Mom and pop shops are cutting software spending, creating jitters on Wall Street
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There are a FEW situations where mobile ordering and such is better. When there is a MASSIVE line at the counter for example. Mobile ordering can skip waiting in line and let you know when your order is ready to go pick up. In that situation, it makes sense.
But most restaurants, at least where I live (in a medium sized city), don't come close to having that issue.
Yet trends are trends and we love solving things with the wrong tools just because something is popular somewhere, so businesses assume consumers will enjoy it everywhere and it will be the "next big thing." 90% of the time, it's not.
Seriously. Seems like so many physical businesses are going fully digital with little reason to do so. Following a trend, I guess. But the utility of interacting with a human versus navigating an app (of which it seems every restaurant or fast-casual-takeout has their own) is just so much higher. The cost to build and maintain that app too eats into the establishment's costs, which in turn mean the end consumer's costs are higher. I'm already paying high prices as-is, and my experience isn't drastically better doing everything digitally.
As you said, maybe there's a scale at which digital processes are indeed faster and less cumbersome (like a McDonald's level operation), and offers higher marginal utility, but most places I order from aren't at that scale. Few are.
I know there are some busy restaurants in major urban areas that get long lines out the door, particularly at peak times of day ... but how typical is this for most restaurants? Not very I suspect.
Pick the right tools for the right problems.
In many areas, there's a huge reason -- the availability of labor has decreased, so cost of labor has skyrocketed, along with inflation generally that can't always be passed on to customers.
Restaurants that used to be able to afford 2 servers can now only afford 1, so customers have to order digitally because otherwise it's too many tables for 1 server otherwise.
You don't have to be McDonald's scale. I'm talking about independent small restaurants.
(I agree it sucks for the customer -- I'm just saying restaurants are being forced into this. They're not doing it for fun.)
This obviously does not apply to fine dining, only really fast casual/fast food.
Where I have an issue is when the restaurants expects me to have my own device, to install their app, or even just jump through hoops (scanning a QR code) etc.
I'm not attached to my cell phone. I often like to leave it at home. And I'm sure as hell not going to install a restaurant's app on my device.
Another thing the tablet does better is just better UX. My phone screen is tiny and my old man eyes are poor. A tablet is often much easier to read and use.
I have to respectfully disagree with you on that one. Phones get lost, stolen, damaged, compromised, forgotten and batteries die or get low enough to not want to drain what's left reading a menu when paper menus have existed for trillions of years and didn't need fixing.
Many families also have a "no devices at the dinner table" policy and so it's annoying for the restaurant to undermine that.
So no. I don't think it's reasonable to expect me to use MY phone when I'm in person at your establishment.
The market will ultimately decide, however. I know I'm the grumpy old guy that hates tech despite being a software engineer.
Obviously batteries die so restaurants always have a backup solution, which sounds like the one you'll use.
Everybody's happy.
The problem is, as wages and COL go up, this gets harder and harder to do. Humans are expensive, and as they keep getting more expensive, it stops making economic sense to use them for low-margin goods and services like lattes. Notice how we don't have elevator operators, pump station attendants, etc. anymore, because eventually it became uneconomic to do that with people instead of making the customer do it themselves.
The future for most retail and food service businesses is fewer people and more automation (e.g. ordering at your table via an app and the server only comes by to bring your food); it can't really be any other way unless you want your food subject to Baumol cost disease.
And customer demand is driven, in part, by demographics. I have a feeling that apps will become more popular over time, not only due to cost savings (assuming this will be true) but also because the target demographic will be more accustomed to using their phones for absolutely everything. I completely recognize that I'm the middle-aged equivalent of the 80 year-old who still pays for groceries with a personal cheque.
Gas stations could absolutely afford to pay someone to pump the gas if they wanted, but it would mean slightly less profits for shareholders. Its the same as what is happening at supermarkets with self serve checkouts at the moment.
Dont defend this practise with arguements of it being unecononic, its purely about more profit.
This is the Baumol's cost disease I was talking about: technology only drives efficiency in some sectors, but in every sector it doesn't touch (mostly because human availability is the bottleneck), prices have to rise to match the equivalent wage workers could be getting at the other places with more efficiency.
I utterly despite tipping culture. It's gotten even worse since I returned. Now not only are tips expected we have crap like service fees and "cost of living adjustments" as line items on checks that are trying to put even more responsibility on the customer to pay for employee benefits.
"We went to this QR code restaurant last night, and my fork had dried ketchup on it."
