This story is part of a series based on The Path to Third-Party Excellence, an upcoming secret shopper study from Intouch Insight conducted exclusively for Restaurant Business and its sister publications CSP Daily News and Nation's Restaurant News.
Third-party delivery providers’ practice of bundling multiple orders in one trip slows delivery times and hurts customer satisfaction.
That’s according to The Path to Third-Party Excellence, a soon-to-be-published report from researcher Intouch Insight, which used secret shoppers to place 600 delivery orders from restaurants and convenience stores across the U.S. The orders were split evenly among the three big third-party delivery apps—DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub—and restaurants/c-stores.
The wide-ranging study provides a unique look at order batching, a tactic that has long been used by restaurant delivery apps but is rarely discussed on earnings calls or in the press.
The Intouch Insight shoppers were instructed to order from whatever establishment they wished, but they weren’t allowed to use a paid membership or pay extra for direct delivery. The results showed that 12% of orders were picked up and delivered by a courier who first made other drop-offs on the way. Shoppers were notified within the app when this was the case.
These batched deliveries typically took longer to arrive and correlated with lower-quality food and a worse experience for the customer, potentially reflecting poorly on the restaurant.
Per the results, the last leg of a batched delivery took more than 42 minutes to complete, on average—or more than 13 minutes longer than orders that traveled directly to the customer.
That delay tended to have a negative impact on the food. When a meal was part of a batch, the temperature was correct 77% of the time, compared to 95% of the time when the driver made no additional stops along the way.
Given the prevalence of long waits and cold food, it’s perhaps no surprise that shoppers’ experience was noticeably worse when orders were batched. Overall satisfaction on those orders was 79%, 10 points less than their satisfaction with nonstop orders (89%).
In theory, batching allows delivery apps to fulfill orders more efficiently, which helps lower their costs—especially in markets with minimum hourly pay requirements for couriers. And it can be appealing to couriers because it allows them to spend more time on the road earning money.
According to the Intouch Insight results, batching was fairly common, though frequency differed by app. Nineteen percent of orders placed with Uber Eats were part of a batched delivery compared to 12% for DoorDash and 5% for Grubhub.
A DoorDash representative said there are several factors that dictate when orders are batched, but did not go into detail. In an interview at the Skift Global Forum last year, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company uses artificial intelligence to determine when to bundle orders, according to a transcript on financial services site AlphaSense.
It’s up to couriers to decide whether they want to accept a multipart order when it is offered to them in their app. For customers, there appears to be no way to avoid it without paying extra. The add-on charges range from $1.49 for Uber Eats’ Priority delivery to $2.99 for DoorDash’s Express option.
Similarly, restaurants aren’t able to opt out of being included in a batched delivery.
“[Batched delivery] is not working for the customer,” said Sarah Beckett, director of marketing at Intouch Insight. “But also, the other element of it for the restaurant or the convenience store is, how do they protect their reputation, their brand, when some of this stuff is really taken out of their control?”
One solution, she said, is to invest in better packaging to ensure food stays fresh during trips with multiple stops.
The DoorDash representative said the Intouch Insight results do not match the company’s internal data on batched orders, but declined to share the data because it’s proprietary.
The representative added that batching is designed to get customers their orders faster, especially during busy periods.
Uber Eats sometimes batches orders “to help keep delivery prices down and improve reliability for customers, enable couriers to earn more, and prevent restaurants from becoming too congested,” a spokesperson said. Batching can also help reduce the number of vehicles on the road, the person said.
A Grubhub spokesperson said 86% of the company’s overall orders arrive on time, but did not provide a figure for batched orders.
“Our priority is to provide a great experience for the consumers, merchants and delivery partners that rely on our platform. We’re constantly optimizing to bring exceptional service to users across the country,” the spokesperson said.
The findings highlight another potential pain point in the relationship between restaurants and third-party delivery providers. Though the apps have become an important revenue channel for many operators since the pandemic, some have complained about high delivery commissions, a lack of data on their delivery customers and a loss of control once an order leaves their store.
At the same time, many have said they feel they have no choice but to use the apps because they have become a key source of sales and exposure.
But the results also show that consumers are generally quite happy with the third-party delivery experience. Shoppers’ overall satisfaction with restaurant delivery across all three apps was 91%, a 4-point improvement from 2022, when Intouch Insight last measured it.
Intouch Insight will present the full results of its third-party delivery study at the FSTEC restaurant technology conference, which will be held Sept. 16-18 in Grapevine, Texas.
FSTEC is owned and operated by Restaurant Business’ parent company, Informa plc.
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