[HN Gopher] Food delivery startup Wolt raises $530M
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Food delivery startup Wolt raises $530M
Author : kakoni
Score : 164 points
Date : 2021-01-25 11:46 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (sifted.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (sifted.eu)
| vages wrote:
| In Oslo, Norway, I prefer Foodora to Wolt. Foodora's workers
| unionized and went on strike about a year ago in order to have
| sick leave. Meanwhile, Wolt hires their cyclists as independent
| consultants, circumventing the Norwegian labor laws.
| baxtr wrote:
| I am amazed that against all common advice people still venture
| out into heavily competitive segments with strong incumbents. I
| am impressed and at the same time wonder how exactly they managed
| to convince investors. Would love to see their pitch deck.
| ignoramous wrote:
| > _I am amazed that against all common advice people still
| venture out into heavily competitive segments with strong
| incumbents._
|
| "There is always room":
| https://archive.is/xPiWc#selection-272.98-272.100
|
| Also, I think there are a lot of exceptions and counter
| examples especially in the startup world.
|
| According to some, if you're out to build a monopoly, that's a
| different ball-game, and it then makes sense to steer clear of
| any market with competition with deep pockets (walmart) unless
| you've something revolutionary up your sleeve that can't be
| easily replicated / duplicated (amazon).
|
| One of the most striking examples I know is facebook.com: They
| had fierce competition from copy-cats (vk) and other companies
| that had their own take on social (orkut, friendster). Some
| lost (path, color), others won (whatsapp, twitter), and/or are
| winning (tiktok).
|
| There is always more room than one may be led to think.
| albertgoeswoof wrote:
| It's a growing market, maybe not everywhere. It's also hard to
| get right- the incumbents don't have a good business model and
| may collapse in short order.
| pm90 wrote:
| If there are multiple players in the market, they will either
| try to buy or kill the new players. Established incumbents are
| often not nimble enough to quickly match the newbies. If the
| newbies move fast and corner an important market segment, they
| can either replace the incumbent or be bought out by them. Both
| are opportunities where investors could reap big returns.
| ma2rten wrote:
| Google wasn't the first search engine.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Slide 1
|
| Food delivery: A hyper competitive, low margin, man hour
| intensive, inventory rotting, logistical & insurance nightmare.
| ashleshbiradar wrote:
| On the other hand, cloud kitchens
| Jnr wrote:
| Not sure how popular it is elsewhere, but here where I live,
| Wolt is the most popular food delivery service by a large
| margin. And their service is great. For us it is like Spotify
| or Netflix, but for food.
|
| The rest of the EU and world probably deserve and would
| appreciate a service like that.
| emptyfile wrote:
| I honestly thought it was EU wide, but apparently their main
| markets are scandinavia and eastern europe.
|
| Great service, great business model.
| ghaff wrote:
| Probably a good data point that some of these delivery
| services are relatively local.
|
| Something like Uber there's an advantage for travelers to
| have it in a bunch of different places if they already have
| the app installed. On the other hand, I don't even use Uber
| once a year locally.
|
| Whereas with food delivery, I don't really have decent
| options. But, if I did, I would probably use it now and
| then at home. But I think it's accurate to say that I have
| _never_ used food delivery while traveling.
| flemhans wrote:
| They go for cities where they feel like they have a chance,
| and where there are not already 10 other competitors.
| That's why they didn't go for e.g. London.
|
| At least that was the original thinking of one of the
| founders, according to an article I read in some in-flight
| magazine.
| user-the-name wrote:
| That was indeed the original strategy. It's changing as
| the company grows though.
| emteycz wrote:
| Food apps are extremely popular in central/eastern eu, here
| in Czechia the local DameJidlo is also a largely successful
| company. Wolt is now becoming a serious competitor to them,
| they already have a much better app.
| magnusmundus wrote:
| Not to detract from your point re competition, but isn't
| DameJidlo one of the brands of Delivery Hero? Do they
| have an engineering office in Czechia?
| emteycz wrote:
| It was sold to DeliveryHero (if that's indeed the current
| owner), originally a Czech company; they had a rather
| large engineering centre here when it was still Czech,
| not sure about the present. The founder went on to create
| Rohlik.cz
| odiroot wrote:
| They're also present in Central Europe but they're in no
| way the most popular.
| szatkus wrote:
| Yup, even before pandemic I saw a lot of Wolt boxes in some
| cities, although they don't serve where I live.
| jarv wrote:
| They are the main food delivery in Slovenia and have pretty
| much completely taken over incumbent due to the better
| service and better quality application.
| user-the-name wrote:
| I can offer this piece of insider information: Starting your
| business in the very high-cost-of-living Finland really helps.
|
| (High cost of living means having to pay high fees to couriers
| and so on, which means it is impossible to do even do if you do
| not work out the economics properly right from the start, which
| then gives a huge advantage moving forward.)
