experience in west Los Angeles during quarantine has been perfect. When traffic is bad there are more delivery problems (and customer service is truly the worst ever) but recently it's been amazing. Fees are about to be a big issue though -- to the end user UberEats is a full $2.99 more expensive than Postmates for < $15 subtotal orders. I don't know if that means Postmates is taking an extra $2.99 from the restaurant for those orders. Either way though, the % of restaurants' orders going through delivery services surely just went up dramatically so those fees are now going to make a bigger impact, I'm sure we'll see the ecosystem change soon.

mulmen 6y ago

I tried to order food with DoorDash. I couldn't figure out how to use the app. I entered my address and selected a nearby restaurant. I picked a couple things on the menu and added them to my order. Never was able to figure out what to do from there. There didn't seem to be a cart or order or anything and there was no call to action. I gave up after a few minutes and deleted the app.

grandmczeb 6y ago
A “view cart” button appears at the bottom of the screen when I add an item to my order (iOS).
- mulmen 6y ago
  Yes I saw that icon, nothing ever showed up there. No badge and when I touched it I never saw what I had already added. I started by tapping the first restaurant they suggested. I viewed the menu, picked an item and set the quantity and added it to cart. Then I picked another item and did the same. I figured that would feed me so I tried to order it. No evidence of any previous interaction was discernible. The cart was empty. Any time I touched the cart icon I just ended up back on the main page of the app and had to pick my restaurant again. I thought maybe I was picking a restaurant "outside of my delivery range" so I made sure location services were on. No change. The first thing it does is ask for an address, I shouldn't even have to give it my GPS coordinates but hey, who would test that right? When I enter the address I shouldn't even be able to see restaurants that don't deliver to me so I doubt that was the problem. It just simply did not work at all. I'm not dumb, I tried to give them my money and couldn't figure it out, maybe I finally got old. Maybe I got hit by a cosmic ray. I can call the local pizza place and submit a delivery order in under 11 seconds: "Hello mulmen, would you like to hear our specials?" ~2s "No, thanks" ~1s "Ok, would you like to repeat your last order?" ~2s "Yes" <1s "Is the card ending in 1234 still valid?" ~2s "Yes" <1s "Thanks, we will be at 1234 Main St #1 in 45 minutes." ~3s <click> Seriously, I timed it. 11 seconds is my best. They have a local call center for their many locations so they pick up almost immediately. Order takers only take orders. I can place an order on their webpage (they don't have an app, why would they?) in under a minute. Pickup orders from other nearby spots is similar. I don't understand the value these delivery services supposedly offer.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

In general I would agree with you. My sense is that UberEats can't possibly absorb the huge loss of business of Uber's "main" product line. I also feel that Uber's problems will persist for at least 15-18 months, if not for longer. In this case, you still need to considerably cut your workforce, to be able to use that cash for a "very long" rainy day. Just IMHO. I can be completely wrong on all accounts.

Animats 6y ago

Doordash seems to have restaurant delivery reasonably well worked out. I've had minor problems with Doordash, and customer service fixes them. You get to see where the delivery person is on a map. Uber isn't that good when they can't afford to operate at a loss. Their real edge was too much money from Softbank.