Waiters and Bussing staff cost money, and are much more expensive now. Margins and salaries are high enough in $$$$ restaurants that they can afford staff.
In all honesty, I don't really remember ever having concierge waiter service at restaurants as a kid in the Bay Area, but then again we never really went to white people restaurants.
I've never cared about it, with my only concern being if the place has something I'd be interested in eating and if it seems sanitary. Only reason I don't go to supercheap fast food places often is that their options for vegetarians tend to be pretty limited (particularly since I'm also not a big fan of vegan "meat", I want vegetarian food that's good through being vegetarian rather than despite it).
Psychological studies reliably show that people actually care about things they think they don't care about.
No thanks.
It saves me like 20m which is the difference between that coffee being worth it or not.
Telling a human what I want means that person has to hear me, understand me, and then press the right buttons on the register (which in a lot of cases is literally the same buttons I press in the app).
All that does is introduce another place for error. My doing it myself I can confirm that my order is exactly correct.
I found in-person ordering is reliable enough that they know what I am asking for and could try to swap out a different menu to get me a cheaper price for the same quality. In online ordering, it didn't have an ability to do that. If I order a cheeseburger and remove the cheese, it is just a hamburger. In-person ordering knows that and would change it hamburger, the online ordering does not and keep it as cheeseburger minus the cheese while keeping it as cheeseburger price.
Maybe your experience was different but I've found the opposite. I usually had to tell them "actually it's cheaper if you ring it up this other way". The big one was nuggets at McDonalds. I wanted 40 nuggets once (for a group!) and they had a deal on the 10 packs, so it was cheaper to order four 10 packs than two 20s. They kept insisting that two 20s had to be cheaper. I had to twist their arm to ring it up as four 10s and even after that they still didn't understand why it was cheaper.
> My issue with online ordering is that I will be missing higher degree of customizability
At most places with app based ordering, I've lately found that even in person they can't do the customizations anymore because they are using the same app I am but on an iPad in front of themselves.
source: Despite my best efforts everything still seems to come with mayo on it half the time.
You can even skip the cook.
I can usually take or leave paying in cash but Jesus Christ.
To make the rest of the story short I didn't want to give these strangers any information in order to get a simple haircut, told them this was all weird, and left. The next day I was able to get my haircut at my usual barber who has only ever wanted to know a name to address me as and whatever information I offer up in the usual getting your haircut small talk.
You just pick a time slot and do your best to adhere to it. I'm not sure how it's protected against malicious actors, I'll ask next time.
Most people do have their phones on them all the time now.
Having said - onboarding for these services could be so much easier. That's the part that doesn't work for me - sitting down, wanting food, and having to fill in a long form to register, usually for no good reason.
You could just as easily order, leave the app open, and get updates by table number with none of that.
Reminds me went to Quest yesterday to get my blood drawn. Tech told me I had to sign in at the kiosk. So I did. And then it wanted to scan my drivers license. Nope. A few minutes later an old man hobbled in. Directed to the kiosk he said he didn't have his reading glasses. So another tech had to stand there and ask him for the information and enter it for him.
Maybe I'm old but it feels like the enshitification is moving faster and faster.
Quest sent me a $2000 bill. My insurance EOB (explanation of benefits) stated the negotiated price was like $350. I emailed Quest with the EOB attached. Never got a response. I emailed the next week. Radio silence. I called Quest, waited on hold for half an hour, was told I was being transferred to the "billing department" but was hung up on.
The next month I got another bill in the incorrect amount. I called and waited on hold only to be transferred to the "billing department." I spoke with the second person there who transferred me to a third person who hung up on me. After calling in a few more times, being transferred around numerous times, and being hung up on 80% of the time, I was finally told to ignore the bill and email in the EOB and it would be corrected.
A few months later another bill for too much arrives. This time threatening eventual debt collection. When another bill arrives as a "final warning" before debt collection actions I am in the midst of buying a house. Having my credit score dive 100 points would be a big problem. I call in, select make a payment and am immediately and conveniently routed to a menu where I pay off a credit card. I stupidly assume the Quest balance would soon be rectified and I would receive a refund.
Later that month I check in on the website. There is no sign of a refund. I go through the phone gauntlet again and the under-trained support people say they did not receive the EOB even though this is the third time I've sent it. I call my health insurer and they conference call Quest. Health insurance Co faxes the EOB to Quest.
I still have not received the refund a few weeks later. I burn an hour of time to reach the "billing department." Quest says they received the EOB, but their records show insurance never paid blocking the refund. I start another conference call. Quest had filed a duplicate claim, causing rightful initial claim denial, and while they happily took payment from both me and insurance in the re-filed claim, the initial claim denial triggered a hold on any refund. A refund is promised within 4-7 weeks.
