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Comment by sxg | Hacker News Reader

As a customer, DoorDash is just consistently a terrible experience. I have the DashPass, which was advertised as free delivery for many restaurants. Turns out it only works if you spend $12, and even then sometimes it doesn’t apply. If you check prices between the app and the actual restaurants’ websites, there’s often an extra $2-3 added on for each item on DoorDash (I don’t blame the restaurants). When it’s all said and done, a basic $10 meal ends up being $20+ through DoorDash after the upcharged food items, delivery fee, service fee, and tip.

Edit: I do still order through DoorDash when they offer me the occasional coupon, but I rarely order without a substantial discount. I don’t know how this business model is sustainable. I’ve also noticed that many local restaurants offer their own free delivery with no service fee or up charging if you live nearby. Also, some of the best restaurants in the area seem to not be on DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc.

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My order from a restaurant that's a 5 minute drive away (raising a puppy, I can't really leave him alone right now) arrived almost 40 minutes after it was picked up.

I was given a credit that didn't even cover the delivery and service fees, let alone the tip that they don't let you edit after the order.

Doordash and Amazon Fresh has been a saviour the first month with the puppy.

UberEats has a "guaranteed delivery time" feature that they pretty much never go past in my experience. The delivery usually arrives sooner, but at least you know what the worst case scenario is. They also recently added "priority delivery" which lets you ensure the driver won't make any other stops between the restaurant and your house for a few extra bucks--this seems to drastically improve predictability and is well worth it imo.

I'd love to see DoorDash copy both of those (assuming they haven't already--it's been awhile since I've used it). I've had many similar frustrations with them. Being hungry and waiting on food that is already 45 minutes late, with no indication of whether it will arrive sooner, later, or ever as the driver zig zags all over creation on the map is a special version of first world hell.

Is this new? My last Uber order was 3? years ago when my order was over 2 hours late. I contacted support and their answer was essentially "<shrug> shit happens".

I've found UberEats to be a similarly mixed bag with timing (and the only service where I've had the driver steal the food).

Pre-pandemic eats drivers would also almost never come to the door or get out of the car. Doordash drivers tend to be find the door more reliably in my experience and the service is usually more reliable.

They're all a kind of weird business for me - I don't see how the margins work, but I use them sometimes because it's convenient. Usually if I use something then I'd be willing to buy stock for it, but I don't really want to here.

It feels like the 'we have massive revenue, sure we're losing money on every sale, but we'll make it up in volume' kind of company. IPO, take your cash out and then leave it to die in the public's hands.

I use UberEats fairly frequently, and while there have been a few bad experiences, they are usually fine.

The most common annoyance IMHO are restaurants not honoring the utensils option (i.e. not providing them even though you asked them to, or to a lesser extent vice-versa). The other minor annoyance is that they don't update the status of the order correctly when you opt to pick up (it will often sit in "preparing" even after you actually pick it up, only changing to "picked up" 2 hours later.

The other thing that is weird is that while they make it fairly clear what the price breakdown is in term of food cost vs service fees (which I'd assume is the driver's cut), they also have a mandatory tip for drivers (i.e. is the service fee not going to the driver then?)

I've had a few long delays, but this was because the restaurant was apparently slammed with some huge order, which is understandable. The weirdest one was when I placed an order, and it got marked as picked up before I got there to actually pick it up. Turned out they were a food court shop in a mall which closed for the day 10 minutes after I ordered (it was in some small town I was driving by in a road trip, I had no idea). I was able to get a full refund just by raising an issue in the app, without ever having to talk to anyone.

my wife always tells me to not mess with utensils option (on any delivery services) as we almost seem to not get any.

when we leave it at default, always get atleast 1 pair of cutlery.

when we specify we want more, normally end up receiving none.

i have done doordash pickup. the estimated wait was 45 minutes.

i called the restaurant after about 20 minutes as i have ordered there directly over the phone before, and its only been 15-20 minutes wait for phone ordered.

they like oh yea, its already ready, we just punched 45 minutes into door dash just in case...

Oh yeah, estimated time for pickups are usually way too conservative. Most of the time, I will show up 5-10 minutes after ordering (basically I hop in my car as soon as I order) and I can almost always walk away with my food right away or within a few mins.

Guaranteed delivery hasn’t been my experience with Uber Eats. I almost always pick priority delivery but on many occasions I’ve had food sit at the restaurant for 30+ minutes waiting for pickup. And Uber always was hiding behind we’re waiting for the restaurant to prepare the order when in reality they’re waiting to assign a driver.

After 3 such incidents I gave up and deleted the app. I don’t mind paying $10+ in fees for convenience, but not knowing if the food will show up on time or an hour late destroyed all the benefit.

Problem is they all seem to be flaky. The challenge of working with an unreliable army of independent contractors I guess.

