What does DTK need?

[danbrotherston]

As for users, I think if they could offer a comparable user experience, and everything is 10-20% cheaper, I think they'd win pretty quickly.

I agree with that statement ... but is a 20% price reduction realistic? There needs to be a savings for the restaurant, too, in order for them to use this app. How high are the Doordash/UberEats/etc costs?

I suspect so, I hear from restaurants that it's pretty expensive, and prices on the app are also 10-20% higher than in store prices. So I think they're really taking a bite from both sides.

But it almost certainly also depends on the market.

And that's on top of a delivery fee.

As for how cheap the region could offer it...that's a good question, I'm not sure, but delivery at restaurants that offer it isn't usually more than the delivery fee that the apps charge.

My suspicion is that the region could use the improvements in efficiency gained from communal delivery resources to offset the cost of developing the app...but I've also never run any of these businesses, so I'm not really an expert here.

[SF22]

As for users, I think if they could offer a comparable user experience, and everything is 10-20% cheaper, I think they'd win pretty quickly.

I agree with that statement ... but is a 20% price reduction realistic? There needs to be a savings for the restaurant, too, in order for them to use this app. How high are the Doordash/UberEats/etc costs?

Found this article online from last year. If you're looking for the delivery option, not just ordering online to pick up yourself, then it's 20% minimum commission, plus whatever extra service charges UberEats wants to throw at you.


TORONTO — Uber Technologies Inc. says it’s launching three new offerings for its Uber Eats services that charge restaurants lower commissions than the company has previously.

The first of the offerings allows restaurants paying a 2.9 per cent commission to accept orders directly from their websites or social media accounts and have them fulfilled with delivery people on the Uber Eats platform.

The second offering lets diners browse, order, and pay for food on Uber Eats that they will eat at the restaurant, which is charged a three per cent commission.

The final offering introduces a pricing structure for deliveries, which carry commissions starting at 20 per cent.

The lowest tier of the pricing structure helps restaurants process and fulfil orders but charges customers standard delivery fees, while higher tiers slash those fees paid by diners and give restaurants more visibility on the Uber Eats app.

Restaurants have long complained Uber’s 30 per cent commission for deliveries is too high and some were still disappointed when the company temporarily reduced its commission to 15 per cent for restaurants using their own delivery people during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 14, 2022.

[SF22]

But how amazing would it be if we had a Region-operated alternative? Something that is designed to benefit local restaurants and local residents, and puts money back into the region instead of sending it off to Silicon Valley. Instead of being profit-driven for the app, it could offer lower fees to the restaurants and pay their drivers a reasonable wage. You could have shared drivers, but each driver assists 3-6 restaurants within a close range, so they can park their car once and grab bags from Crafty Ramen and La Cucina and Cafe Pyrus in a single shot before heading out to deliver. You could follow the Region App on IG and they could share photos and videos of featured restaurants to help you discover something new. Just because we have UberEats right now doesn't mean we can't imagine something better.

The problem with all of that is that it's actually really hard to build a good app. Yes, anyone with a laptop and a little skill can build "an app", but if look at what Uber pays their engineers, and the number of that work on Uber Eats, they've spent literally billions of dollars on making that app such a smooth experience for both customer and restaurants. Even basic things like delivery time estimates are actually really difficult when working with pooled drivers. The only way to recoup that kind of cost is to scale, and serve cities all over the world. At that point you've just re-invented Uber.

I think expecting our small region to support an app that's remotely competitive with the major delivery services is just fantasy.

There could exist a lower-cost lower-quality app, with the main selling point being that it's local. But 90% of people aren't going to care about that, and are just going to use the better app that gives them accurate delivery estimates, and has the scale to offer delivery at 2am.

