Doordash - why does it suck so much and why does EVERY restaurant use them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I use it all the time and rarely have an issue. Food normally comes quickly.

Me too. Never had an issue. I do tip well.

How much is considered tipping well? 20%? Do you tip the restaurant side too? I never use Door Dash so I have no idea..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've made a point of ordering food directly from websites - either by calling or going through their website and whatever ordering system they have and 9 out of 10 times, they use Door Dash and 9 out of 10 times, my orders are super late or one or several items are missing and they are just terrible!! WHY is it so bad and WHY do so many companies use them??? Even our reliable local places stopped having their own drivers and switched to Door Dash. And most of them have switched in the past couple of months, so not even at the height of the pandemic!

It's Big Tech, I'm afraid.This of it as hijacking. Doordash and others scrape the internet for restaurants, obtain the menu one way or another, then pay for the SEO to appear at the top of Google searches. People instinctively click on the top several ads and don't pay attention to the small details. They aren't been led to the restaurant website, they are being led to another site, so your're ordered from Doordash. Doordash places the order and pays. The driver picks it up and delivers.

If the meal is cold or yucky and you call the restaurant, they will blow you off generally because you aren't the customer, Doordash is. Doordash et al often list their pizza as less than the restaurants prices! So say the restaurant charges $20/pizza, the delivery app will charge $17. They will eat the cost as venture capitalists don't care, then eventually force the restaurant to succumb to being listed on their app. It's 100% sick. I can't find the crazy article about the DC pizza restaurant who fought back by putting raw dough in the food delivery app orders, effectively earning $10 or so for raw dough. Customers would complain, the restaurant would refer them to the app and the app would have to reimburse them. It was freaking brilliant. I just can't find the article to post here.

TLDR: DO NOT USE FOOD DELIVERY APPS. They are one of the biggest scams in the history of the internet. You cannot say you love food and small business if you use them.

"When Grubhub doubled the number of restaurants listed on its platform in 2019, approximately 10% of them were official partners, the company told shareholders. (Grubhub later said it stopped adding merchants without their permission.) Postmates, which is owned by Uber, said in a regulatory filing last fall that its platform boasted 700,000 businesses — but just 115,000 were official partners, according to the Wall Street Journal."

"A DoorDash spokesperson says the company “is proud of the role our platform plays in helping restaurants connect with new customers and generate additional revenue, particularly during these tough times.” A representative for Grubhub says the company supports the legislation and “encourage[s] the city to make it permanent.”

The D.C. Council passed a temporary 15% cap on delivery app commissions in May after restaurant owners said the fees — which are invisible to customers — were chewing up their profits during the pandemic. Seattle, San Francisco and Portland have approved similar rules."

https://dcist.com/story/21/02/02/dc-bill-bans-apps-listing-restaurants-no-consent/
https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/507319/d-c-could-forbid-delivery-apps-from-listing-restaurants-without-permission/

I agree. There is a food delivery company that my favorite restaurant uses that's ethical, and for the moment I can't remember it. Will post as soon my brain wakes up.

[Anonymous]

I just remembered! It's ChowNow. I'm sure there are others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I refuse to use them or any platform that is not build/owned by the restaurant. You can always pick up your food, which is what we do and you can always call in an order.

But almost every restaurant that used to have its own drivers has switched to using Door Dash for delivery, even if I order directly from the restaurant's website. Most of them don't advertise this, I just get a random text message that says "Door Dash is delivering" and then I don't order from them again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD has always been fine for me. You do need to tip decently.

OP here - I usually tip the recommended amount or more, especially on days when I do there will be demand (like Saturdays, rainy days, etc.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often see the Door Dash food sitting on racks waiting for pickup in restaurants where the food should be eaten while hot. Why do people order food, pay a premium to get it delivered, only to get ice cold ruined food? I don't see why anyone would not only use it but pay extra for cold food.

Because I want to eat in my PJs and blow my nose at the table lol! And I don’t care if I pay a fee for it, I would have left a tip if I went out anyway. The food is still good when it arrives. That said, I try to do DD pickup when I can. That way I don’t have to call or use some website and I pay no fees and eat in the comfort of my own home. Also pickup is faster than delivery.

Stop pretending to be the OP.

[Anonymous]

OP here - I think you're all missing the point -- even if I order DIRECTLY FROM THE RESTAURANT. EVEN if I call in my order, they STILL use DoorDash. I don't order through the Door Dash app, it's just that everyone, even companies that used to have their own drivers and deliver quickly just all of the sudden started using Door Dash!!

[Anonymous]

Because doordash is what gets them the customers. People like using the same app for all restaurants

[Anonymous]

I was waiting at a sushi place a couple months ago when a stream of at leave five DoorDash drivers came to pick up the same order… that had already left the restaurant. I was there for maybe 10 minutes and I was totally shocked. The restaurant had marked it as picked up, but it wasn’t updating in the DD app.

I don’t use it because it doesn’t respect the time of the drivers, and that was a huge waste of resources to get all these guys to drive somewhere for an order that was completed.

[Anonymous]

We pick up our own food and never have any issues with the service.

[Anonymous]

"You need to tip decently", lol, say yet another DD driver. Go pick up your own food and stop supporting this worthless drain on the industry.

[Anonymous]

This post is timely. I used DoorDash once about 3 years ago. Food arrived cold. Got into habit of ordering pickup only. Tonight though was not feeling great and decided to try it again. Log in problems. And once about to place order realized it would take 50 minutes. Sucked it up and ordered pickup. $20 cheaper and 20 minutes faster. Will likely be another 3 years before I try DoorDash again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I often see the Door Dash food sitting on racks waiting for pickup in restaurants where the food should be eaten while hot. Why do people order food, pay a premium to get it delivered, only to get ice cold ruined food? I don't see why anyone would not only use it but pay extra for cold food.

Some of us live in redlined areas and third party delivery services are our only option.

I don't like waiting an hour for cold food, but in my neighborhood it's that or nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"You need to tip decently", lol, say yet another DD driver. Go pick up your own food and stop supporting this worthless drain on the industry.

You do need to tip decently.

I guess you don't understand how the delivery services work, but your tip is essentially your bid on getting your order. Drivers see how much each delivery tip is and can choose to accept that order or not. If you tip low, drivers see that before accepting your order so only the most incompetent and desperate drivers will accept.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I often see the Door Dash food sitting on racks waiting for pickup in restaurants where the food should be eaten while hot. Why do people order food, pay a premium to get it delivered, only to get ice cold ruined food? I don't see why anyone would not only use it but pay extra for cold food.

Some of us live in redlined areas and third party delivery services are our only option.

I don't like waiting an hour for cold food, but in my neighborhood it's that or nothing.

I would take a shitty frozen pizza over $$$ cold shitty food I waited an hour for. There are always other options than being ripped off and getting garbage food at the same time.