It "competes" with any delivery service a restaurant runs, but if the restaurant offers takeout at all, it's hard for me to see why the market should care who is doing the taking out.
Last month the grilled chicken place gave me chicken which wasn't grilled. I called them (they have a national call centre), and the store manager called me shortly after, to apologise. Following day they sent me chicken.
Last week I was at a pizza place at night. An angry customer called, they got the other wrong. I listened to the store manager for about 4-6 minutes trying to explain that this was the 3rd-party service that got it wrong.
That service doesn't have an agreement with the store/chain, as they have their own delivery service.
Is the extra admin worth it? I don't think so. It's unethical behaviour from the tech companies.
Grubhub pointed the finger at the local restaurant, and the local restaurant pointed the finger at GH for not specifying the level of spiciness. In the end the only way to resolve the problem was to do a chargeback because neither merchant would take responsibility. We didn't have the business relationship with the restaurant. So I'll never use GH for anything because when something goes wrong they absolve themselves of responsibility.
And I'm skeptical of any other company that acts as a base middleman like they do.
I assume that hurt GH?
The service itself isn't illegal, but impersonating the restaurant is.
It’s not at all my issue if my client is frustrated at Microcenter because of the delay and it’s not my job to protect their reputation so long as I’m truthful.
If my order is delayed because the driver is stuck at the restaurant waiting for my order because the restaurant hadn’t stated yet then that’s on them. Had I driven there myself I would be just as annoyed.
If my order is delayed because they can’t find a driver or there’s a problem with the ordering then that’s on the delivery company.
The issue isn't when a restaurant drags their feet with an order, it's when they don't know the order even exists until the courier shows up. So not only do you have to play a game of telephone with your delivery driver placing your order, but that order is only paid for & made once that driver get there.
None of this is clear from the apps I've used. There's no indication whether you're ordering from a restaurant that has a backend receiving orders in realtime or if it's a "place and pay" order. Customers will reasonably think the restaurant is to blame, when it could've very well been the fault of the driver.
it says I'm ordering from the restaurant.
it is lying to the customer by misrepresenting the price and performacne of the restaurant. When GH messes up, the implications are rarely for GH, they are for the restaurant which gets a bad review by the customer.
If they can hinge a case on whether the reasonable person can tell the difference, there's meat on the bones, but I don't see this case ending with Grubhub's business model being declared illegal (only with clarifications as to how to maintain the reputation protection aspect of trademark against the nominative fair use aspect of trademark).
I would never make a bet on peoples inability to be idiots.
If the driver is going to do multiple orders at once, I should be informed of this.
Market participants all care for different reasons.
As far as assuming the business identities of "non participating" restaurants, that sort of thing has a long history - it is a favorite of various organized crime rings.
So in that sense, it does seem a natural fit for GH.
As for actual fast food, while the process is optimized to the extent possible, that optimization usually involves the restaurants having their own supply chain of specific ingredients. Grubhub would have to gain access to the same ingredients to successfully impersonate chain restaurants.
What I can see them doing is just launching 100 different fast food brands selling the same food cooked in the same dark megakitchen, because why not, DDoSing consumer choice with fake brands is par for the course these days.
Some pizza is not fast food.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/diners-discover-that-pasqual...
Except you know what your are doing. It isn't clear GH customers do.