Improving Large-Scale Delivery

More and more restaurant chains are experimenting with implementing delivery services these days. It’s easy to see why: Americans are ordering delivery nearly twice as frequently as they did five years ago. A fleet of tech startups are experimenting with offering a new kind of delivery service to meet the increased demand. Companies like Caviar, DoorDash, OrderUp, and Postmates charge a fee to pick up their order from a restaurant and deliver it to the customer.

These startups have some advantages. Customers can order on an app and track the turn-by-turn progress of their delivery, and can order from anywhere because the delivery services aren’t partnered up with specific restaurants. However, in their current form, delivery startups like Postmates have problems. They are expensive for one, with delivery fees often in excess of 10 dollars. Furthermore, they are inefficient, because delivery workers often just wait in line to order food like any other customer to pick up food.

The Postmates model shows promise, but there is room for improvement. If the delivery services figure out how to get prices down and solve their coordination problem with restaurants, they stand to change the way food delivery is done.

Read the full article here: Delivery at Scale

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