I'm not entirely convinced. A good app is hard to build, I agree. But UberEats has different incentives than a Region-operated app might have; Uber wants to make profit profit profit, so they're constantly tweaking their algorithm to find new ways to separate you from your money. That's not necessarily what a local app would prioritize. As for tracking, there are cheap GPS trackers that easily plug into your car and display your near-real-time location in a browser; I use one of these systems at work. Or the delivery drivers use the GPS on their phones to share the location! The region could make a deal with a company that already makes those products and just refine it for their app; no need to fully reinvent the wheel. I'm not saying it would be simple, but I honestly do think that the incentives would be different enough to create a product that offers something that the big guys don't have. The Cycling Guide app is a great example of that - it is regionally-based and shares bike parking locations and whether the mapped route shares the road with cars on a block-by-block basis, which are features that Google Maps just doesn't have.

[bravado]

I have to say this whole discussion seems very out of touch. Software already exists for all these problems and a compellingly designed downtown/commercial zone draws people in regardless of apps.

[danbrotherston]

The problem with all of that is that it's actually really hard to build a good app. Yes, anyone with a laptop and a little skill can build "an app", but if look at what Uber pays their engineers, and the number of that work on Uber Eats, they've spent literally billions of dollars on making that app such a smooth experience for both customer and restaurants. Even basic things like delivery time estimates are actually really difficult when working with pooled drivers. The only way to recoup that kind of cost is to scale, and serve cities all over the world. At that point you've just re-invented Uber.

I think expecting our small region to support an app that's remotely competitive with the major delivery services is just fantasy.

There could exist a lower-cost lower-quality app, with the main selling point being that it's local. But 90% of people aren't going to care about that, and are just going to use the better app that gives them accurate delivery estimates, and has the scale to offer delivery at 2am.

I'm not entirely convinced. A good app is hard to build, I agree. But UberEats has different incentives than a Region-operated app might have; Uber wants to make profit profit profit, so they're constantly tweaking their algorithm to find new ways to separate you from your money. That's not necessarily what a local app would prioritize. As for tracking, there are cheap GPS trackers that easily plug into your car and display your near-real-time location in a browser; I use one of these systems at work. Or the delivery drivers use the GPS on their phones to share the location! The region could make a deal with a company that already makes those products and just refine it for their app; no need to fully reinvent the wheel. I'm not saying it would be simple, but I honestly do think that the incentives would be different enough to create a product that offers something that the big guys don't have. The Cycling Guide app is a great example of that - it is regionally-based and shares bike parking locations and whether the mapped route shares the road with cars on a block-by-block basis, which are features that Google Maps just doesn't have.

I mean, I don't think regional staff themselves would develop such an app...

But as it was literally my job to build such products, I have a pretty good idea what to do. It's certainly not easy, but it's a pretty solved problem.

[danbrotherston]

I have to say this whole discussion seems very out of touch. Software already exists for all these problems and a compellingly designed  downtown/commercial zone draws people in regardless of apps.

I'm confused as to your point here?

"Software exists"...and is owned by VCs who are seeking to extract as much value from our community as possible. They are literally leeches to seek to impoverish us.

A compelling downtown/commerical zone is a totally separate issue, and I'd say that apps actually HARM this. I already mentioned it an earlier comment. In the Netherlands this is a big issue, there is a lot of opposition to retail locations being converted to delivery centres.

I see the same thing happening to downtown locations in Waterloo. I'd rather the delivery be operated out of ghost kitchens located outside the walkable core, but this is a separate issue to me, there is clearly demand for delivery that is not being met, there is also demand for a lively centre that isn't being met either.

[KevinL]

I don't have a problem with ghost kitchens as a concept, if that results in a successful business then full power to them. It's when they occupy what should be a walk-in storefront, especially in a high traffic area, that I have to object. I imagine in some cases they take over the installed kitchen of what had been a traditional restaurant, but we should be finding some kind of incentive to prevent that from becoming a trend.

[ac3r]

Why object to it if they're paying rent/a lease for the place and are contributing economically? There's a ton of vacant space downtown.

[SF22]

Why object to it if they're paying rent/a lease for the place and are contributing economically? There's a ton of vacant space downtown.

I would argue that a ghost kitchen that is primarily doing delivery via UberEats should be located somewhere that is more car-friendly than our most pedestrian-focused areas of KW (ie downtown or uptown). We have limited on-street parking available downtown, and delivery drivers looking to park as close to a restaurant/ghost kitchen as possible end up parking illegally, because it is their incentive to save as much time as possible. In comparison, someone looking to sit down and eat in a restaurant is far more likely to be okay with parking a couple blocks away and walking to their destination, which means they may be more amenable to using parking garages and lots separated from the heaviest pedestrian traffic.

