Toast has quietly switched from DoorDash Drive to Uber Direct for all merchants using Toast Delivery Services this is a huge move that removes DoorDash as the default delivery provider for all Toast restaurants DoorDash has been increasingly building into the restaurant tech stack, threatening Toast payment processing & SaaS revenue while Uber has avoided building 1P ordering products, opting to grow its delivery business and ad revenue as its top priorities. $TOST & $DASH are on a collision course in local driving a wedge between their alliance screenshot & summary via Perplexity
This seems like a no brainer! Uber is focused on 3PD and last mile. DoorDash has emerged as a direct competitor to Ordering companies, Loyalty companies and most recently Point of Sale. They are blanketing markets with massive promotions on their new POS product. Why would Toast continue to push revenue into DoorDash to help fund a direct competitor?
We recently switched to Uber Direct, and I don't mean this facetiously; it's been one of the worst experiences I've ever had. Massive mistake - - They are in constant breach of their SLAs (pick-up time, total delivery time) - Most deliveries are multi-point or, worse, multi-merchant; the pickups and deliveries are rarely close together, meaning delivery times are often extremely high. - Lots of drivers come in cars, and NYC is known for traffic, which makes them take even longer, lots of 'drivers' are on foot! - Worst of all - most of the drivers do not have insulated bags. We're talking rope handle bag(s) hanging off the handles of an E-Bike in the 20-degree winter rain. - Customer service has been awful despite being an enterprise customer - it's like they've never ordered food before. "Food should be insulated delivery bags?!" It's shocking - we do 00's of deliveries per day. I cannot imagine being an SMB customer unknowingly being switched to this level of service ostensibly by Toast, but if that were me, I would do everything I could to fight it. At this point, we're debating turning off delivery because it's a negative experience for our customers and costing us 000's in refunds. Buyer be warned.
To regain delivery volume from Toast, DoorDash should lean on solutions that already support third-party delivery connections integrated with Toast and DoorDash courierss. This way, they can re-route orders from all sales platforms linked to Toast. It's not an easy fix, but could it work?
Maxx Freedman *uber does not have the tech talent/execution anymore to build 1P so it grows existing and adjacent bisinesses* 😭 🎻
Now this is a partnership 😏
Maxx Freedman, strategic partnerships evolve as Toast and Uber align their business models for enhanced market positioning. 🤝 #TechStrategy
Luis Berti Esto es muy interesante
Very informative
President @ Sweetfin | Fueling life through freshness, 1 bowl at a time
1moMaxx Freedman DoorDash is aggressively pursuing control of all restaurant transactions - both digital and in-person. They have evolved from partner to competitor. Why? Two critical reasons: First, there's an ongoing data war. By controlling transactions, they control valuable customer data that restaurants themselves can't access.Second, their current business model isn't sustainable. The combination of commissions, advertising fees, promotions, and promotional fees is steadily eroding restaurant profits. The promise of "incremental orders" has disappeared. Instead, third-party delivery services are now actively trying to own YOUR customer relationships. The situation continues to worsen as DoorDash pushes restaurants to build loyalty programs on their platform while withholding customer data. They're now penalizing restaurants for menu price adjustments meant to preserve margins, all while continuously increasing their share of the restaurant's customer base. This shift from "partner" to "competitor" is scary...more thoughts to follow later but lets just say this isn't just a DD issue however you brought this to the table in a public format ;)