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Online Takeout Delivery is Back
prostoalex writes "It's like watching e-Dreams and re-living the Kozmo.com experience, only this time it's for real, the New York Times says. SeamlessWeb is here (or rather, in New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Los Angeles and southern Connecticut) to take your take-out orders and deliver the food. All is done via their Web site so no need to look for that takeout menu: "SeamlessWeb charges restaurants a commission of 5 percent to 15 percent, while the business pays a 2.5 percent fee for each transaction. The process for consumers will work much the same, except they will be charged no service fee.""
I think the point is that you can orderf rom anywhere on one site. For no extra fee!
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
I agree that it's a brilliant idea, but the relevant question is, why will it succeed this time if it failed last time?
The most obvious answer is that the dotcom era is over. If they're offering a reasonable offer at a reasonable price, plus the economies of scale (why should every restaurant in the area have a separate delivery system when you can even out the bursts with a large central service?), it could well work.
As opposed to the dotcom era, when readily-available investor money and a land-rush attitude made for stupid promotions. A friend of mine bought stuff through kozmo because it was cheaper, even delivered, than buying the object in a store. Clearly they were losing money like crazy and he knew he was taking advantage of stupid investors.
The insensitive clots ruling the world at my employer use seamlessweb so that all the worker bees would remain at their desks as long as possible.
The system generally works very well, although the 10:30am cutoff time for lunch orders can come and go very ruthlessly leaving you without the free lunch for the day.
The few problems we've had with the service have to do more with the vendors rather than seamlessweb. Some of them, especially the new restaurants in the system, have problems fullfilling the volume of orders sometimes.
They recently revamped their user interface. The old user interface made the service look a little like someone was running it from their garage. The new one is definitely an improvement and looks very professional.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
O' for the opportunity to once again lament the loss of WebVan. I loved them. Mourn. Mourn.
But in all seriousness, just because the dot.com boom folded, doesn't mean that the idea was bad. WebVan died because it overextended itself massively, thinking it would have time to make a profit; and was caught rather unaware of the failing dot.com industry. Executive stupidity, sure, but a bad idea NO!! If they would have just kept to two primary markets during there fateful last year, they could have survived the crash, and be raking in the dough today. Many stores not offer delivery, because WebVan showed them that there was a market for it.
Also not to knock Seamless Web, but Waiter's On Wheel (Bay Area) and Waiter.com (Bay Area & Silicon Valley) both managed to survive the dot.com bust, and still deliver food from great restaurants without the super high mark-up. Up to 15% for the business charge just seems excessive; and already seems to be pushing some of their clientele into establishing their own services. The Japanese grill mentioned has a nice clean easy to use web site. Nice enough that if I knew I wanted food from them, I'd order directly from them to save both me and them money.
Of course, I admit sometimes, I used Waiter's On Wheels when I was uncertain what I wanted for dinner. Having access to a large array of menu's that aren't limited to pizza specials has its own value.