Uber is hurting small restaurants, favouring big chains

[K. A. Pital]

Off hand? Harco work-in. Valiant people. But also very informative story, now almost forgotten.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_Harco_work-in

https://www.labourhistory.org.au/hummer ... o-1/harco/

Enjoy.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Much obliged.

[mr friendly guy]

https://www.news.com.au/finance/small-b ... 7495671ad8

An Australian example of what Ubereats are alleged to be doing while favouring big corporates
Long story short, when a small restaurant changes owners, even the chef and other staff stays the same, they wipe out your data, which in turn affects your search rankings. This causes a lost of sales as you're treated like a new business even though you're not. The same rule is not applied to big franchises when they change owners.

For the record, I don't use uber eats.

‘It’s quite a stitch-up’: How UberEats wiped out $30,000 with the press of a button
UberEats took $30,000 from James Townend with the press of a button — and it says the move, which could cost him $120,000 this year, is “standard policy”.

Frank Chung@franks_chungnews.com.auAUGUST 23, 20193:49PM

EXCLUSIVE

A Sydney restaurant owner has accused UberEats of wiping $30,000 from his business overnight with the press of a button — a move that could cost him up to $120,000 this year alone.

Former advertising executive James Townend, 34, purchased the popular Europan cafe and bakery in Rose Bay earlier this year after discovering a passion for baking.

But according to the Kiwi, what happened next highlights a little-known but “disheartening” double standard at the ride-sharing giant that hurts small operators at the expense of big corporates like McDonald’s and KFC.

“When I bought the business it was pretty standard stuff, but a decent part of the purchase price was tied up in goodwill,” said Mr Townend, who asked news.com.au not to reveal exactly how much he paid. “These days goodwill is not just customers walking through your door but also customers buying through UberEats.”

At the time, Europan was making around 10 to 15 per cent of its annual sales through UberEats, selling things like cakes and pastries, bacon-and-egg rolls and even coffees.

Unlike many restaurants that complain they struggle to make profit on delivery services like UberEats and Deliveroo, the previous owner described it as a “good earner” that helped “keep the doors open”.

Mr Townend estimates roughly $30,000 of the purchase price was goodwill attributed to annualised sales through UberEats. “I was looking forward to that, given my background in digital advertising, I thought I could grow (those sales),” he said.

But when he took over running the business at the start of July, he got his first taste of dealing with the US company. “All the transfers like the Google listing, Facebook pages, it was a really straightforward process,” he said. “One assigns the other as being the new owner and Bob’s your uncle, all those ratings sit with you.”

The process of transferring ownership with UberEats, by contrast, was “really convoluted, really dark, they don’t provide any information”. “I called them up, there’s no one there to help you, no information, you get passed through different departments,” he said.

Eventually, Mr Townend was provided with an online form to change the restaurant’s ABN and bank account details — and immediately his sales plummeted.

“My business doesn’t list on the front page when you’re looking for somewhere in Rose Bay. All the other businesses have ratings and mine doesn’t,” he said. When he contacted UberEats, he was told it’s “because you’re new”. “The chef’s the same, the menu’s the same, but they wiped all that data,” Mr Townend said.

In three weeks, Mr Townend estimates he lost $10,000 in sales, and he’s already had to let staff go. “It’s quite a stitch-up, taking the goodwill you’ve purchased and eradicating the value,” he said. “If you buy a business that has a five-star Google rating and it goes to zero, that’s going to hurt you. How come with all the other online platforms (it transfers over)?”

The previous owner had been on UberEats for three years and “spent a lot of time and energy building a good profile” by making sure food went out quickly. “That’s all been pulled out,” Mr Townend said. “When you lose your star rating you lose your search prominence.”

UberEats, he says, told him it was a data privacy issue and “standard policy” — but if he were to buy a McDonald’s franchise “they have a completely different set of rules”.

“Even though the process is the same, just transferring the ABN and bank account details, they transfer all the data as well,” Mr Townend said. “They’re doing a different set of things for McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, Oporto, whoever, but when it comes to the small guy, Uber puts the boot in.”

Mr Townend said it was “disheartening to see they’re favouring corporates”.

“If it wasn’t hard enough that they put a cap on your ability to charge the price you need to make ends meet — despite surging people getting a taxi at peak times — here they are snuggling up to big corporates to muscle out regulars,” he said.

After being contacted for comment, UberEats has since reached out to Mr Townend and is working to address his concerns.

It’s understood UberEats’ position is there are different types of change of ownership. In some situations a new owner buys shares in the existing restaurant, in which case the restaurant profile on UberEats stays the same after the change of ownership.

In situations when a new owner buys the “brand” of the existing restaurant but is actually a new company with a different ABN, a new UberEats account is set up under the same business name to protect the previous owner’s data privacy, including financial and accounting records.

“We encourage all of our restaurant partners to reach out to us to address any concerns or issues they may be having, and we will work to resolve these with them,” an UberEats spokeswoman said. “We want to support restaurants and welcome their feedback to help us improve our service.”