| kakoni wrote:
| According to various sources Finnish couriers charge
| somewhere between 13-14e per hour as contractors (They are
| not employees but self-employed entrepreneurs)
|
| To give a reference point, cleaning contractors typically
| charge around 30e per hour.
| fy20 wrote:
| Is that EUR30/hr what a cleaning company charges to
| clients, or what the workers get? Finland doesn't have a
| minimum wage, so I don't understand what's typical there,
| but it seems rather high if it's the later - in
| UK/France/Germany they'd get little more than EUR10/hr.
| antupis wrote:
| What cleaning company charges, then there is lots taxes
| and tax-like payments and cleaner gets probably that
| 10EUR/hr.
| kakoni wrote:
| EUR30/hr would be what self-employed entrepreneur would
| charge from the clients (versus employee in cleaning
| company earns somewhere in the EUR10/h range.)
| Sharlin wrote:
| There were no strong imcumbents in the market that Wolt started
| in. Indeed right now Wolt _is_ the strong incumbent, with
| Foodora its sole competitor if you disregard local small-scale
| pizza joints etc.
| JonAtkinson wrote:
| I guess investors suffer from FOMO just like the rest of us.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| Well, depends on what you compete on. Tech stack? Getting
| drivers? Getting customers?
|
| Uber Eats for example cannot deliver to me, but several others
| can. Tech stack isn't that expensive to build. I think it's
| easy for programmers to think that the whole world revolves
| around tech stacks and not see how you can be innovative in
| getting drivers for example. Can't really say I'm loyal to any
| platform when it takes less than one min to sign up for
| another.
|
| It's the same with Amazon which is just the worst shopping
| experience I've ever encountered and slow deliveries to boot
| and I'm very happy they have local competition that blows them
| out the water.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Wolt competes, in large part, on overall user experience.
| jacquesm wrote:
| An in places where there is relatively little competition
| because the big players have focused on juicier targets. In
| the Baltics for instance Wolt is doing quite well.
| sorenjan wrote:
| I walk to the restaurant and get the food myself. I refuse to
| take part in this gig economy with modern exploited day laborers,
| and big international companies dipping in to the already small
| margins of local businesses.
| Symbiote wrote:
| I do the same.
|
| It's odd when I walk or cycle past 20 Wolt people waiting
| outside the restaurants and takeaways on Norrebrogade. I feel
| like the only person not attached to an insulated blue box.
| pasiaj wrote:
| I sympathise with what you're saying. As a Nordic person, it
| does feel like the gig economy is undoing a hundred years worth
| of advancements in employee well-being.
|
| Still, enabling day labor is beneficial in multitude of ways.
|
| The problems introduced by gig economy need to be solved at
| governmental level. Social safety nets and UBI are good tools
| for that.
|
| Combining modern regulation with sharing economy would allow
| the society to enjoy the multitude of benefits of gig economy
| without sacrificing anyones well-being.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| They went full Softbank.
|
| Curious if any startup with this amount of early funding has
| actually done well
| user-the-name wrote:
| Wolt is not really a startup any longer, and it has never had
| access to really large amounts of money in the past.
| avipars wrote:
| The next uber? only time will tell
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Around here (Tel Aviv), Wolt is pretty much a monopoly on food
| deliveries, to the point restaurants pled for the government
| regulator to declare them as such.
|
| Obviously it happens because their product and UX is fantastic.
|
| Going around town during lock down seems like a scene from Mad
| Max where the only life that survived are Wolt couriers.
| names_are_hard wrote:
| I do see orange couriers around as well, I think it's 10bis.
| But I only use Wolt. They have excellent customer service, in
| the rare occasion that an order I placed was delivered
| incorrectly (missing dish etc) they made it right very quickly
| and with no fuss.
|
| They also provide support in both English and Hebrew, which is
| is a nice benefit over the local companies that can help you in
| Hebrew.
| emptyfile wrote:
| Interesting, good luck to them.
|
| In my country at least (Croatia) Wolt seems to stand out from the
| rest by competing on quality of service and delivery instead of
| price, and slowly during this year they have won me over.
|
| I'll gladly pay something extra to support a business model I
| trust and which just works better.
| domatic1 wrote:
| I've been using Wolt in Finland 3-4 times a week, their credit
| card integration with lunch benefits makes them a winner. They
| also have free deliveries sometimes.
| names_are_hard wrote:
| Same here in Israel. They accept our lunch benefits card, which
| my employer got more generous with during WFH. So I spend about
| 100 usd each week with them. If I am not hungry I buy gift
| cards and add them to my account (the lunch money expires at
| the end of the week is I don't use it)
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| Ah this begins to make sense now
|
| Tjey have a secret sauce for the finnish market.
|
| So they funded ops via captive market
|
| Still, Seems like a crazy bet by investors unless such schemes
| are available and exploitable elsewhere
| user-the-name wrote:
| Lunch benefits only launched recently.
