Are Food Delivery Services Really a Good Idea?

Convenient or Careless? // Driving to deliver, delivery drivers sometimes don’t quite care about the quality of their services. This poses the question: are food delivery services really worth the drawbacks? (Photo by McKenzie Smoot)

The perfect night in has just begun. You pull up a cozy movie, gather your snacks, and open Uber Eats to deliver dinner to your home. After purchasing your food, you wait 45 minutes and hear a ring at your doorbell. You bring the food inside only to realize half of your cheeseburger is missing and the delivery driver didn’t even drop off the milkshake you purchased.

These errors ignite the question as to whether delivery services are a good idea, or if they really do have too many negative effects. Food delivery services can be perceived poorly due to high costs for customers and restaurants as well as poor food quality resulting from mishandling.

“Sometimes, when I go to purchase an order off of Uber Eats or Doordash I would rather just go to the store in person because purchasing for delivery is so expensive,” sophomore Neyli Abeyakoon said.

This further illustrates the negatives of delivery services, with the major one being that they are straight up more expensive than they should be. Delivery services can be significantly more overpriced than purchasing in person, with markups of up to 30% or even higher on food and groceries to offset high commission fees for restaurants and other costs for services. Even if you’re simply purchasing a chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A, the cost of extra fees can easily put the order over $15. Seriously, $15 for one little chicken sandwich is not worth it.

“One time when I ordered fries and a McFlurry from McDonald’s; the delivery driver just dropped off the fries and kept the McFlurry,” sophomore Grace Sexton said.

The disappointment is very high when you wait for your food to arrive, just to see you didn’t even get the full meal, and this isn’t a rare occurrence. It is common for delivery services to get orders wrong, with one survey finding that nine out of 10 customers have had a food or grocery order go wrong. Not only is it disheartening to realize that your full order wasn’t delivered, but it is even worse when your delivery driver has clearly messed with the food. Just imagine, you paid for an overpriced meal and it was delivered with a bite taken out of it.

Although it is not as common as simply not getting an item of your order delivered, it still occurs daily with delivery services.

“I would prefer to just go in the store and order myself food, rather than ordering off delivery services because the experience of being in a restaurant or shop is better than just eating at home,” sophomore Raelene Hendron said.

Hendron further proves how food delivery services are not worth it to most people and aren’t a great idea. With high prices and without good service guaranteed, there aren’t many perks that allow delivery services to be seen as great. Although some people debate that food delivery services are worth it because they are convenient and help in avoiding the effort of cooking, there are too many cons that outweigh the very minimal pros.

Moreover, delivery services significantly impact restaurants negatively through high commission fees that crush profit margins, loss of customer control as drivers become the face of the brand, difficulty maintaining food quality and consistency, and increased operational strain. Thus, before you ponder ordering from a delivery service for a little convenience, think about these negatives and if they are really worth the risks.