So at this point when I need food to show up on time I go and pick it up myself, and save delivery for when I don’t care if the food is an hour late.

> I was given a credit that didn't even cover the delivery and service fees, let alone the tip that they don't let you edit after the order

I'm opposed to the whole idea of tipping, but putting that aside, I can't see how it makes any sense to tip before you've had the service?

Oh 100% agreed. It's my biggest annoyance with the platform. I don't want to contact support to change my tip, whether to increase or decrease it.

Every other service lets you change your tip up to 24 hours after delivery if they ask you for it up front.

This +1000

My food is regularly delivered incorrectly or missing and they refuse to refund the fees. What is beyond fucked up to me; is that they increase the fees based on what I buy. So they charge me for something and then refuse to refund it. I just don't know how it's even legal to bill me for something and then not provide it. I need to write my congressman again and state senators about this shit again.

Oh the the higher prices? Those are probably going directly to doordash to... I mean DoorDash and its ilk are quickly becoming the cable companies of modern SAAS businesses.

> I just don't know how it's even legal to bill me for something and then not provide it

I don't know either, but the airline industry is the living proof that this is legal.

I have many complaints about DoorDash, mainly that the platform has degraded a lot as they've grown (customer service used to be top notch), and that their tipping policy was not clear for years. But I've used it for 5-6 years, and for a chunk of that almost daily (I'm lazy), and they've never refused to refund anything that was incorrect/missing.

My nephew recently had a debacle where his food was not delivered at all--$80 worth of sushi.

They tried to offer him a $45 refund. Then they tried to offer him a refund for just the food prices.

He had to threaten to charge back before they refunded everything.

This is what chargebacks/disputes are for. I have had the same experience several times and disputing the transaction always worked.

Disputing the transaction is also the only thing that would actually discourage them from such shenanigans in the future, as it would sour their relationship with their acquirer bank if they get too many disputes.

I've noticed that they have been trying to get away with partial refunds and are now making you complain longer / threaten a charge back to get the full refund.

Interesting, I order to work every once in a while, and I once ordered to the wrong jobsite. A coworker took my meal and customer support refunded the whole thing. I was under the impression they were very generous with customer support

If your order is completely missing, they'll refund it. If it's late, even exorbitantly late, they will only do a paltry credit for the inconvenience as they consider their job done, even if it was done horribly.

> raising a puppy, I can't really leave him alone right now

Off topic, but why not take the puppy to pick up the food? Might even be a decent walk, if there are sidewalks along the way.

It's my first week with him; he hasn't had all his shots and I don't want to stress him out with too many new things all at once.

Right now it takes around 5-10 minutes to just get him comfortable with a car ride to begin with, so even that's not a fantastic option.

In the future that's definitely the plan but it's just not practical right now.

Thanks for the answer. Still sounds like a lot of fun raising a puppy! Please give him some pets from me :-)

Alternating between an absolute blast and grueling, yep.

He'll get tons of pets and belly rubs when he wakes up, don't worry! :)

If puppy is really small (under 18 weeks) and didn't have all the vaccines yet, you should avoid putting them directly on the ground if don't know the environment. If they come into contact with leftover feces of other dog that cary disease, they can some deadly ones, like Lepto.

Which is also tricky, as at the same time it's when you have to socialize the puppy. Things they haven't been exposed to under 18 weeks, they're more likely to be scared of/aggressive towards.

It can be very tricky. In my case I got a rescue puppy, 5 months old. Didn't have any shots. And wasn't spayed - and we couldn't due to her state - got to us full of all kinds of parasites and malnourished, not to mention the previous "owner" left the poor thing locked up in a dark garage ALL DAY, plus punishments whenever the dog would poop.

Needless to say, there were issues. Still, we were lucky that family members had pets (all sorts of pets), so we could socialize in a controlled environment.

Now we got a well-adjusted pet (minus some separation anxiety issues we have managed to control, but not eliminate). That is, well-adjusted, provided there's enough exercising :)

All other platforms like UberEats and Postmates do the same thing for their "passes" and all the upcharges or else they wouldn't be profitable. Not saying it's good for consumers and users and I personally don't like it, but it has become the standard, not just DD.

Which is confusing, because the premise of these delievery services is that the advanced routing algorithms would make it cheaper to provide delivery than it had been before.

It very well might. Doesn't mean that it turns it into a long term business.

The biggest problem with doordash is when there's a problem with your order. They can't resolve that problem adequately, all they can do is refund an item and that's not the right solution. Someone needs a meal, and if that item is forgotten or wrong to the point where the person can't eat the meal then I still have a problem after they've given me my money back. I don't need that money, I need a meal to feed someone.

