Ann Wason Moore opinion: True cost of your Uber Eats delivery

It’s Friday, you’re ready to unwind and you’re hungry. You reach for your phone to make an order – but that’s when things can start to get messy, writes Ann Wason Moore.

You’ve had a glass of wine, the movie is queued up and the Uber Eats alert dings on your phone – it’s the perfect Friday night.

That is, until you unpack that brown paper bag.

Among the contents both hot and cold – alternatively burned by the heat lamps or frigid after being abandoned on a restaurant counter – there is one item that is missing … your dinner.

The rage boils up from the pit of your (empty) stomach as acute hanger takes over.

While your spouse kindly offers to share their meal, it is only your sense of martyrdom that can now feed your soul.

You spend the next hour filing rapid complaints through the Uber app, ringing the restaurant in vain and muttering curses as you pace the living room. Eventually, the television is silenced, the lights are turned off and you’re left alone to seethe and stew, your meal and your night ruined by the curse of Uber Eats.

And yet, next weekend you’ll do it all over again.

How did something that once literally delivered such joy into our lives turn so toxic, poisoning our weekend, our wallets and our small businesses?

That Uber Eats delivery could be more costly than you realise.

Now, it’s hardly news that if you’re on a financial diet, then Uber Eats is a definite budget blowout.

Just compare the cost of a meal we recently ordered from Guzman y Gomez. Ordering nacho fries, a Cali burrito and fries to pick-up from the store would cost $43.50, but that exact same order cost us $63.29 through Uber Eats.

Each item was slightly marked up from its in-store price, but the biggest added costs came from the delivery fee and service fee.

Add to that the mental health cost when an order arrives cold and wrong.

But if we think it’s bad as consumers, spare a thought for the small businesses, who are being charged at every turn.

Of course Uber Eats deserves to make a profit, but some of their policies don’t seem entirely fair.

In fact, a social media post from a small Sydney restaurant has been championed by local hospitality businesses after it declared it was time to ‘fight back’.

The venue, Super Nash Brothers, said restaurants were now being charged a fee to offer deals on the Uber Eats app, while a ‘restaurant success score’ had been introduced to punish those which increased product prices for delivery, which venues said was common practice to cover Uber’s 30-35 per cent commission.

They said restaurants were also being pressured into spending more money on ads within the app in order to show up in front of customers.

In response, a spokesperson said Uber Eats was committed to a fair, transparent marketplace that supported merchant growth and delivered quality experiences to customers.

“We’ve introduced the Merchant Success Score to assist merchants to better understand their performance, and the Offer Fee enables us to support enhanced tools so merchants can reach their customers. We know change can raise questions, so we’ve provided tools and resources to support partners during this transition.”

personal finance expert at Finder personal finance expert Sarah Megginson. Picture: Supplied

But Gold Coast finance guru and former co-owner of Mermaid Beach burger business Easy Street, Sarah Megginson, said Uber Eats was rarely a good deal for businesses or customers.

She said while many venues considered the app a ‘necessary evil’, she would encourage new businesses to consider going without.

“Uber is not really great for anyone … except Uber,” said Ms Megginson, a personal finance expert for Finder.

“For customers, they’re paying a large convenience tax; for drivers, they are picking up multiple deliveries just to make it worth their time – which is why your food is cold; and for businesses, the app is making them hardly any money but generating the bulk of their complaints – and that was certainly our experience.

“We sold Easy Street in 2022, but Uber Eats was a huge source of stress – and a financial drain. But it was something you felt like you had to be on because the hope was that someone would order you through Uber, love your food and start eating in or ordering directly from the restaurant.

“It felt like you were losing potential customers if you weren’t on it, but by staying on it you were losing money and time. There were so many fees and so many complaints no matter what you did to stay on top of it – it always came back to the restaurant, including people ringing up angry about their driver.”

Look, as someone who loves a lazy Friday night, I understand why sometimes that extra fee is worth having your meal brought to your door. Assuming your meal is in the bag, that is.

But with the cost of living still affecting most of us, let’s make our takeaways count and pick up directly from our local small businesses.

Not only is it cheaper and better for our city’s economy … it guarantees you’ll get the right meal at the right time.

So go ahead and save your money, and save Friday night.

Originally published as Ann Wason Moore opinion: True cost of your Uber Eats delivery