MAY 2, 2025 VENDOR VOICES Working food delivery service sucks! In 1995, the first restaurant delivery service started in the United States. “Worldwide Waiter” was the first delivery service and is still in operation today as Waiter.com. These days, the top three restaurant delivery services are DoorDash, Grubhub and Uber Eats, which together account for 80% of the sector’s revenue. In the United States, DoorDash dominates the online food delivery market, earning the most revenue with a market share of 67% as of March 2024, followed by UberEats at 23%. Grubhub was a pioneer in the food delivery space, but its market share has been challenged by the competitors. Instacart, which primarily focuses on grocery delivery, is growing rapidly. During the COVID-19 pandemic, as people "sheltered in place," restaurant delivery services saw their sales reach new heights. The reality is that many people are too lazy to prepare their own food or shop for their own food, so although the number of individual sales have slowed down, spending remains higher than pre-pandemic levels. and a year later, I got myself a car and became a delivery driver. All these services have their own set MIKE JONES Groundcover vendor No. 113 Let’s focus on the gig workers: Instacart is often cited as having the best initial compensation, with drivers earning around $30 per hour; DoorDash average weekly payout is $240; Uber Eats is popular for its broad reach and flexible schedule but the weekly average payout is only $140. These food delivery services have millions of drivers across the country, with DoorDash having over seven million active drivers. Last year I decided to give food delivery a try to see if I could make some money. I purchased an electric bike and signed up with both DoorDash and Uber Eats as a bike delivery carrier, of rules, and one of DoorDash’s policies is to not decline more than a certain percentage of orders or you can be terminated from their platform. In contrast, on Uber Eats, one can decline as many orders as he or she pleases. DoorDash requires its drivers to schedule work time unless it's really busy, whereas with UberEats you can sign in and work at any time of the day or night. One of the many things I don’t like about DoorDash is that their app doesn't show the final destination for deliveries. Uber Eats, however, shows the cross-streets or neighborhood of the final food delivery destination. For example, I got an order from Barry’s Bagels on Stadium and I didn’t look at where it was being delivered to, which turned out to be Brighton. I wouldn’t have accepted it if I’d known. I did a few food deliveries for DoorDash, but decided to just use Uber Eats instead. Note: some drivers use DoorDash, UberEats, and Instacart all at the same time. And drivers on the UberEats platform can do rideshare with Uber Rideshare too. The significant downsides of restaurant food delivery services are: • The average pay is around $2-$10 per delivery plus tips; • Finding parking in the downtown area; • Gas prices; • The wear and tear on your car which goes uncompensated; • When the app offers you additional orders while on an active order; • Waiting in long drive-through lines for pickups; • When something goes wrong and you have to try to get in touch with support; • When the restaurant gets the order wrong; • Customers who don’t tip. Please take heed: corporate entities are out to make a profit, so we have to start looking out for one another. If you receive a good timely service from your delivery person, you should look out for your fellow man or woman because DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Instacart are not going to do it. Leave a tip!!! GROUNDCOVER NEWS 15
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