4-7 weeks later there is no refund. I burn more time to reach a "billing department" "supervisor" who apparently works in an entirely different company. They say there's still a hold on the refund due to the claim denial. They say a refund should be out in 4-7 weeks. I am now well past the 60 day window to file a chargeback, as my credit card company tells me.
Around a year into this saga I filed a small claims lawsuit. The next week I received a check and cancelled the suit.
The best part is that most people tend to go towards the human ordering line if it is available so I can quickly get my stuff and leave in a fraction of the time. I don't understand why people wouldn't do the same, but until they catch on I am benefitting immensely.
> Nick Martin cited higher borrowing costs as a main reason that Joe Coffee has reduced the number of software products it buys. The company now has roughly six software subscriptions, down from 12 to 15, accounting for 3% to 5% of operating expenses, down from around 8%, he said.
> Decisions on what to get rid of are based on whether a product is a “nice to have” or is essential to business operations. “Can we get away with just doing this in a spreadsheet?” he said.
12–15 is a lot of software subscriptions. I think you'll expect to see more consolidation of software products, if they're all so specific to the restaurant space. Especially with customers just wanting better integration and less complexity.
Realistically you can do pretty much everything a startup or small business needs in a spreadsheet. Buying specialized software at that scale is a nice to have.
This is kinda opposite of old thrifty lifestyle: starting up early, making own coffee, doing speadsheets and all.
It is just latte. Also you do not need to start early just to make <whatever> coffee.
> It is just latte.
Maybe you deserve Ferrari. However for lot of us, "deserve" is used for innumerable trivial/unnecessary things in life.
Yesterday I discovered my personal finances spreadsheet was giving me a total that was wrong by about 10% because I'd forgotten to update which fields it was summing over. Nothing relied on this sum so no harm done this time, but oh boy do I have slightly[0] more sympathy for the news stories where billionaires accidentally loose track of one hundred million.
Get proper accountancy software if it's important; a spreadsheet will lead to tears.
[0] but only when they're being asked about some asset by a journalist or on twitter etc. and not when they make this mistake on taxes, because they should be getting professional help with taxes well before becoming a billionaire.
The irony being that once you reach a certain scale, the accountant you hire will be using... a spreadsheet.
I felt a great disturbance in the incubator, as if millions of SaaS suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
And that's for a business that mostly operates offline. It's really easy for these things add up quickly and without you realizing it.
This is why I always object when someone points out that $50/user/mo is a tiny percentage compared to what you're paying for the employee. It's not $50/user/mo, it's typically ($50 * 10-20)/user/mo.
Or maybe some displays that show ascii donuts: https://www.a1k0n.net/2011/07/20/donut-math.html
Some products seem enticing at first, when let's say a user is only $20 a month, but it quickly adds up and that does not account for migrations and retraining employees which often is an extreme pain point.
I write/manage a large project and we are very careful about any large changes because it is a pain to retrain non-technical employees.
I know an older guy, who has been working with multiple similar businesses and tailoring AS400(created circa 1986) to them. He made a business around it and it has been chugging along for few decades now.
- Guesty (calendar management & guest messaging) - $40/mo
- Pricelabs (algorithmic price management) - $20/mo
- Abode (security system) - $16/mo
- Sutro (pool & spa monitoring) - $30/mo
- Minut (noise monitoring) - $12/mo
- Google/Nest video storage - $18/mo (might be a little off there)
…and I’m probably forgetting something. I scrutinize this list regularly and there’s nothing I’d get rid of. These are also purely software subscriptions - not including things like cable/internet, recurring maintenance, insurance, etc. There’s also a long list of products I probably could add to the mix to help manage the house and the business that is a short term rental.
I’m pretty sure this pattern exists in every corner of the market across industries and across business sizes.
Is this not provided by Airbnb?
Out of curiosity, is this similar to the price collusion software discussed here?
* Excel (accounting)
* Sellbrite (inventory and listing) - subscription
* ShipStation (shipping) - subscription. However, this can largely be replaced by
* Veeqo (also shipping) - free
Sellbrite, ShipStation, and Veeqo work well enough, but they don't handle the recording of each order's financials, which I do in Excel. If there is a one-stop solution that can grab orders' revenue, sales tax, and fees from Amazon, Walmart, and eBay in this way, I'd like to hear about it.
https://www.sba.gov/sites/sbagov/files/2023-06/Table%20of%20...