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Are food delivery services worth the cost for small businesses?

Online takeaway food orders will rise from about $1.5 billion to $4.2 billion by 2015, according to Morgan Stanley analysts.

More of us are ordering food online, but is it worth the effort for small businesses to fulfill those orders?


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By Sung Hoon Baik, Justin Sungil Park

Source: SBS



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More of us are ordering food online, but is it worth the effort for small businesses to fulfill those orders?


Mike Jefferies' small business, the Shoe Chef Cafe in Dulwich Hill, is only 18 months old.

He jumped on the Uber Eats platform to expand his reach.

"It started quite small, but we're finding that over the weeks it's growing exponentially. We've grown from maybe 10 per cent of our business doing Uber, to probably an average of 25 to 30 per cent, to some days doing 50 per cent of our business."

While it's helped with reach, his biggest gripe is cost.

"They're charging 35 per cent of every order just for the privilege of using them," says Mike Jefferies.

Caitlin Craufurd agrees.

"You know what, 35 per cent, that's basically my profit on a good day."

"We're not allowed to change the price of anything," adds Ms Craufurd, "the menu on the Uber app has to be exactly the same prices as what you charge in-house, so you can't make any adjustments to fill that void."


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