The pandemic has sent restaurant delivery into overdrive. That became ever more clear in recent weeks as Grubhub and Uber Eats, two of the biggest third-party delivery companies, reported massive jumps across virtually every metric: Revenue, orders, new users and restaurant partners all rose significantly from April to June. “Given the strength we continue to […]
Tag Archives: Coronavirus
Uber: Revisiting The Profitability Forecast, And It’s Only Worse
Summary Uber originally aimed to have a break-even in adjusted EBITDA by 2021, but the first two quarters have that figure down $181 million YoY. Rides bookings are down 73.88% since Q4 2019, while contribution to adjusted EBITDA is down 92%. Eats bookings have grown 122% YoY, but adjusted EBITDA for the segment is still […]
Uber Eats grows its restaurant partner roster by 50%
Dive Brief: Uber reported a 103% year-over-year revenue increase for Uber Eats as part of its Q2 earnings Thursday, according to a company release. Comparatively, Uber’s ride-hailing business saw a revenue decline of 67%. Active partnered restaurants on Uber Eats crossed the 500,000 mark in June, up 50% year-over-year. The company added enterprise accounts including Baskin […]
Lafayette-based Waitr beats second-quarter estimates, posts record $10.7 million profit
Lafayette-based food delivery service Waitr announced Thursday its second quarter results beat earlier estimates, posting a $10.7 million in its official results instead of the $8 million estimated earlier. The second quarter marked Waitr’s first profitable quarter since the company went public in 2018. Waitr’s preliminary results in early July estimated the $8 million profit for the company. In the […]
Uber’s Biggest Business Is Officially Not Ride-Sharing
With the coronavirus pandemic keeping people at home and dampening demand for ride-sharing, Uber’s UBER +4.5% mainstay business transporting people has just taken a back seat to its younger sibling, Uber Eats. Gross bookings in Uber’s mobility rides unit slumped 75% to $3.1 billion in the second quarter while in the delivery segment, previously known as Eats, saw gross […]
How food delivery upstarts are fighting the tyranny of Grubhub
“The pandemic really just crushed us,” says Sean Li, cofounder of CaterCow, a platform that partners with restaurants to deliver big batch buffet-like food options primarily to offices and event spaces across eight major U.S. cities. When most nonessential businesses shut their doors in mid-March and people started working from their living rooms, Li says he […]
Grubhub and Postmates Are Actively Defying Portland’s New Delivery Fee Law
Three weeks after Portland City Council passed a new ordinance capping fees on food delivery apps at 10 percent, two companies — Postmates and Grubhub — are still flouting the rules, and taking fees of up to 30 percent from local restaurants. In early July, City Council unanimously passed a fee cap to help small businesses struggling […]
Restaurant Revolution: How the Industry Is Fighting to Stay Alive
It’s never been easy to make money in the restaurant industry. A highly fragmented sector dominated by 70 percent independent owners and operators, the average restaurant’s annual revenue hovers around $1 million and generates an operating profit of just 4-5 percent. A financially sustainable business model for small independents is often elusive. So when a […]
Uber Eats to Waive Restaurant Fees for the Rest of 2020
Uber Technologies (NYSE: UBER) will allow restaurants to add online ordering to their websites, for delivery through Uber Eats, at no cost for the rest of the year. The food delivery specialist said the coronavirus pandemic has given it a new understanding of the importance that delivery has in the restaurant industry’s survival. But the third-party delivery […]
Uber Eats’ New Pilot Offers Commission-Free Orders for Restaurants, with a Catch
Today, Uber Eats launched a pilot program that lets its restaurant parters accept pickup and delivery orders directly through their own websites with no added commission fee for the rest of 2020. The program seems to be a bid on Uber Eats’ part to keep restaurant partners entrenched in the third-party delivery service’s ecosystem by offering them […]