Your restaurant delivery service business delivers much more than food. You’re giving people the gift of time, convenience, and joy.
Everyone’s inbox is overflowing with sales, coupons, discounts, and other ways to spend less money. And while these strategies can be effective, they can also make you feel like rock-bottom prices are the only way to get ahead in business.
Price is value reflected in dollars. Not every good or service will have the same value, which means they’re not going to have the same price, either. For example, you can go to the mall and get a pair of tennis shoes for anywhere from $20 to $1000. $1000 shoes exist because people are willing to pay for them. The same is true of restaurant delivery.
Of course, we aren’t suggesting a delivery fee of $1000. But people are willing to pay you to bring them food because that service is valuable to them, and we want you to feel confident in doing so. So here are a few ways to think about how your RDS brings real value to people’s lives:
Restaurant delivery connects people to experiences that might otherwise be inaccessible.
Because restaurants are so central to how we socialize, it’s easy to assume that they’re accessible to everyone. But that may not always be the case.
Of course, no one could eat out in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, but even with restrictions lifted, some people still can’t risk it for various reasons. And there are many other factors unrelated to the pandemic that keep people from enjoying restaurant meals. For example, disabilities, health concerns, busy schedules, and small children can make traditional restaurant dining challenging or completely inaccessible.
This is where your restaurant delivery service business comes in. Food delivery lets people experience the fun and pleasure of an exceptional meal in their own homes. It’s a meaningful service that people will happily pay for.
Restaurant delivery is cheaper than most hourly services.
Let’s do the math. Let’s say Julie orders carryout for her family from a restaurant that’s twenty minutes away from her house. After placing the order, she has to put on her jacket, find her keys, and drive twenty minutes to the restaurant. Once she’s there, she has to wait a few minutes for her order, make sure everything is accounted for, and pay the restaurant. Then she has to carry everything out to the car, make sure nothing will spill, and drive twenty minutes back home.
The whole process quickly adds up to an hour of Julie’s time, and no one has even taken a single bite yet. But Julie has another option: She can pay for delivery. More specifically, she can pay a delivery fee, usually under $10, to get an entire hour of her time back. There are very few other services that can compete with that.
When it comes to buying back your time, restaurant delivery is an exceptional bargain.
Your restaurant delivery service business gives people the gift of time.
That hour is full of potential for your customers. They can use that hour to read to their children, squeeze in a workout, enjoy their favorite hobby, or maybe even sneak in a nap. Time is a precious resource, and your RDS offers people an opportunity to get some of it back.
Follow the big guys’ lead.
In our most recent issue of Phil’s Field Notes, we talked about some of the changing laws around food delivery. In some cities and states, commission caps and other rules have changed the way a restaurant delivery service business earns money on deliveries.
For example, let’s say Tom’s Delivery used to earn $6 of commission from the restaurant on every $20 order. A new commission cap then brings that number down to $3. The Big Three have adapted to this simply by charging that $3 difference to the customer instead of the restaurant. And people are paying for it. If someone is already planning to have their favorite meal delivered, that extra $3 is unlikely to dissuade them.
Food delivery is a premium service. It equals time, convenience, and good food for the customer, and it’s okay to charge a fair price for that. So when you feel pressured to slash your prices, remember that you’re delivering more than just food and price your services accordingly.