Ya sure, I can dig around in the fridge and find something for that person to eat but by not replacing that meal, Doordash makes that person feel completely unimportant. Yes, of course it would be expensive for them to dispatch another driver to bring one meal. But, that's the right thing to do. Even if I pay another delivery fee and another tip to reorder the refunded food, then I'm taking the hit for someone else's mistake.

When it goes right, it's great. When it goes wrong, it's one of the worst customer experiences you could design because nobody wins, not even DoorDash. Well, maybe they win a little bit in the short term, but not long term.

There's a nearby restaurant me and the wife love to order from for breakfast every other month cause its so good, but we stopped ordering from that location and pick a slightly further location because they upcharge on things in a ridiculous way. I'm talking a $20 difference if not more depending on if we're both trying to order the same thing, imagine overpaying by $40 to feed two people.

Imagine having that luxury to choose to overpay by $40 to feed two people.

I never paid for that option though. I think you misunderstood what I said.

You're on hacker news, I would wager 80% of the people here have that luxury

Can't wait for more reasonable platforms to take over. I'd rather have some clarity and honesty than a stack of sneaky fee and not knowing who gets paid what. I have been pretty much only doing pick up orders (from the restaurant's site) since the whole tip stealing debacle. I know that some people would like jobs in the delivery space for flexibility and extra income but it seems too dishonest of a space for me to caution. Just my feeling tho, plenty of no-car downtown life friends who order and that's their choice :).

I'm not sure I expect much to change. There's an insane amount of competition in this space, and they all seem to fall prey to the same dark patterns and mediocre execution. I'm starting to question whether any company can successfully squeeze into the already extremely tight margins that restaurants operate in without increasing the cost to the consumer in some way.

It'll probably take a crash and burn of a few big names with VCs being very careful about any new company in that space. I could see something come up that'd be bootstrapped and just slowly gain business in a big metro area before becoming a "thing". Def going to remain a low margin business though so it won't be easy to make it healthy

The worst is when they give the drivers a second order after they're already holding yours. So the driver has your food sitting for 45 minutes before they even start driving to you.

These food delivery apps tend to execute it poorly, but multiples orders in a single run is pretty standard fare in food delivery.

If you order delivery from a pizza place during lunch or dinner rush, the vast majority of the time the restaurant is going to try it's damndest to dispatch orders in a way that allows the driver to take multiple deliveries in one run. Even if it means letting one that's ready to go out the door sit under the heatlamps for a bit while you make and cook another that's going in the same direction. That said, your order goes from oven -> metal table with heat lamps -> insulated (or with an actual heat plate in it) delivery bag. So it should still end up getting delivered hot, even if not quite fresh.

I managed a Dominos when they started their pizza tracker[1] back in the day, and 99% of complaints were from online orders, which got quoted wildly optimistic delivery times and coupled with the following the progress tracker, gave a false sense of when to expect your order. Dominos recently updated their pizza tracker with driver GPS tracking[2] so that it works on par with the delivery apps, and I can't even imagine how many complaints come from people who are second on a driver's run and notice the driver taking off in the wrong direction from the store or taking a highly roundabout route to their house.

[1] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dominos-pizza-tracker_b_59477...

[2] https://www.dominos.com/en/about-pizza/gps-tracker/

I think the answer is a delivery on demand service for the restaurants. So you order from the place and they have the most recent orders ready to go and the delivery person that shows up takes the ones that make sense to go together. Just like a pizza place would.

Wow, everyone doesn't like doordash here.

I've personslly had no problems and they have a much better selection of resturants than the other apps in my area.

App is a bit buggy at times though

I consistently get late orders, missing items, or the app is just completely down after I order and I can't access anything. Literally the only reason I keep using it is because of the lax refund/credits policy which results in me getting free food.

I have an honest question: do you feel like you're taking advantage of the situation in an unethical way?

You seem know the service will suck and would normally not use it, but you do it anyways because you get free food, which is in turn effectively paid for by everyone else using the service, VC investors, and by Doordash taking advantage of employees/contractors by stealing their tips (in the past).

No, because it's not like I'm quiet about it to them so they have the opportunity to fix it, and also I'm not lying to them either. I give good ratings and tips otherwise. The tip-stealing thing is bad, but it seems like they've fixed it?

If VC's wanna subsidize my dinner, I'm gonna go for it. Theoretically, this would incentivize them to make the service not suck, since they have to refund/comp so many orders.

And as someone who uses both DoorDash and Skip the Dishes, those weirdly only ever happen to me on DoorDash.

They happen a lot with Postamtes too :/. Maybe it's locational?

I also noticed that Postamtes seems to give drivers either instructions or photos of last delivered foods based on time of day or something, as my deliverys between a bracket of hours are always in the same wrong unit, yet it's tons of different drivers and I complain each time.

I don't see it mentioned in the comments thus far, but the Papa John's near me (Austin) appears to have farmed out its delivery completely to DoorDash.