| bittermandel wrote:
| A comment from the CEO Miki Kuusi (translated from Swedish):
|
| This financing was about to make sure that we have the capacity
| to do long-term investments i all our countries, including
| Sweden, without having to do an IPO (go to the stock market).
|
| Source: https://digital.di.se/artikel/finska-wolt-tar-
| in-4-miljarder...
| woeirua wrote:
| I can't help but think that companies like this that are planning
| on the disruption in consumption habits due to Covid continuing
| into the subsequent years are going to get burned badly when
| everyone abruptly starts going out again. I think a lot of people
| have realized that dining and even going to the grocery store is
| a lot more about the social aspect than they originally believed.
| timdaub wrote:
| sifted.eu lists Wolt as "Deeptech News". I find the word deeptech
| cringe. It's just tech.
| mrweasel wrote:
| It's barely tech, it's just a delivery company.
| mandeepj wrote:
| "But Wolt won't be putting Amazon out of business just yet. It
| needs to crack grocery delivery first."
|
| Ha! Son - fly little slow. You are standing on a thin crust
| provided by your investors. Have a quick call with Instacart to
| get a check on reality.
| Keyframe wrote:
| Parallel with amazon is interesting. Last mile in Europe is
| either non-existent or severely lacking. Wolt has successfully
| been bringin up this first. In that parallel, it can be
| considered a contender to amazon with a bottom-up approach. I've
| personally already seen it through wolt, with using their
| partners shops/storage. I was considering buying a bike for a
| toddler either through amazon (too long of a wait, but great
| choices), visiting shops locally (ain't nobody got time for that)
| or Wolt - we chose a model and within an hour (including
| assembly) toddler was already sprinting.
| mxschmitt wrote:
| Cool, excited how the market will grow in Germany/Berlin. I
| really prefer Wolt over Lieferando in Germany. The user
| experience is way nicer, you have pictures of the meals which you
| want to order. The only thing which I miss is that you can't
| filter directly for vegan/vegetarian meals.
| olkki wrote:
| Wolt employee here - would be happy to help you with the
| Vegan/Vegetarian filter. We have a Vegan category of venues,
| and you can directly search for vegan/vegetarian restaurants as
| well. Is the issue in particular dishes?
| flemhans wrote:
| Last time I tried, I had to search for "(V)" or "(VG)" in the
| menu search to filter the dishes, maybe there's a better way?
| olkki wrote:
| Got it. The issue isn't then in finding restaurants with
| v/vg options, but instead finding those items in the menu?
| We haven't standardized the tagging in menus too much in
| Germany yet, but this would definitely help. A separate
| category for v/vg would be another solution. Let me take a
| discussion on this with the team and see how this could be
| improved. Also happy to take any suggestions.
| mxschmitt wrote:
| I mostly struggle, when I have a specific restaurant open,
| some restaurants have an own category for that
| (vegan/vegetarian) and some add it as a text to the meal
| description. For some you have to choose e.g. a vegetarian
| patty to make a burger vegetarian - I'm confused with this
| mostly. A feature which i would really like is a list of all
| the meals which I can order nearby restaurant independent and
| filter them e.g. by vegetarian/vegan ones to discover new
| restaurants.
| olkki wrote:
| This is something we have been looking into - to be able to
| search not only nearby restaurants, but also nearby dishes
| matching the search criteria. I can't promise an exact date
| of release, but definitely a highly requested feature. In
| the meantime I'll see what we can do to clarify available
| vegan options more clearly before selecting an item.
| shafyy wrote:
| I would also like this feature :-)
| mxschmitt wrote:
| Great, looking forward to it! Something like a food
| recommendation tool would also be nice. "Since you
| ordered A from B and C from D you probably also like meal
| E from restaurant F".
| shafyy wrote:
| I really want to use Wolt in Berlin, but their delivery area
| just ends literally 50m north of where I live (Neukolln). Hope
| they extend it soon :-)
| dracyr wrote:
| I think they extended it fairly recently, I also live in
| Neukolln and fell outside of the delivery area before
| Christmas at least. But I did a quick check after reading the
| article, and now everything seems to be working.
| shafyy wrote:
| Luck you. I checked here (https://wolt.com/en/discovery)
| and they still don't seem to deliver (Richardkiez). Maybe I
| need to check in the app?
| rkul wrote:
| Loving Wolt. Btw, try tapping on the time estimate circle after
| placing an order. What's the highest score you ever got? :)
| artemonster wrote:
| I couldn't find any information what differentiates them from any
| other similar service?
| mxschmitt wrote:
| Better UX/UI afaik
| fredsted wrote:
| Here in Denmark, Wolt started taking off recently, and these days
| you see Wolt couriers delivering food constantly. Over the last
| 10 years, I've several hundred orders on Just-Eat, but due to the
| improved UX of the Wolt app, I've now switched to it completely.
