Mobile Phone Food Delivery App Pros and Cons

 

No doubt you know about some of the food delivery apps that you can download to your mobile phone right now. GrubHub is a popular one. There are also Uber Eats, DoorDash, and others.

 

They all compete with one another, offering discounts, coupons, and other enticements to lure you into spending money with them, perhaps as many as several times per month. Maybe you've resisted, or perhaps you've tried it to see what it's like.

 

Should you use mobile phone food delivery apps, though? We'll discuss that in the following article.

 

Ease of Use

We'll start by talking about the food delivery app pros. For one thing, they're pretty easy to use. You don't have to be tech-savvy to download one to your phone and figure out how to navigate it. It's not like allowing LDAP authentication at your job or implementing a single sign-on system.

 

All you do is pick the restaurant you want. From there, you can select your favorite food items and arrange a delivery time. If you're working from home these days, getting a food delivery for lunch or dinner means less cooking. Maybe that works very well with your busy lifestyle.

 

You Can Try New Cuisines

You might also take some time to look around on GrubHub or Uber Eats and find a cuisine you have not tried before. During the pandemic, while these services have seen massive usage increases, you might find the time to try Indian or Ethiopian food. Maybe you will come across some new favorite dishes that you never knew existed.

 

You can also ask the restaurant to modify your food order if you have allergies or do not like one of the ingredients. You might ask for no onions in a particular dish, and you never have to call and speak to anyone on the phone anymore, like in the old days.

 

You Can Support Local Restaurants

One more positive is that you can support local restaurants this way. You can always order from one of the ubiquitous Pizza Huts or McDonald's franchises near you, but you might also send some money to a struggling restaurant that's trying to stay afloat during the pandemic.

 

That means you're supporting your community, and you should feel good about that. Thousands of restaurants have closed across the country, and you're doing your part to keep some local favorites alive.

 

Exorbitant Delivery Fees

On the other hand, Uber Eats, DoorDash, and the others all charge you some hefty delivery fees. If you call the restaurant directly or order through their website, you will probably not have to pay those fees.

 

You also have to pay tax on that food, and you're expected to leave a generous tip. These apps don't usually pay their workers very well, so drivers rely on customer tips as a major income source.

 

It's easy to spend a lot more money via one of these apps than you intended. If you simply stock up on food at the grocery store, you don't have to order in so much, which will save you money. If you're too busy for a major cooking project during the week, you might cook on the weekend and have that food ready to go in Tupperware containers in the fridge or freezer.

 

The Bottom Line

There are arguments both for and against ordering using apps like GrubHub and DoorDash. Most individuals and families seem to feel like it's not a bad thing to do occasionally. The only time you might do it more frequently is if you're independently wealthy, so you don't care about the service and delivery fees very much. Few households meet that qualification, though.

 

The best thing to do is probably split the difference. Use these services every once in a while, and pick your spot. You can keep an eye on discount programs. For instance, if you sign up for certain credit cards, they might extend a $50 per month Uber Eats credit or something along those lines.

 

Also, if you like to order food through one of these phone apps, but you can't afford it very much, you can ask for Uber Eats or DoorDash gift cards whenever your birthday or another holiday rolls around. You might put one of those cards on your Amazon wish list and forward that list to your friends and relatives.

 

That should pay for a couple of meals for you, or at least reduce the cost significantly.