[bilateralrope]

Why is Uber favouring large brands ?

Adding the ability to do so to Uber's code makes it more complex, and thus costs more to develop. The bad PR when people find out about the favouritism should be easily predicted. I don't see any upside for Uber.

I really hope a shareholder asks that question of Uber's management.

[Raw Shark]

Why does Uber do anything? They're a bunch of douchebags with a mission statement of skirting the law and socially non-psychopathic behavior as much as possible for more $$$. Fuck Uber. Fuck 'em in the ear.

[Gandalf]

Why does Uber do anything? They're a bunch of douchebags with a mission statement of skirting the law and socially non-psychopathic behavior as much as possible for more $$$. Fuck Uber. Fuck 'em in the ear.

So... capitalists?

[Solauren]

Quite frankly, I blame Uber's success on law enforcement and the government not going
They should have gone:
"Ride share? That means you are not making money. Making any money, you're a taxi cab. Specifically, an unliscened taxi cab".
Followed by arresting uber drivers, and seizing vehicles, and charging uber's executive staff with conspiracy charges (whatever they could)

Quite frankly, I still think they should.

[Raw Shark]

I, for one, chose peaceful protest, for all the good it did.

[Gandalf]

Quite frankly, I blame Uber's success on law enforcement and the government not going
They should have gone:
"Ride share? That means you are not making money. Making any money, you're a taxi cab. Specifically, an unliscened taxi cab".
Followed by arresting uber drivers, and seizing vehicles, and charging uber's executive staff with conspiracy charges (whatever they could)

Quite frankly, I still think they should.

That's a long way to go to prop up the taxi industry. Wouldn't it be more practical to ensure that the Uber employees are being treated like proper employees in the field?

[ray245]

Why does Uber do anything? They're a bunch of douchebags with a mission statement of skirting the law and socially non-psychopathic behavior as much as possible for more $$$. Fuck Uber. Fuck 'em in the ear.

I don't think they will actually make money. Uber to my knowledge has not recorded any profit for a while. I see Uber merely as a failed venture capitalist company which essentially gave some of the venture capitalist's cash back to the people ( in the form of rides discounts and etc) for a short while.

[Solauren]

Quite frankly, I blame Uber's success on law enforcement and the government not going
They should have gone:
"Ride share? That means you are not making money. Making any money, you're a taxi cab. Specifically, an unliscened taxi cab".
Followed by arresting uber drivers, and seizing vehicles, and charging uber's executive staff with conspiracy charges (whatever they could)

Quite frankly, I still think they should.

That's a long way to go to prop up the taxi industry. Wouldn't it be more practical to ensure that the Uber employees are being treated like proper employees in the field?

Yeah. It's called tell Uber: "You're a fucking taxi company. You fall under the same regulations." In Canada, that would make them all employees of Uber, and Uber would have to pay wages, and do the income tax source deductions the other taxi companies do. If they didn't, it's unliscenced taxi's, and charges all around.

Now, I don't support limiting the number of taxi's in a given region (i.e the 'medallion system'), but beyond that, a taxi is a taxi otherwise.

[bilateralrope]

Why does Uber do anything? They're a bunch of douchebags with a mission statement of skirting the law and socially non-psychopathic behavior as much as possible for more $$$. Fuck Uber. Fuck 'em in the ear.

So... capitalists?

Thing is, capitalists want to make money. When they do something horrible, it's because the horrible thing is profitable. Uber's business model doesn't have any economies of scale that would let them benefit from favouring the big restaurant chains.

[mr friendly guy]

https://www.news.com.au/technology/inno ... 7e14662675

People might find this interesting. If I have time I could post what little I understand about taxi's and the medallion or similar systems in countries and how Uber is decimating taxis. This new law might make things a bit harder for uber.

The court case that could change Uber forever
A major city is blaming Uber for its traffic problems, introducing new laws that could have consequences for the company’s drivers around the world.

Uber drivers “cruising” on busy roads while waiting for passengers have been singled out as a major source of congestion by the city of New York.

So New York City has tabled new laws restricting the amount of time Uber drivers can spend without passengers in the car, essentially requiring them to leave busy areas of Manhattan if there is not strong demand for alternative taxi services.

The change will require Uber drivers to spend no more than 31 per cent of their time “cruising” for rides, which represents a drop of about 10 per cent from existing levels.

Uber drivers are required to keep moving rather than parking to wait for fares.

Reuters reports Uber is suing New York to stop the changes.

Uber says “The rule would threaten the viability of the ride-sharing model as it currently exists, jeopardising the benefits this model has created for riders and drivers”.

But a spokesman for New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says the changes would “bring needed relief to congested streets and hardworking drivers”.

The case, which started on Friday, comes as Uber faces an uncertain week in the UK. Uber’s licence to operate in London expires on Wednesday. Transport regulators have previously banned Uber from operating in the British capital, citing security concerns.

Major cities around the world will be watching what’s happening in New York and London as ride-sharing apps continue to grow in popularity.