| twic wrote:
| Let's hope they come to London, then.
|
| Just last night i was marvelling at how poor the Just Eat UX is
| - marking an order as delivered when it wasn't, i think purely
| via a timeout after the scheduled delivery time, then sending
| me an email asking me to review the meal after i'd cancelled
| it!
| flemhans wrote:
| Me and my colleagues frequently discus how bad the UX of Wolt
| is, and how our favorite is the old-school hungry.dk.
|
| Wolt is so slow and odd, and has a weird paradigm about adding
| copies of the same dish to the cart.
|
| Some of the most basic things ("I want to see only pizza places
| that deliver to me") are not solved. What's the discovery tab
| even for?
|
| I only like it (and suffer the UX) because it has live tracking
| of the orders. And because some restaurants are only available
| there.
|
| I think people only prefer it because it looks more
| clean/modern, and not because it's easy to use.
| fredsted wrote:
| Interesting that you seem to have the complete opposite
| experience of me. By the way, on my Discovery tab, I can
| scroll down a bit and click on Pizza to get a list of places
| that deliver pizza.
| tokai wrote:
| The UX might be good. But their business would not work if they
| stopped using young foreigners on tourist visas. Like Uber
| their business model works due to taking local laws lightly.
| hogFeast wrote:
| I am not really sure why people think the model is economic.
| The fixed costs are huge, it is either difficult or
| impossible to actually offset a living wage to the delivery
| person if they are only fulfilling one order at a time. The
| only way this model works now is by hosing down restaurants
| (in many places right now, there is literally no choice for
| restaurants but to make delivery apps money). It is true,
| lots of these restaurants got themselves into this mess by
| not realising how valuable deliveries were...but...I don't
| understand how this is long-term viable. Paying someone EUR10
| to deliver EUR20 of food makes no sense for most customers.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Couriers definitely are not only fulfilling one order at a
| time. As you correctly surmise, that would not be possible
| to do economically.
|
| Orders are routed so that couriers pick up multiple orders,
| and pickups and dropoffs can be interleaved to keep
| multiple orders live at all times.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Local laws are most definitely not taken lightly. Labour
| legislation in Finland, the initial market, is very strict.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| B..but they are "partners" /s
| jb1991 wrote:
| "The opportunity is to equip brick and mortar stores to compete
| with Amazon and Alibaba -- and be better than them."
|
| This is fantastic. It makes sense -- get the convenience of
| ordering online, but with the tremendously better quality of
| buying from a local and known source, while also supporting your
| local economy and peers. I try everything I can to avoid Amazon,
| as there is just so much garbage, counterfeit, scammed reviews,
| and just sheer anti-competitive crap that it's a real sore in our
| world.
| hedberg10 wrote:
| Biggest hurdle is finding stuff outside of Amazon. People are
| used to it and Google results are gamed from every possible
| angle. Even searching for [item] made in [country] yielded
| nothing for me, because the SEO gap is too huge.
|
| Turns out attracting massive traffic and then acting as a
| platform works all too well.
|
| So 1. make another platform specifically for off Amazon stuff
| or 2. specialize for SEO for small companies.
|
| The consolidation of the Web into FAANG needs to end.
| drawkbox wrote:
| Search is not as reliable anymore because everything is
| locked up in an app, walled garden or javascript monstrosity
| now.
|
| The major players like it that way and
| marketing/business/finance people seem to only care about the
| data you get with the app now, though no one but large big
| data third parties knows what to actually do with it. This
| movement has worked so hard to commoditize technology/data
| that only major players can exist, everyone else just
| sharecropping on platforms and algorithms that they can no
| longer compete with.
|
| For many companies, web is now an afterthought, de-
| prioritized. A bit like audio/sound in games, a major part of
| a product but not enough time is given to it.
|
| We lost touch with why the web was amazing, at the root it
| was basic text/markup, hypertext protocols, that anyone or
| any company could compete on, and it was searchable outside
| the walls. That land has now been claimed by bigger owners,
| locked down, and able to be leased.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| If you can get it, that sounds great. But competing with
| Amazon's scale sounds like a horrendously difficult problem.
|
| But yes, filtering through the cruft and garbage on Amazon
| seems to get worse every year, which opens up an opportunity
| for more traditional retailers that don't have the same problem
| with a million variations on the same thing by shady companies
| taking up search results space.
| StreamBright wrote:
| They only need to win over the customers. There is a growing
| crowd on HN who refuse to buy from Amazon. I spread the love
| in the community (family, friends, etc.) and sooner or later
| Amazon is going to feel the lost of trust. Maybe not today or
| tomorrow, but if the unhappy customers reach a critical mess
| it will be fast.
|
| "It can take years to create trust and only a day to lose
| it."
| Loughla wrote:
| >There is a growing crowd on HN who refuse to buy from
| Amazon.
