Once having a website became the norm for companies, home delivery soon followed. In the years following the pandemic, it blossomed into an essential component to reaching customers. Grocery stores, restaurants, and retail stores have all tried to outdo each other as consumers look to go out less and less. The sudden expansion of delivery was mostly born out of necessity and now companies have been forced to decide if they want to forge ahead or pull back on these rapid advancements. The expectations for delivery have only grown and it is a struggle to keep up with current demands.

Amazon has led the way for delivery and everyone else is playing catch-up. Unfortunately for Amazon, these other companies have closed the gap forcing the retailer to up the ante and reach new heights for delivery. For a business of scale, delivery is a logistical challenge, yet the money and desire to fund new technologies is in great supply. Mid-size companies and mom and pop stores lack these extra funds yet face some of the same challenges. New ground was broken on the delivery front when Amazon traded in FedEx for their own proprietary fleet of vehicles in order to increase the efficiency of their delivery platform. Amazon was uniquely suited for this change, yet others like Target, Costco, and Walmart have developed their own proprietary delivery systems in order to offer same-day delivery. The advent of same-day delivery was a major boon for consumers and retailers. However, times have changed and keeping up with increasing efficiency demands is becoming untenable. This is nothing to say of the smaller stores that rely on traditional delivery methods and are unable to feasibly offer same-day delivery. What was once a runway to success has now become an albatross and companies will need to decide when to pull back on delivery without scorning customers.

Restaurants have faced a very different problem as delivery has become a must to stay competitive in the industry. The proliferation of third-party delivery companies like DoorDash and Uber Eats has relieved the burden of proprietary delivery systems, yet the intricacies of these services has caused both financial and legal turmoil. There have been some holdouts like Chick-fil-A and Dominoes who have prioritized first-party delivery, although the latter recently made a deal with DoorDash, becoming the last major pizza chain to do so. It speaks to the benefits of third-party delivery that pizza chains, who have boasted the earliest and most reliable food delivery service, have now decided to turn the bulk of the work over to someone else. Despite the benefits, there is a significant challenge in organizing a kitchen to serve both delivery and in-house orders. This is a great way to supplement sales during a slow part of the day, yet they can cause frustration during a busy period like lunch. Restaurants often have to prioritize one over the other during a rush and this is part of the reason why companies are pushing new POS and kiosk ordering systems. There are also the added fees associated with delivery to consider and restaurants already operating on thin margins pass these onto consumers. These fees coupled with already rising menu prices can almost double the price of an affordable meal, which can have devasting results for an industry that has struggled with reduced traffic. It has forced restaurants to question whether delivery has become too difficult to maintain or do they risk losing even more revenue by scaling back efforts?

This will continue to be an important part of the retail and restaurant experience going forward. What we don’t know is how these services will evolve in order to remove some of the negative aspects it has developed over the last few years. Companies will need to find a balance between bringing in new customers without alienating those who are already loyal. We can expect improved technology that better integrates current in-house systems with third-party platforms for an experience that is more financially viable.