
Domino’s launches e-bike delivery to compete with UberEats, DoorDash - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/13/dominos-launches-e-bike-delivery-to-compete-with-ubereats-doordash/
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ilikehurdles
I think it makes sense for restaurants to continue building out first-party
lower-cost options and continue to be listed on the middlemen services purely
for that new customer discovery.

My local pizza shop just handed me a card with their own site (and app) for
ordering delivery and pickup with fewer fees and lower costs than [your-
favorite-vc-funded-third-party-food-delivery-service] after I used one of
those services to pick up a pizza because it was severely discounted there.

I pretty much have received the same quality of service and high fees from all
of these competitors and personally have no loyalty to any one of them. It's
all about the cost. If your product is cheaper with one over the other, I'll
just use that.

On the bike aspect, it wasn't uncommon to see bike deliveries for Favor in
Austin and Caviar in Boston.

~~~
shados
The big delivery services like Grubhub are just awful and inconsistent. You
never know exactly what their relationship with the restaurant is, so you
never know what to expect.

What I want is a pure aggregator. Give me a way to order online from
restaurants that have their own delivery service. The middleman does nothing
more but to give them by order and end there.

I want to say Foodler worked that way (I dont think Foodler had its own
delivery logistic?).

~~~
simplesauce
Grubhub literally is an aggregator. Granted it does delivery for some
restaurants now but the _vast_ majority are done by the restaurant.

~~~
uxp100
IS that true? It was true 2 years ago, but today my grubhub is filled with
restaurants that don't offer delivery elsewhere.

~~~
simplesauce
Yes it’s true. Every restaurant on GH has a contract with them. Some only
choose to be on one platform. Unless something changed in the last 6 months, I
worked there for a long time.

~~~
uxp100
But it seems many of them do not deliver food if you just call them up, which
is what I'm talking about. Not other platforms.

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atymic
Here in Australia, Domino’s has been using ebikes to deliver for about a year
or so. On one hand, i've definitely noticed that deliveries a quicker, but the
riders are often unsafe, cutting in front of cars, running lights, etc.

~~~
27182818284
Have there been any accidents? In general I think delivery drivers in cars, on
bikes, and other modes of transport tend to be less safe due to the real or
perceived need to speed.

~~~
chrischen
Yep, just look at Toy Story 1, Spiderman 1, for examples of delivery drivers
and bikers being pushed to limits.

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radicalbyte
They've been doing that here in the middle of The Netherlands for a few years
now. We don't really eat pizza but it's nice to see them not using those
horrible scooters.

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gringoDan
Domino's is a larger delivery company than UberEats, GrubHub, DoorDash, etc.
And it has tripled in value over the past 5 years.

It's cool to see an established company innovate.

~~~
ticmasta
THis also follows on massive investment and improvement on their restaurant &
food side. They admitted their product sucked and put a lot of work into
making it better (which it definitely is). Many of their restaurants are
converting from delivery focused to sit-down as well; we'll see if this
counter-trend pays off (huge investment required by franchisees to build out
locations)

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vvoyer
Side note: they are using Rad Power e-bikes:
[https://www.radpowerbikes.com/](https://www.radpowerbikes.com/).

They sell and ship in the US and Europe. I own one, it’s one amazing bike.

~~~
clairity
yikes, their site has over 20 different trackers. that's a major turn-off,
really don't need to be retargeted relentlessly around the web from one
curious click.

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upofadown
>The bikes are equipped with lights in the front and back, reflective
materials for driver safety ...

From the picture it appears that the bikes are almost fully stealthed for the
daytime. Black and dark colours showing to the front which is the direction
the collisions come from.

~~~
24gttghh
Looks like lots of reflective material on the pizza containers, but I agree
black is a poor choice here.

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manav
In the US at least, I find that most cities with the type of density where
scooters would be more practical usually have much bettter local options for
Pizza (NYC, Chicago, SF) often with cheap slices and delivery.

