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Comment by tyingq | Hacker News Reader

I'm somewhat surprised that national pizza chains in the US haven't done more with their existing driver networks and delivery tech.

Edit: A little more detail...

For their current use of the networks, the apps aren't at all competitive with Uber Eats, Doordash, etc. See http://blog.pizzahut.com/featured/track-your-pizza-with-our-... , for example. It tracks only 3 states. The UI also doesn't do a good job of highlighting state changes...the current state is just a slightly larger circle, of the same color, and no "ping" when it changes.

Then, it seems like they could leverage their networks to do something beyond just delivering their own products. I get that there are potential issues with that, but it's surprising that we've not seen at least some local trial run of that.

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There isn't anything special about Pizza delivery that makes it cheaper to do than UberEats or Instacart. The only difference is the margins. Pizza companies can make a $15 pizza for ~$3, and that means they don't lose money even if they spend up to $12 delivering it.

Instacart, on the other hand, likely doesn't have any margins to play with at all, considering the fact that they are paying people to shop and check out at grocery stores. And the stores already have low margins (~1%) which means they likely don't have much in the way of sweetheart deals with the stores. They are likely in the red before the goods even leave the store.

Some restaurant foods might come close to breaking even, but few restaurants approach the margins of pizza-making at high volumes.

But don't worry. There isn't any indication that VC's have figured out math yet, so we aren't in any danger of these services going away.

It not arguing that their model is cheaper. Just that they have an established process and tech that could be used for other things. Passenger airlines, for example, sell cargo services. (Yes, I get that's not the best comparison as "excess capacity" is less clear)

> For their current use of the networks, the apps aren't at all competitive with Uber Eats, Doordash, etc, for example. It tracks only 3 states. The UI also doesn't do a good job of highlighting state changes...the current state is just a slightly larger circle, of the same color, and no "ping" when it changes.

I guess I'm getting old or something, because I don't understand why you would need anything more detailed than "order received", "order on it's way", and maybe "order delivered" (although you should assumably be aware of this event without an app or website informing you).

If you have the time to watch second-by-second updates of where your food delivery is, why didn't you just go save the $5 delivery fee + tip and pick it up yourself? When I order delivery, it's because I'm doing something that needs my attention and I don't have time to cook or pickup...

It's for a similar reason, lets assume you are working on a 30~ minute task and you order food that will also arrive in 30 minutes.

For the next 20 minutes you work extremely hard and finish your task, and you are now suddenly EXTREMELY hungry. Your brain being a normal brain makes the logical jump "my task took 30 minutes, food must be here soon" checking your position re-assures your brain that you just worked quickly.

There are other reasons [ie: I have a 10 minute task, check to see if that can be finished before delivery] but I agree they don't add anything

I did mention more beyond the 3 states. The missing ping is an issue, for example..say you're in the backyard. And the subtle visual treatment of "current state".

Also, the additional info has been occasionally useful to me. Like when a driver gets obviously lost. Or "Oh, the food is cold because this place is just too far away from me for reasonable delivery"

> Or "Oh, the food is cold because this place is just too far away from me for reasonable delivery"

I live in the mountains but GPS knows where I am; drivers (parcels/food/etc) can choose upfront if 'this place is just too far away', not after they did the drive.

Uber eats has this problem. Many restaurants are too far away, but they will deliver anyway. The food quality suffers.

With the map, I know why. So, for example, I don't short tip the driver. Unfortunately, with Uber Eats, I don't see the problem until after I pay.

Change management at established organizations is hard. When franchises are involved I'm sure it's exponentially harder.

With most things, HN overestimates the ability of most organizations to overcome inertia. FB, AMZN, GOOG, etc are anomalies when it comes to managing change at large organizations.

>existing "driver networks" and "delivery tech"?

Those are something like some local high school kids who work mostly for tips and a telephone.

Is it still the case in America? In Germany and UK pizza 'boys' tend to be middle aged immigrants.

I feel lucky to live in a city where there are so many good pizza places that I've completely forgotten that chains like pizza hut exist at all.

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