|
| HN is, from what I can tell, not necessarily the best
| bellwether for 'human actions taken'. It's sort of a small,
| insulated bubble. Just a heads up.
|
| The biggest problem is that, for many folks, there is no
| longer such a thing as 'local' store to buy things they
| need. Everything is a chain - wal-mart, dollar general,
| those sorts of places. So, to them, what's the difference
| between amazon and faceless corporation (b)?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >HN is, from what I can tell, not necessarily the best
| bellwether for 'human actions taken'. It's sort of a
| small, insulated bubble. Just a heads up.
|
| It does however seem to be a small, insulated bubble with
| better than average economy.
| Hamuko wrote:
| Don't you get free deliveries up the wazoo with Amazon if you
| have Prime? I don't really know how one can compete with that.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I don 't really know how one can compete with that_
|
| I'll pay for delivery if I can be sure it's coming from the
| manufacturer. Not only is counterfeit risk minimised; the
| product's freshness is also maximised.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Prime isn't free. They charge a monthly fee for it.
| [deleted]
| zikzak wrote:
| I see the fee as largely a formality, you pay it then you
| think "might as well order from them since I paid for the
| membership". Then you have thier video streaming, subscribe
| and save, etc. It seems to pay for itself but it really
| increases the chance we'll order from Amazon over a third
| party (e.g. in Canada, Walmart is really a good alternative
| as long as you only by "sold as shipped by Walmart" items,
| but it is rarely the first place I go).
| rorykoehler wrote:
| Which is why I don't pay for prime.
| criddell wrote:
| I've wondered why UPS, USPS, and FedEx (and others) haven't
| tried to start their own prime-type programs. Charge me an
| annual or monthly fee and then any delivery to me from any
| participating retailer is free.
| shigawire wrote:
| Because they don't all have a web services branch to
| print money and prop up the cost of free delivery?
|
| I'm not sure of that is true but that's my guess.
| TrueGeek wrote:
| I've been a Prime member since it came out, but lately it's
| just been awful. Packages will say "delivered" but then
| either the photo is of someone else's porch or there just
| isn't a photo. I have their Ring doorbell and I offer to show
| them no events were triggered. They always say "oh, we must
| have marked it delivered too early, please wait 48 hours".
| Then, 48 hours later they offer to refund me and I have to
| start over. I've asked if they can please only deliver via
| UPS but they say that's not an option.
| cbolt wrote:
| Convenience? Where I live, you have to stay at home all day in
| order to have the luck of a successful DHL delivery.
|
| Then DHL sometimes does not ring, so you have to stay home a
| second day. Then the package is delivered to the post office,
| where you have to stand in line with 50 people to collect it,
| which takes an hour.
|
| I only order online when I have to.
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| For DHL orders you can sign the signature in advance... It's
| towards the bottom of a page when viewing a tracking number.
| jpalomaki wrote:
| Common problem here as well.
|
| Wonder if it would be difficult to provide more detailed
| estimate for the delivery (through app) based on couriers
| location and list of pending deliveries.
| metafunctor wrote:
| The big issue for me is delivery times. When I order something
| the website claims is "in stock", it often takes weeks to be
| delivered. Clearly they don't have the item in stock, but are
| backordering it from somewhere else (usually Germany). That
| sucks so much. I am perfectly capable of ordering from Germany
| myself, and it is much faster than ordering from these faux "in
| stock" websites.
|
| Not Amazon, though. They get it. Quick delivery is key.
|
| The problem here for Wolt is to get an accurate (and I mean
| _accurate_) picture of what they can actually deliver very
| quickly. Most brick & mortar stores don't have the ERP to
| support that. They have no computer system that correctly
| tracks what items they actually have on their shelves. It's
| crazy, but it's true.
|
| P.S. The above may be wildly different in different locales.
| I'm in Finland, where Wolt was conceived. I sometimes order
| lunch from Wolt but I have serious reservations they can pull
| this off with items that are back-ordered through a lengthy
| supply chain.
| arcturus17 wrote:
| There may be opportunities in creating simplified ERPs for
| SMBs.
|
| In fact, if they want to compete, it will be necessary to
| adopt one for the reasons you point out.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| IMO, The platform must be the ERP system, with the local
| business simply acting as a logistics node in the network
| (storage, shipping).
| szatkus wrote:
| I know some computer stores that have that. I can check on
| the website if a product is anywhere nearby, go for a walk
| and buy it.
|
| Oh, and IKEA.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Wolt has no support for anything other than delivering
| immediately. So if the shop lists an item they do not
| actually have, they have to reject the order.
| paavohtl wrote:
| Well, that's not exactly correct. You can create a
| scheduled order up to a week in advance.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Yes, but that is entirely customer-driven, and just
| places the order in a queue to start at a point chosen by
| the system so that it will be delivered at the promised
| time. Once the order is initiated, it will be delivered
| immediately, there is no logistical system in place to do
| anything else.