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FreakyT
I hope San Francisco is eventually included in this test! I currently can’t
have Dominos delivered to my address which I found quite surprising indeed
when I tried to order a pizza.

~~~
timfrietas
We noticed that too having recently moved here from NYC where Dominos is still
largely available :[

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freedomben
Somewhat tangential, but I love Domino's API. It enables cool projects like
this: [https://github.com/ndmckinley/terraform-provider-
dominos](https://github.com/ndmckinley/terraform-provider-dominos)

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mc32
If they go in that direction, why not go with electric sit-on scooters (moped-
like) that have a big insulated box on the back like they do in various places
in East Asia? Or even the nice compact three wheelers.

~~~
momokoko
Licensing and regulation. We are entering into a new "battery era" that is
similar to the "smartphone era" where being battery operated sidesteps old
regulations much like being a a phone app sidestepped traditional regulations.

A sit-on scooter typically requires insurance, a drivers license,
registration, parking restrictions and cannot ride between traffic or in
designated bike lanes ans often the sideway. Battery powered bicycles are not
yet seen at "motor vehicles" so they avoid all those issues. This allows them
to be cheaper and faster for businesses like dominoes.

~~~
mc32
You got some interesting points, however, I think the threshold is 50cc (49cc)
for gas (and I think 700W/25 mph for electric?) have fewer regulation to meet.

~~~
sunstone
Yes but you still need a regular driver's licence and insurance.

~~~
filoleg
Insurance might not be required, depending on your jurisdiction. In fact, in
some states (WA state, for example) motorcycle insurance is not required,
regardless of whether it is a 50cc or a 750cc bike.

You still need a driver's license to operate an under 50cc scooter, but it
doesn't need to be a special motorcycle license, a general driver's license
that a heavy majority of people already possess is enough.

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diveanon
I see the future of Uber and the other gig services as just being a SASS
provider that handles routing and dispatching without actually needing to
maintain a fleet of contractors.

Especially after they get taken to the Supreme Court and it is determined that
what they are doing is in fact illegal.

I think leveraging their core competencies as tech companies that have solved
the dispatching part of the problem seems a lot more profitable than burning
cash while waiting for self driving technology to become real.

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rolltiide
they ran the numbers and said "this is more economical" ?

I've ordered from nearby restaurants that have no brand name recognition but
simply because they offered the food I was looking for. When finally being in
the part of town where they are located, I see the shop for the first time and
realize "wow I would never have stepped foot in there". What calculus is
dominos doing to think they need their own service, I wonder - aside from
being able to afford it and cut out the middleman.

~~~
superfamicom
Having been there, I would say the feeling of being "fancy" while ordering,
but needing to order cheap without needing to tip and pay for delivery. For
something so cheap and so little expendable cash, the delivery cost is high.

I've also noticed more affluent people not tipping when hanging out with them
for rides or food delivery, while people in the industry do absolutely tip.

~~~
rolltiide
I use a lot of food delivery apps and do not keep up with the different
rationales they use to state one price for a meal, while my total is almost
double the price.

I don't care if the service fee is a tip or is not a tip, if the app
automatically adds a tip as a separate line item, if the service fee and
delivery fee is functioning as a tip or not, or if the app service is
adequately paying their couriers at all. And that's just in San Francisco!
I've done this in many cities and countries where I can totally unsubscribe
from tipping culture and not have to even think about the debate because
people are not operating under a parallel serfdom regime for wages. I think
many "affluent people" have similar multicultural experiences and would just
rather not be _burdened_ with the mental exercise. I just have no idea what
the apps are doing, I've read enough headlines to assume they're bilking their
gig-economy contractors in some way or another, but I accept that it comes
with the territory. Why is my total double the price of the single item I
ordered? If I make a special request in app and the restaurant actually reads
it and does it, I'll definitely tip. (The above rationale is exclusive to food
delivery services and tipping couriers. The in restaurant dining experience in
the states is one of compulsory tipping.)

Yes, my experience with industry people seems to be a "paying it forward"
mentality with no questions asked.

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trhway
One can imagine an autonomous delivery along the lines of Amazon Scout
[https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/amazon-scout-delivery-
rob...](https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/amazon-scout-delivery-robot-
testing-irvine/) . No tips, no payroll.

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petra
I wonder - what usually determins delivery costs is how many deliveries a
person does per hour.

That usually depends on the georphical density of deliveries.

And cars are faster. So that means more deliveries.

So order aggregators should have better economics.

This should allow them to take some fees while still offering a better deal.

Why isn't that the case ?

