What I personally dislike about this is that it hides the cost of Doordash. It's not intuitive that the prices of items is silently higher on Doordash: it's not like online retailers having different prices for the same SKU, it's the same restaurant. I'd prefer the overhead to show up as its own line item, rather than obscuring the actual cost of the service. I have a feeling less people would choose to Doordash as often if they realized just how much more things cost through it. (Not everyone, but, there are a lot people who really do just do it for convenience, and they could just drive and go pick up their own takeout.)

> it's not like online retailers having different prices for the same SKU, it's the same restaurant

But those online retailers are supplied by the same distributor who is supplied by the same manufacturer.

    - ManufacturerA -> (Amazon|Walmart) -> Customer
    - RestaurantA -> (Pickup|Doordash|Uber) -> Customer

Isn't it exactly the same? Online retailers add their cost and profit requirements in their pricing, Doordash does the same.

> I'd prefer the overhead to show up as its own line item, rather than obscuring the actual cost of the service.

Me too. Especially that they already ALSO add a service fee in many (most?) locales, in addition to the delivery fee and the tip.

    - Item priced 30% higher
    - Delivery fee
    - Service fee
    - Tip

The first three should be folded in a single line item so that customers realize how much price gouging Doordash is really doing.

You have a point, but I just think it's less intuitive for consumers. Manufacturers often don't even do direct sales, so the only "canonical" price is the MSRP, which is just that, a suggestion. Consumers go shopping at Walmart or Amazon, they don't go "shopping" at Doordash: the menu they're seeing on Doordash is the restaurant menu. In some cases, it is the only online menu that some restaurants even have. To me it is not terribly intuitive that these prices differ.

There is another analog for this, too, though: some retailers indeed would have more or less expensive prices for the same thing when ordering online versus in-store. I think the argument that it isn't unprecedented is pretty solid.

Despite not being entirely unprecedented, I'd still prefer to see this practice ended for food delivery services so it is easier to see the actual true overhead of food delivery services. It really does feel a bit manipulative the way it is right now.

Just because you don’t like it should not make it illegal.

Is their position simply that they don't like it and that's it?

Without regulation, "the market" wouldn't care about a lot of things. It's actually a good thing that a small minority of people hold the line for people who don't have time to care about issues like this kind of manipulation!

I don't think that's true, however doordash surely know that some users might think twice if they saw that number separated out.

> I’m pretty sure DoorDash is the one who increases the price on their end, not the business

That is not correct. Doordash takes a 20-30% commission on each sale, so businesses preemptively increase the prices to offset that. They're not forced to and doordash isn't doing it for them. But, you know, they're still effectively "forced" to if their in-store prices don't have great margins to begin with...

Correct it is advised by DD but eventually done by the merchant.

And they basically have no choice but to increase the price. Their margins are already razor thin.

Of course they do not. I still can’t believe that so called marketing that DD and Uber does commands a 30% rev share.

Most of that money goes towards the driver, last I checked in on unit economics. It costs quite a bit of money to pay a person to go to the restaurant, wait around, and then bring it to you — far more than the "delivery fee" that you see and that customers would pay.

Customers are cheap and they're (partly) to blame. My theory is that Amazon conditioned people to view delivery as a free commodity and pizza places who had delivery baked into their model cemented it.

So if Doordash listed a delivery fee that covered their true cost of delivery, customers would balk. So they instead have to find creative ways to get enough. Maybe it's changed and Doordash cracked the secret, but when I'd looked into it years ago these companies barely got by — many of them actually losing money.

With pizza delivery you typically (should) tip the driver $5+ ($10+ for larger orders) so idk if that really tracks specifically, but I do largely agree that part of is people being cheap for one reason or another.

I know people who drove for DD and they roughly earn minimum wage ~$15/hr. You can easily deliver 2 orders in an hour. So I don't really buy that either.

I’m not sure I’m understanding your comment exactly so if this response is off let me know: I’m talking about traditional calling pizza in, not app delivery. At least when I was growing up that’s what we typically tipped.

Ah my mistake then!