| xmodem wrote:
| It's funny, in Sweden I've been having the opposite
| experience. Local stores almost always specify if they have
| stock accurately and what the lead times are if not, and
| delivery is usually as quick as specified.
|
| Amazon usually comes in a bit cheaper but comes from Germany
| or the UK. Since brexit everything from the UK is taking
| weeks.
| metafunctor wrote:
| Yeah, I like to order from Sweden. It's usually faster to
| ship stuff from Sweden to Finland than ordering from a
| Finnish faux "in stock" webshop :)
| stevekemp wrote:
| I probably shouldn't comment, as I've never used any of
| these delivery services .. but that said I've always been
| pretty patient when it comes to online-ordering.
|
| There are a lot of things I could go to a store to buy if
| I needed them "immediately". If I can way a week or two
| then online ordering is just something I do because it is
| either very easy to do, or a lot cheaper.
|
| Right now I'm waiting on the delivery of some NE555 timer
| chips, so I can build a clock circuit to drive a Z80.
| Since I'm in no immediate rush I just ordered a bunch
| from aliexpress, I have no doubt they'll turn up in six
| weeks.
|
| (I did look at how much it would cost to buy a single 555
| locally, and found a couple of online sites such as
| mouser.fi, and partco.fi, but they were quoting EUR10-20
| for delivery which was just not something I was going to
| pay, even if the delivery would have been speedy.)
|
| Also last week I got nostalgic for when I used to have
| the complete collection of Discworld books, so I ordered
| half of them online, I was given a delivery estimate of a
| week which is perfectly fine, I've no shortage of books
| to read here in the meantime.
| Zanfa wrote:
| For what it's worth Farnell is by far the most reliable
| place for electronics components I've found in the EU.
| Next business day delivery for 5 EUR from Western Europe
| to Estonia even if you order in the afternoon. Haven't
| been disappointed yet.
| ignoramous wrote:
| This is a real cause of worry for Amazon's retail business that
| has so much riding on its warehouse and logistics investments.
| In India, as hard as it is, Swiggy has started to turn the
| screws on the existing e-commerce model with Genie:
| https://medium.com/swiggydesign/swiggy-genie-the-design-stor...
| user-the-name wrote:
| It is a whole new kind of thing to sit in your house, look at
| something you want, place the order, and then have it in your
| hands in 45 minutes.
| szatkus wrote:
| I did my first online grocery order in the middle of
| pandemic. I needed to wait to 6 days :D
| insickness wrote:
| My parents live in northern New Jersey, about an hour away
| from NYC. For the first two months of the pandemic, it was
| impossible to get them food delivery. The wait times were
| exactly that a week or longer. Now it's fine. But it was so
| frustrating at it first.
| ashleshbiradar wrote:
| Check out Dunzo.com
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Then hopefully suffer more than 45 minutes of guilt for the
| externalities of your decision, including the likely fact
| that your delivery person is not making a living wage. Why
| not walk to your neighborhood store and buy something from a
| fellow citizens in your own community? Bonus points if you
| manage to find a replacement for an import made by a local
| company.
| citrus1330 wrote:
| I would say any wage is better than no wage at all, which
| is what delivery people make if there are no deliveries.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Wolt does pay couriers decently, and carbon compensates
| deliveries. And the order comes from local shops.
| kakoni wrote:
| So do you think in Finland 13-14e hourly charge rate for
| self-employed entrepreneur is a decent rate?
| Arkku wrote:
| What is your source for this rate? Based on limited
| knowledge (e.g., the Finnish YouTuber who tried working
| as Wolt courier for a couple of days, and the recent
| articles about the courier who is trying to earn 8000e in
| January delivering with Wolt), it seems that the rate
| _when actually making deliveries_ is higher. I might be
| willing to accept that this quoted figure is the hourly
| rate when the courier is technically available for
| deliveries but not getting them all the time. So, the
| hourly rate would go up if more people made delivery
| orders, because there would be less downtime... Of course
| nothing prevents the self-employed couriers from doing
| other work in the meantime, e.g., delivering for another
| company or working on some personal project (studying
| comes to mind as a thing that can be done during
| downtime).
|
| Now, admittedly if they were employees, they would be
| paid by the hour whether there were orders or not, but
| then both their salary and the number of couriers on duty
| would have to be adjusted accordingly, which means the
| majority of couriers would lose this job... Not a simple
| matter, IMO, I think there is a gap in legislation when
| it comes to this type of work.
| kakoni wrote:
| For instance from this story " Woltin mukaan Woltin
| kaikkien lahettien keskimaarainen laskutus on nykyaan
| nykyaan 13,44 euroa tunnilta." (Source:
| https://www.is.fi/taloussanomat/art-2000006312759.html)
|
| Most on these "can earn so many thousands per month" seem
| to follow same formula 1) Assumes that somebody works
| >12h per day, 6-7 days per week and 2) Mixes salary and
| self-employed hourly rate
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Wolt couriers in Israel make 3-4 times the minimum wage
| when all is said and done.
