Notorious

Hi guys.

Iam thinking of starting a delivery company based in a popular entertainment complex near where I live. The place is always mobbed and what I am thinking of doing is offering a delivery service to local areas for Mcdonalds, KFC, burger king and also Pizza Hut (as our local doesnt deliver).


I would be interested to hear constructive ideas on whether or not this would work and ideas on charging etc.


Thanks

Notorious

that bad an idea eh??

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I think it would be a great plan. You may run into issues with the food outlets though. They may not be very happy that you are supplying your customer's with their competitors food. They may choose not to serve you when you try and place your orders

It is something that I would love to have had when I lived in Notts. There were quite a few times when we wanted x but could not have it delivered so we had to have y.

Good luck

Jap2Scrap

It sounds viable and I'd consider paying say 10/15% over the top for the service, but to make it appealing you'd need a lot of people doing the deliveries else waiting times would be unappealing to customers.

Puff The Magic Wagon!

iTrader: (2)

Can't comment on yr local area, but I work in the express logistics field in London.

It is not a bad idea, but needs to be costed properly. With "fast food" the expectation is a zero premium over cost for instant delivery. Therefore you need to be sure where you are intending to obtain your revenue. If you charge the supplier, then they will already have margins to work to & may consider the additional cost of delivery not commercially viable. In addition, KFC may not want to subscribe (as in pay for) to a company that also services BK or MacD - shortsighted maybe but that is business.

Therefore you really need to research a) the market & b) the companies for whom you are offering the service. Again, you will need to work out potential demand against cost of providing the service that you wish to give. all very well to have 1 bloke & 15 min delivery at slack times, but you have to staff to accomodate (say) 22:00 on a friday night when everyone's got the munchies plus consider who pays and how? Collect cash? Take credit cards? Invoice the main suppliers?

Personally, I think it *may* be too specialised with very low margins against a high cost of service. Have a think (see above) and look where-else you may be able to provide a delivery service in that local area, for that central resource which may increase your t/o & potential - furniture store for goods during the day, pizza in the evenings, KFC for munchies type thing.

Good luck

Notorious

Thanks for that mate. I had thought of that and also not sure of any legalities surrounding it but my main selling point to them individually is thatbasically I could provide them with extra business and it wouldnt cost them a penny. another issue is that I would have to buy upfront then redeem money from customer when delivery was made. I have thought of having the facility to take switch or maestro for the politically correct meaning I would have the money cleared before the delivery.

It is something I think could work!! not sure how much to charge onthe delivery side as dont want to out price myself but also want to make the readies!!

Richard_P

Are you thinking of running this yourself? Do you have family/friends that would help out if it suddenley took off?

Delivery times would be crucial, There will be other options such as chinese, indians etc that will deliver fairly promptly, you need to compete with this and at least match the kind of servcice they offer.

Remember news of bad service will spread quicker than news of you being reliable. For example if as mentioned earlier a friday night gets busy and you don't manage to fulfill all your orders in a resonable time then this could put potential regular customers off straight away.

Consider carefully the competition that you would face and the costs of delivery.

KFc for 4 people equals 20 quids worth, people would probably be willing to pay a max of £2 to have that delivered. Consider your time spent and petrol and theres not too much profit there.

The reason takeaway make money is that a burger costs them 30p to make and they sell it for £2.50. The only way I can see it working is if you can secure a discount with the suppliers of your food (mcd's, kfc, pizza hut etc) on the grounds that you are bringing them extra business. Due to the structure of these types of companies you might struggle to do this.

Make a business plan addressing these issues and approach the companies you propose to deliver for, at the very least you would need priority service as you couldn't afford to be standing in a ten minute queue!

Luan Pra bang

I have seen a few people try this and they tend to dissapear very quickly. The big chains won't give you any discount and people will want to order one big mac one pizza etc and screw you up a bit. Its been tried before and seems like a good plan but I have never seen anybody make it work so think carefully before you invest to much cash.

Notorious

thanksfor the feedback so far guys, a few excellent points to consider, my next step i suppose is writing to the companies involved and seeing what they think!

fatherpierre

Best of luck, but I can't see it working.

Each company you are trying to get on board is a huge multi national that trades on their so called individuality. For you to get custom you'll have to advertise and would therfore require to use their names in your ads. No way would they allow you to use their brand names in your advertising without exclusivity to their brand.

You would have to pay the company whose food you were delivering - you'd be trading on their brand name which they pay millions per year to advertise. Check out how much a franchisee pays for their franchise. Not cheap!

Lastly..... This must have been looked into 10000000s of times. These big brands would deliver themselves, and for free if was a viable option with cash in it..............

drjsd

I seem to recall a firm does this in Bristol, but rather than go to McDonalds or KFC etc, it has arrangements with more "upmarket" restaurants and takeaways. If they're supplying a smaller niche of the market they may be more likely to offer you a discount to deliver. You could probably make a reasonble impact on the number of covers they sell, whereas at McDonalds you will probably make very little impact and so they most likely wouldn't be bothered to get involved with you unless you don't want a dscount.

Let me know if you want me to dig out the company's name etc.

Brit_in_Japan

Ripon, N. Yorks have such a delivery service, or at least they had a couple of years ago. Essentially the town is small enough that one company can make arrangements with virtually all the Chinese, Indian, Pizza places etc. They produce a food directory which is delivered to every house within a the area, so you ring the number on the directory and it's a one-stop shop for all your orders. I'm pretty sure that delivery is free if the order value is > a certain figure, the delivery firm's profits coming from a discount on the food order from the take away.

It seemed to work well there.

P1Fanatic

A company used to do it in Cambridge. I used to work shifts and we tried them a couple of times. Very diverse menu ranging from chocolate bars & crisps to KFC/BK/Mcdonalds and even up to some pricey chinese and italian takeaways.

We used for mcdonalds and it was like a min delivery charge of £1.50 i think. No idea if they got discount with the suppliers - doubt it.

Thing is with that type of food its not very nice when its not hot. Mcdonalds fries are mank when luke warm going on cold. We just started going ourselves, much less hassle.

Tbh your better off running your own pizza takeway or similar - as most have said there doesnt seem much potential for profit and you need a lot of delivery people to make it work.

Simon.

Regacy

Two things spring to mind.....
To overcome the 'small order' problem make it a flat rate for delivery rather than a %
ie £5 for delivery, market that against the cost of a taxi to take you there and back and it doesn't look too bad.
To overcome the issue of buying the food before you get the cash from the customer set the business up on pre-paid account. I pay in £30 now and I can call you at 1 o'clock next Saturday morning and ask for a big Mac. (might go down slightly better is you offer a discount for account customers and charge a premium for cash deliveries)
My main worry would be that your margins would be small so all you'd need would be for a couple of orders a night to fall through once you've bought them and you'd loose money.
Whilst you're at it why not include booze and ****, there are lots of people wanting more of both of those late at night....
R

Tiggs

no one will pre-pay for an impulse buy like a take away.

very few will pay over the top for delivery.......we get free delivery from pizza hut, kebab place, chinese, indian......so why would we pay more to get a mcdonalds?

cant see the big chains would want ANYONE thats not in their uniform with their brand showing being part of the team.....they may let you buy the stuff but not at any deal....so you will que like the rest.

delivery of more than 30 mins is getting iffy....even less if you charge extra...you need a team of kids on scooters.

as has been said.....delivery is a loss leader for places to pickup more money via the profit in the actual food they sell.......as you dont have the foods profit you are setting up a business to run a loss leader...thats not normaly a fast track to wealth!