People have figured out how to do this profitably and yet, you are trying to reinvent the wheel.

Learn all you can about how they structure everything, and copy their formula. If at some point in the future - when you actually know what you're doing - you feel like you want to make a change - you will be in much stronger position to evaluate outcomes of that change.

Obviously you have limited resources, but it seems like doing this 2 days/week is dead in the water.

Lastly, part of your value is that if you enter first and do a good job, you have a chance of getting bought out by the big players in the industry trying to expand into your city.

I've taken a look at those sites (plus a few others) and now have a better general idea of what I want to do pricing wise.

DC, not really trying to reinvent the wheel. Most of my ideas are based off of other sites, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to get started in my area/with my limit funds. The 2 days/week thing is now out of the question after talking to people.

I also completely agree with the last paragraph, and it's one of the reasons that I want to start it up-it might be a good way to build capital for other ventures in a year or two if done right.


@other posts-I like the idea of marking prices up a little bit. If I can add roughly 10-20% on most items-a dollar here, two dollars there-I feel like I can make roughly 40-50% off of net sales. 25% off from the restaurants, 10-20% on items, and (hopefully) 10-15% in tips while I'm still a driver. That's not bad in my mind. Just a matter of building up a steady, consistent client base.


As far as a grocery delivery service, I'm going to have to look into that some more before commenting, but that's a possible route to take 6 months to a year into the company if I start up.

I've always thought a hybrid taxi/delivery service would be good, assuming your drivers would be willing to be both a taxi driver and a delivery driver.

Or another spin would be contracting out delivery services to companies. Instead of each pizza joint having their own delivery drivers, you could contract out deliveries for them. For example, when they take an order (hopefully systems are integrated), you know you need a driver at their store in X minutes. You could scale this amongst lots of stores, even fast food joints if they can be convinced to join in.

If you have a fleet of taxi's, and an efficient system in place, you would have the closest driver take the next job based on proximity. Often you could have a taxi dropping off some people at home close the the restaurant/grocery that needs something picked up.

I think there is a lot of potential for a taxi company to add some type of delivery service into their existing fleet, especially if it is big enough. You could even include things like electronics or non-perishables from Best Buy or Target, up to a certain weight limit, or maybe have a delivery service for big ticket items that people want but unable to get home by themselves, but also do not want to wait for store delivery?

shoe, interesting thoughts on the electronics. I'm not sure it's as there the customer base for this. Unless you could add this in as an extra service. The thing with electronics is that if you added a 5-10% fee, you could make a decent amount on single deliveries.

I definitively wouldn't have the capabilities at this point to run a high volume taxi/delivery service at this point-not enough capital, unsure of the market, but this is another thing that could be useful later on down the road when there are enough drivers working for me (if there's a food market).

Yeah I was thinking the electronics would be an easy add-on as an extra service once you have something up an running, but not something you can rely on.

Also, I don't think your idea of making people have orders in by 10 am will work very well. It pretty much has to be an on-demand service. I decide what I want to eat, order it, and have it in 30 minutes or so. This would make it hard for you, especially if you are starting out as the sole driver. I just think services like this cater a lot more towards the convenience, and people like that don't plan what meal they want very far in advance. They might think they will want Subway for dinner at 10:00 AM, but when 5 PM comes around they want Arby's.

Maybe you could target senior living communities (not nursing homes where food is prepared for them, but before that stage of life where they are still semi-independent)? Delivering multiple meals or groceries at once to the same place would be a good thing, and a lot easier to schedule. This would probably be a better idea for grocery store delivery than fast food, as (I think) most older people like to prepare their own meals, at least all the ones I know do.

In terms of pricing and profit margin, I think I read somewhere that these delivery services basically have deals cut with restaurants. Restaurants offer them a discount that customer doesn't know about, since this is extra business for restaurant without taking up restaurant space.

You may have even read that in this thread.

I like this idea. The more I look into it, the more I think groceries may be the way to go.

lol


One problem I'm coming into is that I'm thinking I'd rather go with Giant Eagle as my food provider, mainly because of fuel perks. However, looking over peapods site, it seems like they have a strangle hold on giant eagle in other cities. Is it still possible to get into their market?

Also, is it possible to get discounts at a grocery store like it is at a restaurant?

Owned one and shut it down because I wasn't doing enough volume. Huge lunch orders are your key here. Cities with huge hospitals and pharmaceutical reps that buy doctors office lunches. You also need to get 30% or more cut from every restaurant. It's more pain than you are thinking too. Restaurants will **** up orders you placed perfectly. Customers are pickier in food delivery then I've ever seen and delivery times become an issue when restaurants are busy, the person supposed to place the order didn't get it in right away, etc.

http://www.ihavethemunchease.com/

There are three ways I've found to mitigate gas expense. Actually I would rephrase this expense from Gas to "Getting from A to B" because then it also includes maintenance expenses. Routing, Car types, and a defined area

Routing

I'd start with a database(of your deliveries and pickup locations) and routing software(that allows you to minimize fuel use and maximize the time of your staff).

Car Types

While you may think gas is your biggest expense, I've found it's the labor cost of having to get a car fixed when it's broken. If you're going with an independent contractor model then this gets passed on to staff, but the type of car they drive matters because you will have to go through the hiring and training process more often as people come in, try the job and realize they can't make enough, then quit. So you need KIA's, Hyundai's, and Toyota's preferably models that getting at least 25 mpg in the city.

Defined Area

You need to have a concentrated area that you deliver to that minimizes the turnaround time for your drivers, otherwise you'll have problems between scheduling too many drivers, or not enough if they have to go to far out. Plus the problem of them not making enough and leading back into the cycle of trying/quitting/retraining.

http://www.just-eat.ca/?gclid=CKak7q...FULrKgodQmRSJA

looks like the same thing youre doing...i cant imagine it bringing in a lot of money. not something i would persue if i had school or something to lean on.

In a small town it may work. but like i said, dosent seem worth it to me

Well there are nation wide hubs you can get your stuff on as well. You give them a cut of your sales then. The profit margin is really thin and you need to be focusing on huge lunches which bring in you a bunch of the 30%+ commission you are getting. Trying to make it on delivery fees is never going to work.

Think about it this way. You have an order that is $20. If you just charge a delivery fee and expect to make it on that, well good luck. Your driver is going to be occupied for a good amount of time going to the restaurant, sitting in the restaurant waiting for and signing for the food and then he has to drive to the delivery address. This delivery could occupy a good portion of an hour depending on the restaurant and location. Even if you pay him minumum wage only, your delivery charge better be more than his hourly or you just lost money. Even if you get a delivery fee and the commission you will have 30%x$20 +delivery fee or $6 plus the delivery fee and I gave the drivers a portion of the delivery for gas reimbursement. If that delivery takes the driver anywhere near an hour you are still barely making any money at all. $100-$400 office lunches are where it's at, not trying to do tons of small deliveries at night and if you don't think you can generate those types of lunches in your city regularly I don't know if it is worth it. I didn't think so. I was working long hours for hardly any profit after all expenses and stuff were taken care of. I may have been able to ride it out a few years and make it into something but I said **** it and moved on. Hell even when you get those huge office lunches the restaurants struggle and the it's tough to tell them to step it up. I can't count the times I faxed over huge orders the day before and let them know it needed to be out their door by a certain time so it was at the customer's office for a lunch meeting only to be waiting an extra 15-30 minutes because of some stupid ****.

random question....if i ended up going through with this (after taking in advice from all of you), do I need to get a food handling/any type of food licenses? Trying to google as we speak and its not helping much

wait, are you talking about just-eat? Currently worth 200mil, expected IPO of 400mil in 2 years?