If ghost kitchens are located somewhat away from the downtown core (think Wooden Boat's location off Hurst, with its own small parking lot for people who are arriving to pick up food), then we can remove a lot of 'unnecessary' vehicle traffic from an area that sees a lot of pedestrian traffic.

[neonjoe]

Why object to it if they're paying rent/a lease for the place and are contributing economically? There's a ton of vacant space downtown.

I would argue that a ghost kitchen that is primarily doing delivery via UberEats should be located somewhere that is more car-friendly than our most pedestrian-focused areas of KW (ie downtown or uptown). We have limited on-street parking available downtown, and delivery drivers looking to park as close to a restaurant/ghost kitchen as possible end up parking illegally, because it is their incentive to save as much time as possible. In comparison, someone looking to sit down and eat in a restaurant is far more likely to be okay with parking a couple blocks away and walking to their destination, which means they may be more amenable to using parking garages and lots separated from the heaviest pedestrian traffic.

If ghost kitchens are located somewhat away from the downtown core (think Wooden Boat's location off Hurst, with its own small parking lot for people who are arriving to pick up food), then we can remove a lot of 'unnecessary' vehicle traffic from an area that sees a lot of pedestrian traffic.

I would consider a ghost kitchen to be more akin to a production facility or factory. Downtown has moved beyond the point where industry is downtown. If the kitchen is only doing delivery it would be much better suited in a business park. 
Some of the delivery services already have their own in house brands for their 'Grocery' delivery. Door Dash's 'DashMart' is located on Gage in a nondescript building.

[dtkvictim]

Perhaps I've been lucky, or perhaps it's because I spent 10% of the time I used to outside downtown this year, but I've managed to avoid the worst of the experiences I had in the past.

I will chalk it up to luck though that I walked through this intersection only 20 minutes before it happened: Man charged after allegedly chasing people with a hammer in Kitchener

A 27-year-old Kitchener man has been charged after police received reports of a man with a hammer, chasing people in downtown Kitchener.

According to Waterloo regional police, it happened at around 5:15 p.m. on Tuesday, in the area of Duke Street West near Ontario Street North.

Officers responded to the area and placed the man under arrest.

There were no physical injuries reported.

He has been charged with assault with a weapon, uttering threats, and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose. 

And a few months ago, walked by Charlie West only about 90 seconds before someone was (allegedly) threatening people with a weapon. Less than two blocks away once the police started showing up.



Regardless of the causes (and I'm sure there are many) I maintain that downtown's social issues are it's number one impediment, far more than any urbanist concerns. And honestly, is an impediment to urbanist goals itself.

[Rainrider22]

Great analysis...I said similar on the survey.

[ac3r]

How good is the presence of beat cops? You used to see a few walking around or on bikes, but I haven't seen any in a long time. That could just be chance, though.

[Rainrider22]

Agreed... I have been saying the same thing. It is the best form of community based policing Officers walking and talking to the people, business and getting to know the homeless. It is very impact full in creating both a safe environment and a positive relation between all members of the community. The community in this case includes the homeless. I have been pushing for more beat cops for a while now. It is.proven and results oriented. I am not talking about heavy handed methods. I am talking about cops that are good at verbal judo. Being able to talk to anyone irrespective of background. They do exist....

[bravado]

Agreed...  I have been saying the same thing.  It is the best form of community based policing  Officers walking and talking to the people, business and getting to know the homeless.  It is very impact full in creating both a safe environment and a positive relation between all members of the community. The community in this case includes the homeless.  I have been pushing for more beat cops for a while now.  It is.proven and results oriented.  I am not talking about heavy handed methods.  I am talking about cops that are good at verbal judo.  Being able to talk to anyone irrespective of background.  They do exist....

This is just purely anecdotal and maybe just in my head, but I get the impression that modern cops and their unions really don't want to work outside of their cruisers.