I was thinking about things I could contribute to this forum, going through different concepts I have executed, and thought this would be a fun one to share. This side hustle requires very little overhead and can be done by anyone who can walk or use a vehicle. Although food is the most common choice, you can put this into practice for anything that can be delivered.
This thread is not necessarily written for people who are looking to start a scalable business, although it certainly is scalable with the right setup.
So you might be asking yourself, why do I want to set up my own service? Why wouldn't I just sign up for the other apps out there? Well, you can do that, and many people do. The barrier to entry in food delivery is essentially nonexistent. Aside from more profit, the reason you want to make your own business is because of CONTROL. You control everything. You aren't controlled by a corporation that treats you like an ant.
Now you might be thinking ok this sounds good but I don't know how to make an app. Well let me tell you something - you don't need an app. All you need is a way for customers to contact you. If you want a custom app, there are many free or cheap options. If there is interest I will share more information regarding this in the thread.
Contact options for your customers include Google Voice number (free), email like gmail (free), social media (free), messenger apps (free), etc.
How do you get the customers? Some methods you can use are targeted ads (Google is the strongest, see Andy Black's threads if you want to learn more), word of mouth, flyers, or ask restaurants to tell their customers on your behalf (more on this below).
Many restaurants are not satisfied with the delivery app options that are available. They begrudgingly use what they know about or worse. Although it is shocking to many, there are still eateries in 2023 that do not offer any delivery option to their customers.
You will help them by allowing them to offer delivery to their customers, and you will do it by offering better service and most likely better prices. In fact, I recommend charging participating businesses nothing.
Why would you charge the businesses nothing when DoorDash and Uber charge ~30%?
Because you are not a large company with massive overhead, you can certainly afford to and still do well. This also allows you to work with any business, even the ones who do not necessarily want to participate with you (for example, customer orders from Restaurant X, you can simply go and pick up their food on their behalf, more on this later) Do feel free to charge as much as you can get though!
The important part is you will make your profits from the customer, and you won't be paying anything to DoorDash, Uber, or any other company.
Alright! If you're still here then maybe you're wondering how you actually put this into practice. I will outline the basic steps below:
1. Customer contacts you with delivery details (merchant name, customer address, time of delivery, etc)
2. You let them know availability of driver (you or whoever you're paying to do it) and how much the delivery will cost (pricing will vary wildly based on your market, in the USA you need to charge at minimum $1/mile)
3. Customer places order with merchant (ideally a merchant that will accept remote payment. Most restaurants that don't offer delivery still allow customers to order and pay ahead. Processing payments on merchant behalf becomes too much of a hassle.)
4. Customer pays you for delivery. (Don't go until you get paid!)
5. You go the merchant. You say you're picking up order for Mr. Customer. Deliver order to Mr. Customer.
That's it! Once you've got a few happy repeat customers, you won't need to look for many more unless you want to hire more drivers and scale the service up.
Hope this has been helpful to someone, and if you have any questions feel free to ask.
This thread is not necessarily written for people who are looking to start a scalable business, although it certainly is scalable with the right setup.
So you might be asking yourself, why do I want to set up my own service? Why wouldn't I just sign up for the other apps out there? Well, you can do that, and many people do. The barrier to entry in food delivery is essentially nonexistent. Aside from more profit, the reason you want to make your own business is because of CONTROL. You control everything. You aren't controlled by a corporation that treats you like an ant.
Now you might be thinking ok this sounds good but I don't know how to make an app. Well let me tell you something - you don't need an app. All you need is a way for customers to contact you. If you want a custom app, there are many free or cheap options. If there is interest I will share more information regarding this in the thread.
Contact options for your customers include Google Voice number (free), email like gmail (free), social media (free), messenger apps (free), etc.
How do you get the customers? Some methods you can use are targeted ads (Google is the strongest, see Andy Black's threads if you want to learn more), word of mouth, flyers, or ask restaurants to tell their customers on your behalf (more on this below).
Many restaurants are not satisfied with the delivery app options that are available. They begrudgingly use what they know about or worse. Although it is shocking to many, there are still eateries in 2023 that do not offer any delivery option to their customers.
You will help them by allowing them to offer delivery to their customers, and you will do it by offering better service and most likely better prices. In fact, I recommend charging participating businesses nothing.
Why would you charge the businesses nothing when DoorDash and Uber charge ~30%?
Because you are not a large company with massive overhead, you can certainly afford to and still do well. This also allows you to work with any business, even the ones who do not necessarily want to participate with you (for example, customer orders from Restaurant X, you can simply go and pick up their food on their behalf, more on this later) Do feel free to charge as much as you can get though!
The important part is you will make your profits from the customer, and you won't be paying anything to DoorDash, Uber, or any other company.
Alright! If you're still here then maybe you're wondering how you actually put this into practice. I will outline the basic steps below:
1. Customer contacts you with delivery details (merchant name, customer address, time of delivery, etc)
2. You let them know availability of driver (you or whoever you're paying to do it) and how much the delivery will cost (pricing will vary wildly based on your market, in the USA you need to charge at minimum $1/mile)
3. Customer places order with merchant (ideally a merchant that will accept remote payment. Most restaurants that don't offer delivery still allow customers to order and pay ahead. Processing payments on merchant behalf becomes too much of a hassle.)
4. Customer pays you for delivery. (Don't go until you get paid!)
5. You go the merchant. You say you're picking up order for Mr. Customer. Deliver order to Mr. Customer.
That's it! Once you've got a few happy repeat customers, you won't need to look for many more unless you want to hire more drivers and scale the service up.
Hope this has been helpful to someone, and if you have any questions feel free to ask.
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