To the OP: I found in my business that delivery fee did not reduce my delivery frequency or volume. Maybe 5 comments about it being too high, with the balance of comments being “We knew it would have to happen” or some variant. I have been unable to secure from anyone making the claim about Free Delivery any data to support the claim. I would be most interested in correlational elements as well to describe how product pricing level interacts with the sales and fee. None to date and been asking since soon after I joined the pizza fee world in 2006 or so.
PPG2270:
wa dave:
Dave,
With all due respect it is my position that if a store/owner cannot pay an employee fairly based on menu pricing, there is a major problem with management and/or store volume. Any service offered should be “bottom lined.” If you cannot afford to offer the service…well, the options are limited to stop offering the service or hang the closed sign permanently.
Ah, but this being a free market, there are more than those two really rather myopic options. there are a plethora of options as to how actual business owners answer the question of how to manage delivery fee costs.
And we roll around this wheel once again.
We know quite well by now that that your position is that every store should charge what it is that you define as “fair”. That’s the “bottom line” you asked for. All of it really does boil down to your demand that everyone comply with your own business model, but you are not willing to commit to operating a business yourself using your “models”. It doesn’t make you dumb, pointless or irrelevant . . . it makes you detached from current market trends and realities impacting ownership. The reality is that every business exists for the owner to make profit of some sort wherein he/she/they make a return on investment (some of which is financial), and hopefully a standard of living that includes saving for retirement (and/or future business disasters).
The market in existence today for food service industries is that services are becoming more and more “fee for service”. There are fewer and fewer “all in” pricing models, and there are fewer ‘freebies’ in all segments of the industry. That goes for fees coming down to owners as well as pricing going out to customers. The market has had a profound paradigmatic shift that you do not acknowledge. McDonald’s now charges for that extra dipping sauce, pizzerias charge for delivery, and more and more sandwich places are a la carte. There are market pressures that employees do not control, they cannot change, and cannot deny . . . and those pressures are what owners must assess in determining how best to generate gross sales increases to stay viable and to keep customers spending. Labor cost models have changed every bit as much as cheese market price trends over the last 3 years. Food distributor business models have changed. Insurance costs have changed. Consumer buying and preference patterns have changed. there are more and profound changes in store for the food service industry, and all levels involved need to be aware and ready for them. Delivery Drivers will likely get another shift in the perception and definition of their responsibilities, value and worth to both businesses and the consumer public with whom they interact. Heck everyone else is having to adjust . . . makes sense that pizzeria industry should figure out how to adjust as well.
All of these things are elements in business that impact the owner decisions on how best to manage his resources and produce the product that he/she/they want to produce and generate the desired return. Owners are not the same as government entitlement programs that can simply shell out more cash and raise taxes, they are not service organizations that exist for the sole benefit of consumers and employees. they are entities created by invested ownership parties with the expressed goals they outline in their business plan (written or imagined). An enlightened ownership will consider how best to juggle all the elements so as to maintain loyalty of staff and customers in and among all the changes and puzzles and pieces that go into operating the business. “Fair” is not a word that belongs in a serious conversation about business or labor relationships. “Fair” is a vague and meaningless word that changes from personal perspectives and even daily attitude shifts.
Last point: HOW ABOUT THIS: If the customer does not get delivery, then they are not assessed a delivery fee. driver does not receive any funds as a result of that order. When a customer requests delivery, then that customer is assessed a fee, and the driver in most cases receives a payment equal to some percentage (from 1 to 100%) of that assessed fee. (Bodegahwy gets a pass and so do all the owners using their own cars). What in reality happens is that the delivery fee is held in ‘de facto’ escrow or trusteeship by the business, who then distributes the previously agreed portion of said funds to the employee. The only way those funds pass through to the employee is when the fee is paid by customer, so playing the “General Fund” is neither technically correct, nor practicably supportable.
Bottom line to delivery customer is that they gotta pay an additional fee for the addition of delivery service . . . call it another menu item, if you will called, “delivery service” . . . “and your bottom line total with tax and delivery fee will be $34.48”.