Just Eat have given up.
In 2021, with much fanfare and speculation of mass employment opportunities, they announced the Scoober program of fully-employed couriers to compete with the likes of Deliveroo and Uber Eats.
Now just two years later, they’ve hung them out to dry, and are joining the self-employed or worker status model of their main competitors, which their CEO has previously heavily criticised.
Just Eat are increasingly aligning themselves with their competition, which seek to bundle technology, marketing and delivery services under a single fee, that can rise to well above 20% or even 30%.
Though it’s easy, right? That’s what the promise is anyway.
Accept, prepare and handover orders – job done. Though while giving with one hand, it takes with the other.
Removing control of the merchants to be able to manage costs, engage with their loyal customers and operate a more reliable, or higher quality delivery model.
Snappy Shopper advocates the disintermediation and specialisation of delivery services.
Technology available at low single digit percentages – a fraction of the fees of the large aggregators. Merchants equipped and empowered to engage with their customer base and their local communities.
Delivery model choice, whether owner operated or outsourced to specialised third-party delivery operations.
It’s time for a change that puts control back in the hands of local businesses. These are local business who are seeing costs rise across the board and are seeking to regain control.
An approach that genuinely partners with merchants, rather than competing with them over the ‘ownership’ of customers who they have been taking care of for decades, even before the aggregators even existed.
The disruptive models of the last decade are up for review and in my opinion ready to be disrupted themselves.
Mike Callachan is the founder and chief executive of Snappy Shopper