| names_are_hard wrote:
| I'm not doubting you but if you have a source for this
| (Hebrew is fine) I'd appreciate it. This topic has come
| up in conversation before and I'd like some more info on
| this.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Maybe this: https://www.meshekil.com/ReadNews/hMLbbgJ2C-%
| D7%A9%D7%99%D7%...
| yrimaxi wrote:
| Chances are that you spend more time than that feeling
| resentful that the big bad strangers on the internet don't
| feel even a pang of shame just because you told them to.
| maccard wrote:
| I've got same day delivery on certain items on some sites and
| while it's a nice novelty, I've found it's unnecessary. I'm
| quite happy (content even) to wait 2 days, as long as it is
| actually 2 days, and not 1-5 days depending on the position
| of the moon.
|
| My supermarket offers 4 hour delivery windows that you book
| about a week in advance, and it's perfect (other than the
| occasional dodgy swap or missing item). I can work with that.
| But amazon (for example) offers same/next day delivery, and
| I'd estimate maybe 10% of my orders are late. That doesn't
| work if I'm relying on them for food
| StreamBright wrote:
| I am switching over the local stores as much as I can. Amazon
| took a turn for the much worse 5 years ago and it continues
| going down this spiral every year.
|
| Few highlights:
|
| - fake item inventory: 50% chance of getting what you ordered
| vs some fake knockoff
|
| - delivery hell: stolen items (i have personally watched a
| delivery driver steal my package), delivered items that never
| arrived (probably falls into the previous category but i have
| no proof), failed delivery for addresses that worked for 5+
| years before
|
| - item arriving from different country that I made the
| purchase, this is funny in Europe, UK has left the EU on 1st of
| January so there is import customs to pay on items. I order and
| item from Germany and Amazon send me from the UK because it is
| 1 cent cheaper for them. I have to pay the same amount of
| customs + tax that the amount of the purchase. After some back
| and fort they reimburse.
|
| So if there is a startup that allows me to order from a local
| store, I could not care less how much more expensive it is than
| on Amazon, I am going for it. I hope they succeed.
| criddell wrote:
| > 50% chance of getting what you ordered vs some fake
| knockoff
|
| I don't think I've ever received a counterfeit item from
| Amazon and I get something from there at least once a week.
| rightbyte wrote:
| > stolen items (i have personally watched a delivery driver
| steal my package)
|
| Did he pick up some other package by your door? Or how do you
| know he stole the package he was delivering.
| zikzak wrote:
| It's not unknown to have a driver snap the confirmation and
| then take the package. Anyone who does this will eventually
| get fired but it seems to happen. Personally, I've never
| had an issue with this but there's doorbell camera evidence
| of it, etc. I think people following the vans and stealing
| packages is way more common (orders of magnitude).
| StreamBright wrote:
| Guy came in his turck, got a bunch of packages in his hands
| when exited the vehicle, dropped off some of the packages,
| he had one package in his hand when got back and left. Few
| minutes later the notification came that my package was
| delivered. I was trying to understand who is stealing my
| packages, maybe neighbours or somebody breaking in after
| the delivery guys leaves. This was in a gated community.
| Finally I understood it was the driver. I called amazon
| about it but nothing happened. They just refunded me and
| did not do anything about it. Financially this is "optimal"
| for them (as least in the short run). I have never ordered
| anything to that address anymore and I started to use the
| company address in the city in a building that has 24 hour
| staff.
| yrimaxi wrote:
| Most patrons of a store are not the store owners' peers.
| klohto wrote:
| Wolt has been the only delivery service that hasn't let me down
| throughout 2020.
|
| Time estimation is still the best, couriers are paid fairly well
| and I have not had a bad experience with one, support uses canned
| responses but solving is fast and without excuses.
| simias wrote:
| That's good to hear, they don't operate where I live but I'll
| be sure to give them a try when do. I just hope that it's not a
| temporary thing, I seem to recall that many of these services
| often start with very advantageous terms for everybody involved
| in order to drive adoption only to slash all that when they
| reach critical mass. The relative lack of regulation and
| collective bargaining makes it very easy to do.
| bittermandel wrote:
| Exactly this. Wolt is such a great experience compared to
| Foodora, Uber Eats etc here in Sweden. Time estimations are
| most often spot on if location is no more than a few kilometers
| away. Recently they started supporting real pictures of dishes,
| rather than the fake hamburger or pizza banners in other
| services.
| jfim wrote:
| > couriers are paid fairly well
|
| I wonder if that's part of their success. Costco is known for
| both having very sticky membership rates and relatively well
| paid employees for retail positions.
| user-the-name wrote:
| It does help to make sure that the only people who represent
| your business face to face are actually happy about it.
