[rockarage]

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.

[epylar]

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.

[Nextgrid]

Same experience here, both with wrong food as well as a bug in the app which caused a cached, previous cart to be ordered instead of the new cart from a different restaurant. I actually provided detailed steps to reproduce this and screenshots and they couldn't care less.

Both cases ended up with a chargeback.

Deliveroo is similar, they banned a 2 year old account used multiple times every day (for both me and my flatmates) with over 2k spent on it for supposed fraud when I dared to ask for "too many" refunds because of cold/incorrect food (if you place many orders you have more probability that something goes wrong, but their "fraud" scoring algorithm - that also influences whether you can get one-click refunds directly in the app - doesn't seem to take that into account).

Both Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats also often lie and blame the restaurant for being slow when they can't assign a driver. I've had multiple occurrences where an order is stuck on "Driver waiting at the restaurant" for 20+ minutes but calling the restaurant reveals that the food was ready long ago and nobody is coming to pick it up.

[paranoidrobot]

UberEats's customer service, even prior to this has been awful.

While I'd prefer not to use UberEats, they've basically become the only option for a large number of restaurants around.

I've ordered food from a variety of places, including large internationally recognised chains.

About 20% of orders have something wrong. Sometimes it's minor things. Othertimes it's significant - like drinks and dishes missing.

So, I report them to Uber, and get a refund.

However now I get these snarky customer service form emails a few days later that gives these snide tips like "To better improve your delivery experience - make sure to be ready to collect your order promptly" followed by a semi-veiled threats of "We take fraud seriously and will terminate any suspicious accounts"

I'd be more than happy to submit photos or videos showing that the delivery driver gave me one bag when it's marked "1 of 2", or what items were actually in the bag - but no, just shit customer service.

e: I forgot to add - there's also zero way to contact them other than for a specific order.

I wanted to report to them a number of fake restaurants that someone is running out of their apartment. (The restaurant address is an actual residential apartment building, there's no commercial kitchen) There's no way to do that.

[rajup]

This. I've found UberEats customer service to be severely lacking compared to other food delivery services. I stopped using them after getting yet another completely wrong order (I'm vegetarian and was sent a dish containing meat) and having customer service rudely close my ticket without even an explanation or refund.

[ccktlmazeltov]

Honestly I find all delivery services to be pretty poor. Maybe it's because I don't tip but my food always get there pretty late and it is cold. I've tried tipping and it doesn't change much, it's just better to go to the restaurant and eat it while it's fresh.

[jboydyhacker]

Totally had the same experience. Ordered Starbucks and they forgot the coffee. Was 3rd order in a row that was messed up. It's a cluster of mismanagement over there.

[mathattack]

I hear you. I hosted an event for one of Uber’s earliest investors and UberEats f@cked up the order and showed up 90 mins late. I even called the restaurant a day in advance. Lots of finer pointing. Never trust them again.

[victor106]

This whole food delivery app business is a rip off for small restaurant owners.

The owners of a few restaurants I frequent all seem to hate these apps for how much they charge them. I heard approximately 30-40%. Sure they do bring in customers specially now but 30-40% seems too high if you consider what it costs the apps.

[mifreewil]

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.

[Teever]

I've always wondered what happens if you take a bigco like Ubereats to small claims court over issues like this.

[quacker]

All of these comments make me thankful to have Favor as an option in Texas: https://favordelivery.com/cities. It's owned by HEB and does grocery delivery from HEB as well.

[PunchTornado]

Maybe you are too picky? Mistakes happen in restaurants and we shouldn't expect everything to be as we want. I never asked for refunds even when my food was completely different than what I ordered.

[madeofpalk]

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)

[usaar333]

And less reason to order delivery. At least if you own a car, driving to pick your own food up is easier now (less traffic, no parking issues, you are less likely to be in a social event that prevents you from leaving). And one less potentialy infected person handling your food.

[apexalpha]

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.

[Traster]

The thing that I noticed is that because we're more worried about food supplies, people are making sure they're stocking their fridges and being much more careful about ensuring they've got food for every meal - because they aren't just going to pop out to grab something. As a result it's much more difficult to justify ordering takeaway, because you've got to eat the food in the fridge before it goes off.

[34679]

In addition to less money, as you pointed out:

1. People have more free time from being stuck at home, unable to work, so less need to rely on delivery apps.

2. People get tired of being stuck at home and one of the few permitted reasons to leave is acquiring food.

[cortesoft]

Here in Los Angeles, food delivery demand is way up. Almost all restaurants have switched to delivery/takeout only, and lots of people are doing delivery for food.

[oarabbus_]

This is mostly accurate in the Bay Area.

People who already had the means to rely on Uber Eats, continue to do so. But the rest quickly realize that paying $22 for a meal instead of $8 isn't worth it

[bgs113]

Availability seems to be an issue all around. After an early lockdown surge of restaurant additions in DoorDash, now listings which appear to be available and open have a decent chance of getting your order rejected, or just dropping off altogether. Restaurants are having a tough time right now, and it remains to be seen if poorly-advised re-openings will have any short-term positive effect on business.

[rockarage]

There's significant demand, DoorDash, Instacart, and others are hiring drivers to meet demand.

[mennis16]

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]

>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.

[kingbirdy]

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]

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.

[alaskamiller]

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.

[jariel]

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.

[asdff]

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

[whiskyant]

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]

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]

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.

[tehwebguy]

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.

[leetcrew]

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]

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.

[mav3rick]

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

[xxpor]

The timing of the CSR deal was amazing (for customers at least). All of my friends have switched to DD too because of it.

[ghaff]

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.

[ww520]

Haven’t heard of the deal? How does it work? Using CSR as a payment method?

[simonebrunozzi]

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.

[mulmen]

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]

A “view cart” button appears at the bottom of the screen when I add an item to my order (iOS).

[ashtonkem]

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]

The Uber Eats app is leagues better than the half-assed, buggy Doordash app.

[tinyhouse]

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]

UberEats was founded in August 2014, easy to Google.

[servercobra]

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.

[Animats]

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.

[MattGaiser]

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.

[sreekotay]

The problem? Pricey. The business model doesnt work.

[xwdv]

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.

[simonebrunozzi]

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.

[draw_down]

Good grief, using that quote for that purpose. Madness