Aside from significantly worse service (my last pizza was over 20 minutes late and barely lukewarm), they have also made zero effort to "white box" DoorDash under the Papa John's brand, which makes for a very confusing customer experience ("Hi this is John, I have your DoorDash order", "Huh? I didn't order anything from DoorDash...").

I'm also surprised that this move apparently made financial sense.

Weird.... I love the door dash experience... my best delivery experience by far.

I order like 2-3 times a week right now. Sure, the prices might be a little higher, but the ease of use is worth it for me. I love being able to know when the delivery person is getting near. I love being able to do one button re-ordering.

I used a coupon once then got an order confirmation email that didn't show the coupon. Tried disputing it to get them to apply the coupon, they refused and demanded a screenshot of the order before I clicked checkout which I obviously didn't have since I didn't expect them to scam me. I pressed further and they basically responded saying they spent more time on this issue then allowed and just offered a $5 credit for a future order. After using that I'll never order through doordash again. That $5 coupon just brought the price down to what it would be if I ordered directly from the restaurant.

> DoorDash is just consistently a terrible experience

In New York, Caviar used to be great. The quality noticeably plummeted after DoorDash bought them. To the point that I have since deleted the app.

That's been my experience in San Francisco, as well.

FWIW Caviar is/was still my favorite app for ordering food. No major quality reduction in the SFBay from what I've noticed (aside from pandemic related issues like slightly longer delays on peek evenings). Hopefully the kinks get ironed out for ya in NY.

I've consistently seen orders marked Doordash that have been sitting for 30-45 minutes when I got to pick up my own food. They also have flaked several times on me-- no delivery after an hour. They seem to have a weakness dispatching drivers. The restaurants are doing their job.

What happens if the restaurant completes a Doordash order but then Doordash fails to deliver it and must issue a refund? Does that transaction still get recognized as revenue?

The market doesn’t contemplate your reality and it doesn’t reflect you.

Which is to say, pointing out that it’s expensive and you’d never use it without a coupon and for that reason find the business model not sustainable does not reflect how millions of other people think about and use the service, and how the market responds.

I agree with you, which is why I commented. I believe in the value of startups and their role in disrupting business to provide old services in a better way or to provide entirely new services. However, I also want startups to facilitate virtuous cycles so that all stakeholders move forward [1].

DoorDash fulfills the former but not the latter. DoorDash's business involves 3 stakeholders: restaurants, drivers, and end customers. DoorDash hasn't done well by drivers given the tip stealing scandal. DoorDash initially benefited restaurants by expanding their addressable markets, but as DoorDash now extracts substantial commissions and any modern restaurant is required to have a presence on DoorDash, they're essentially just rent-seeking. Regarding customers, this comment thread demonstrates how controversial DoorDash is. Yes, DoorDash provides a delivery service that didn't exist before, but they're also engaging in shady business practices (e.g. claiming free delivery with DashPass, the Chicago and Philadelphia fees designed to look like government taxes rather than additional DoorDash fees, and other dark patterns). In my opinion, DoorDash's net effect on the restaurant-driver-customer relationship is negative.

I think DoorDash has found a way to make a ton of money without actually creating a net good for the restaurant-driver-customer relationship. Kudos to DoorDash for finding a way to make tons of money, but I personally can't support any company that doesn't actually create a net positive value on society. I accept that I'm in the minority here as evidenced by DoorDash's market cap, but I hope my thoughts on this at least prompt a discussion about the value and role of startups in society.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuous_circle_and_vicious_ci...

Where do you live? Here in Scottsdale, Doordash delights me with their great service. Things are tougher for their drivers in San Francisco and other dense cities where they can't easily park, then have to deal with a confusing array of call boxes to enter the buildings.

I'm also surprised at how doordash does as a stock, because as a customer I've lost packages, got packages in bad shape, etc. I'm a serious detractor for doordash.

I wonder what their NPS is but it can't be very high.

Why would you assume the per-item upcharge would not apply if you bought DashPass? The advertising says free delivery only, it isn't marketed as no upcharge.

I did not assume the up charge would go away. I assumed I would get free delivery as advertised, but there are additional caveats to free delivery that were not advertised.

> When it’s all said and done, a basic $10 meal ends up being $20+ through DoorDash after the upcharged food items, delivery fee, service fee, and tip.

If said restaurant paid a standard of living wage that $10 meal would probably be closer to $25.

I'm not necessarily a fan of DoorDash's business practices, but I don't fault them for extracting money that restaurants have left on the table.

This is a mad dash to cash in at an IPO before vaccines get distributed and people rush back to dining in person after a year of pent up demand and their revenue falls off a cliff.

Home delivery of groceries was gaining popularity years before the pandemic, restaurant meals is just the next step.

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