~~~
ekr
I don't know about Domino's but in many European cities, finding parking is a
nightmare in the centers, and usually just walking from where you've parked to
the customer takes so much time, that cycling usually is very competitive
(sometimes faster).

~~~
Insanity
I live in one of those European cities where cars are just about banned from
the city center. (They can access parts of the city center, but driving is
limited to 30kmh and mostly one-way traffic. There's 3 dominos near me and
they all use scooters. Bikes wouldn't cost them a lot of extra time.

The furtest one away from me is about 10-15 minutes by bike. And that's at a
comfortable pace.

Deliveroo (delivery by bike) is already quite popular here.

~~~
ekr
Funnily enough, Deliveroo has just announced today they are exiting the German
market. It's interesting how in so many places there's just one big player
left (in Austria there's mjam, in Germany there's takeaway/lieferando). Maybe
the market is not big enough for several competitors?

~~~
derefr
At least one player in each market is executing the "take investor money; earn
huge losses in the first five years to kill competition and corner the market;
then crank up rates to become profitable" strategy right now.

The thing with that strategy is, you can only do it once, using your initial
capital. After you've set your new prices, new players are free to enter the
market and compete with you on cost, driving you back out of profitability.

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nsx147
Domino’s has proven to be surprisingly innovative. As far as I know other
pizza chains just....operate.

~~~
mikestew
Ignoring the fact that Dominos was a pretty different idea in the late 60’s,
and ignoring this new innovation, “operate” is exactly what Dominos did for
decades until their reputation for quality was so much in the shitter, they
came out and apologized. Frankly, if I’m going to eat catsup-covered
cardboard, I’ll get a Little Caeser’s.

~~~
ghaff
Pizza is one of the foods that I like when it's good but I mostly pass on if
it's 2nd rate and actively avoid if it's 3rd rate. And not a lot of pizza is
1st rate, especially if it's been sitting around for a while.

I admit to not having had Dominos for a long time so I don't know quite where
it and the other big chains sit on that spectrum but I'm guessing it's mostly
on the not good side of the continuum.

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entropea
Seattle has this rolled out in Pioneer Square w/Domino's for quite awhile now.

~~~
superfamicom
The added benefit in Belltown is like walking by a Subway restaurant pumping
out delicious smells, except they pass you with delicious smells.

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mattnewton
while this is a far cry from the deliverator of snow crash, this still reminds
me of the opening from that book when talking about the fictional US of the
future

"y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:

music

movies

microcode (software)

high-speed pizza delivery"

I think it does make sense for the pizza companies to own this part of
logistics like they already had with the car in this country.

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sandworm101
Domino's, the pizza place?

There is one huge food-specific issue here. Bicycles, e-bikes, are narrow.
Pizza is not. If there is one think bike riders hate more than sharing a trail
with an ebike, it has to be sharing a trail with an ebike that is three feet
across due to an extra-large pizza.

~~~
c22
Where are you getting 3 foot wide pizzas from? The largest pizza I've ever
seen was perhaps 22 inches in diameter. It looks like Domino's extra large
size is 16", so they're probably not causing too much havoc out on the bike
trails.

Interestingly, Dominos maintains a page on their domain _about_ pizza sizes[0]
that fails to disclose the sizes of most of their pizzas (the 10" inch "small"
size seems to be disclosed almost accidentally).

[0] [https://www.dominos.com/en/about-pizza/pizza-
sizes/](https://www.dominos.com/en/about-pizza/pizza-sizes/)

~~~
leereeves
The box and the warming bag add several inches, so it's probably two feet.

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tlb
I wonder how many micromorts I'm exposing delivery people to each time they
bring me a pizza on an e-bike.

Wikipedia suggests about 1 micromort per 10 miles on a bike
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort)]
so maybe it's 1/2 micromort in an urban area and 1 in the suburbs.

~~~
Nasrudith
It might be net negative ironically - increased accidental death but exercise
being good for their health compared to sitting there answering the phone or
driving.

~~~
baddox
It will also likely increase food costs for the delivery person, assuming they
increase their energy expenditure and maintain body weight. Whether the
increased food costs are made up for by decreasing other costs (namely car
maintenance and fuel) is probably worth calculating.

