A coupon-crazy Brazilian app figured out how to beat Uber Eats | Hacker News Reader

A coupon-crazy Brazilian app figured out how to beat Uber Eats

restofworld.org

30 pointsmfiguiere11 comments

"Figured out how to beat Uber Eats" is a weird descriptor considering iFood had a decade-long head start and was always the dominant one in the market. I don't think Uber cracked double digit share even at its peak.

Is it really that surprising for people that Uber Eats isn't the default delivery app in every market in the world?

I don't think Uber Eats is the default delivery app in any Latin American country (maybe excluding Mexico). Most used on average are Rappi, Didi Foods and PedidosYa [0].

[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1244450/latin-america-fo...

RestOfWorld's editors are all 20 somethings living in NY and SF who have finally realized that apps and tech exist outside the US.

The site has interesting content but the editorializing is cringe

iFood is a toxic partner that takes +30% of your ticket and keep all the restaurant's data. They threat bigger restaurants differently and the small ones are just thrown away.

There's no way for the restaurant owner to control their vouchers/coupons/etc because it's all set by iFood, so you'll never know what coupon is working better for different types of customer.

This industry is extremely predatory, a real horror. I just wish the worst for companies like iFood.

It charges at most 26.3% (23% for the delivery costs and 3.2% for the payments costs).

> This industry is extremely predatory

Agreed. I've more or less stopped using them since the beginning of the pandemic. I will say I have the luxury of living in a city that has plenty of options within a 10 minute walk.

I wish this kind of thing was federated compared to all the workd going into social networks. Make restaurant delivery more of a utility and maybe go back to restaraunts having their own delivery people.

Uber Eats barely existed in Brazil. Not sure what was there to beat anyway.

Besides the fact that Uber Eats barely made a dent in the marketshare and came in way later, it also attempted the same strategy to bring in consumers.

I distinctly recall using coupons or special "Only on Uber Eats" deals during most of 2019, and I only stopped using it during the pandemic because the available options at home were terrible compared to iFood's.

Was in Rio for a very short stint and couldn’t get around the absence of a CPF to use iFood, but almost every place I loved would take my order via WhatsApp and let me pay the delivery man using a mobile CC reader. It was comically informal and easy compared to the experience with US food delivery apps.

It’s also usually cheaper because iFood takes a 30% cut

This is actually awesome and it is how it always have worked; before smartphones, you would make a phone call from a landline and pay the delivery person with cash. When CC readers with simcards became a thing, restaurants started to accept Credit and Debit cards as well. Pharmacies also worked that way, by the way (not sure how it is today but last I've heard they stopped doing late night deliveries due to robbery).

When I moved to the US more than a decade ago I was baffled with the lack of options for food delivery (and pharmacies).

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