Food-Delivery Companies Serve Restaurants Better Tech
15 Luglio 2019 - 7:04PM
Dow Jones News
By Heather Haddon
Delivery companies are sharing more data and fusing technology
more seamlessly with restaurants to counter the growing sense that
sending food to customers can be more trouble than it is worth.
DoorDash Inc., valued at $13 billion after a May funding round
of $600 million, is hiring more staff to build new services for
restaurants and working with tech provider Olo to place orders
directly in restaurant's cooking queues.
"Merchants were asking for more. We are giving them more," said
Christopher Payne, DoorDash's chief operating officer, in a recent
interview.
The business of ferrying food from restaurants to diners is
booming. But some restaurants say fees often make meals they send
out for delivery unprofitable. Some, from McDonald's Corp. to
independent restaurant owners, have negotiated to lower fees and
share marketing expenses. And the New York City Council and Senate
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) are scrutinizing fees
charged by Grubhub Inc. and other delivery services to restaurants
and customers, with lawmakers considering increased oversight of
the sector.
Now, delivery companies are responding with new capabilities
that they say make delivery more worthwhile for restaurants.
Two-thirds of U.S. restaurants offer delivery through DoorDash
and its rivals, according to a survey of 400 operators by
consulting firm Technomic Inc. Restaurants are expected to do $46
billion in delivery sales this year, up from $38 billion in 2015,
according to Cowen & Co. estimates.
That influx of orders has complicated restaurant operations.
Delivery drivers pile up in crowds at registers of some
restaurants. Some have built separate counters and kitchen lines to
handle the delivery demand.
Portillo's Hot Dogs LLC, a fast-casual chain in the Chicago
area, installed tablet computers at some of its 60 restaurants to
display Grubhub orders that were placed online. Restaurant workers
read the orders and key them into Portillo's own sales system.
Drivers come in to collect the food when it is ready.
DoorDash agreed recently to place its orders directly into
Portillo's computers using a digital system made by New York-based
Olo. That helped Portillo's more often hit its goal of getting hot
dogs from order to delivery within minutes. Portillo's still has
tablets for Grubhub orders, but orders via DoorDash are growing
much more quickly due in part to the better system integration,
said Nick Scarpino, Portillo's vice president of marketing.
"The tablets are just unsustainable," Mr. Scarpino said.
A Grubhub spokeswoman said the company is investing in ways to
integrate orders directly into a restaurants' software rather than
relying on a provider conduit such as Olo.
Mobo Systems, Inc., doing business as Olo, is among a number of
technology platform that have emerged to help delivery services
work more closely with restaurants. The digital platforms promise
to speed up the receipt of orders by the restaurants, and let the
delivery services know faster when a driver can come pick them up.
Olo, with $83 million in funding from investors such as the Raine
Group, Tiger Global Management LLC and restaurateur Danny Meyer,
competes with Tillster, NovaDine Inc., Onosys and other services
doing deals with chains.
Grubhub acquired Boston-based startup LevelUp last year for $390
million to integrate more of its orders into restaurant sales
systems, speed up payments and offer delivery through a
restaurant's own website.
Grubhub in the past year also started giving restaurants more
insights into customer behavior, including complaints and order
requests that fall outside of operating hours, said Sam Hall, the
company's chief product officer.
Uber Technologies Inc.'s Uber Eats business in June reached a
deal with Olo to place orders more seamlessly in a restaurant's
cooking queue. The number of U.S. restaurants with delivery
integrated into their operating software has grown to about half of
those that offer the service from practically none in 2015,
according to Technomic surveys.
"Having an order directly zapped into your system means less
labor effort. That's a huge leg up," said Liz Meyerdirk, head of
global business development for Uber Eats. She said the deal with
Olo helped Uber Eats win a delivery contract with Checkers Drive-In
Restaurants Inc. and an expanded partnership with the Subway
sandwich chain.
Postmates Inc., a food-delivery company that earlier this year
filed paperwork for a public offering, said it is telling
restaurants which of its shifts generate more delivery problems and
how to run better online promotions. Order accuracy has since
improved, chief operating officer Vivek Patel said.
Justin Rosenberg, founder of Philadelphia-based stir-fry and
salad chain Honeygrow, recently struck a deal with Grubhub based on
the company's willingness to tailor marketing, data sharing and
order-software integration to his company's needs.
"We want delivery to be as frictionless as possible," Mr.
Rosenberg said.
Write to Heather Haddon at heather.haddon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 15, 2019 12:49 ET (16:49 GMT)
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