| jfim wrote:
| Probably. Considering that the grandparent mentioned that
| their service is actually reliable, I wish they were
| available here (South Bay, SFBA).
|
| I don't think I've even had a 50% success rate with the
| food delivery apps here, there's almost always an issue
| with the delivery. At this point it's just a toss as to
| whether they'll deliver according to instructions (drop the
| package in front of the garage), deliver to another
| entrance (which is further for the driver), deliver to the
| neighbor, call for delivery instructions, or even leave it
| on a fence post.
|
| It's pretty crazy to think that on top of a 30% cut that
| they take from the food order, the delivery fees, service
| fees, tip, and other arbitrary fees (I'm almost expecting a
| "fee collection fee" at this point), they can't even bother
| providing good service.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| It's almost like treating staff well is a good thing! The
| audacity!
|
| Anyway I hope they stay private and don't get shareholders,
| broadly speaking those are leeches who make the big decisions
| and earn big money without having to put the work in. They,
| and capitalist min-maxing, is part of the reason why
| employees are exploited, underpaid and overworked nowadays.
| sz4kerto wrote:
| Yes. Wolt couriers in my country often mention that they're
| treated much better than in their previous gig at <another
| delivery service>. Wolt has customer service, it just feels
| that they're trying to fix your problem when something
| doesn't work out (e.g. when you don't get the food in time,
| etc.).
| barrenko wrote:
| Pretty much.
| amitport wrote:
| "couriers are paid fairly well" - Any references?
|
| From what I've heard this is not the case. Actual data would be
| nice.
| klohto wrote:
| Talking to couriers; Wolt being a Finland company with strong
| morals; operating only in EU. Check their website for
| estimated payment.
|
| The gig market in Europe isn't a slavery compared to US. Wolt
| also has higher delivery prices, which is how they can afford
| to do this.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Two blog posts from Wolt about it, unfortunately in Finnish:
|
| https://blog.wolt.com/fin/2019/11/01/27-kysymysta-ja-
| vastaus... https://blog.wolt.com/fin/2019/11/01/miten-
| ruokalahetilla-me...
| snemvalts wrote:
| For me, their time estimation has always been terrible and
| dishonest - they routinely estimate 25-35 minutes for places
| that almost always take 70min+, on really busy days for really
| common orders.
| kakoni wrote:
| One thing to note about courier wages/payments. In Finland wolt
| started initally with more generous payments to the couriers and
| then gradually started to bring them down.
| shapiro92 wrote:
| They are competing here in Berlin, against DeliveryHero (which
| bought foodora and other smaller deliveries). They are both the
| same, except the restaurant coverage. From that I can assume they
| have a better b2b model. Wolt prices are higher, even though
| DeliveryHero prices are already higher, including the distance
| extra payment for me it makes it stupid to order. I understand
| that the drivers get paid more and it is obvious, but as a
| consumer to pay 30% more for a delivery, is insane. Back in the
| day you would get FREE delivery from restaurants and even extras.
| Being corona lockdown I prefer to walk and get my food.
|
| This is not a judgement against Wolt, but against this whole
| delivery system.
| aserafini wrote:
| They are not competing in Berlin against Delivery Hero.
| Delivery Hero exited Germany and sold Foodora, Pizza.de AND
| Lieferheld.de to Lieferando: who promptly shut those 3
| platforms down leaving only Lieferando.
|
| So now Wolt is competing in Berlin in takeaway food market
| against only Lieferando, and seeing as they only started last
| year, Google Trends suggests they are getting a reasonable % of
| the market already, somewhere around 12% of Berlin online food
| delivery:
|
| https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?geo=DE-BE&q=liefera...
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| DeliveryHero's primary market is S.E. Asia, Pakistan,
| Bangladesh etc, and they don't have any sales in Berlin. Also
| Wolt don't even operate outside the Kreuzkolln bubble, I've
| never heard of it till now, and I don't understand why people
| are fawning over Wolt operating in Berlin.
| magnusmundus wrote:
| > why people are fawning over Wolt operating in Berlin
|
| mainly the shameful experience of Lieferando, and the
| several months of total monopoly after their acquisition of
| the Delivery Hero brands. The antitrust organization really
| let customers down on that one.
|
| > Kreuzkolln bubble
|
| one that covers from Hauptbahnhof to ~half of PB, but who's
| counting...
| avh02 wrote:
| https://wolt.com/en/deu/berlin/article/berlin_deliveryarea
|
| definitely covers more than what you're stating, but
| granted, if you're in Charlottenburg you may not have
| noticed them.
| FlyingSnake wrote:
| They're leaving large swathes of Mitte, schoneberg,
| Tiergarten etc. that's why maybe
| avh02 wrote:
| also that lieferando delivers a pathetic user experience (too
| many bugs and poor UX decisions to list here). I would love
| to see Wolt take over the Berlin/German market.
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