This New Food Delivery App Could Be the Antidote to Menu Markups
Source: Wired ·
By sticking to in-store menu prices and a flat 5 percent fee, Olo wants to take the sting out of ordering dinner.
From the source
Excessively marked-up prices feel inescapable online, even when I’m just trying to grab dinner . I’m often hit with eye-popping menu costs and shifting fees when ordering through popular apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash. The major players charge restaurants commissions on each order, and those expenses often pass down to consumers, inflating the price of that chicken Caesar salad wrap. Apps that initially felt like a convenient way to order food can now seem like a bad deal. But that’s what Olo, a new food-delivery app launching nationwide today on Android and iOS, is trying to avoid. “Restaurants are paying 20 to 30 percent commissions to the marketplaces and are offsetting that by increasing the price,” says Noah Glass, Olo’s founder and CEO. The core selling point is that it doesn’t use this kind of menu markup. On Olo, restaurants charge users the same menu price posted in-store, and Olo’s service fee is a flat 5 percent. Yes, you still have to pay a fee for delivery . While you…