Just down the road from me is one of the wealthiest string of communities in the entire state of Michigan. And in that “just down the road from me” are six pizza chains selling their sludge. I swore off all these thieves a bit ago, when they started adding a $5 “service charge” to the back side of an order. So a $14.99 pizza order became $19.99 , plus delivery. Following me so far?
Here I am, the night before Thanksgiving, and no good choices to get a last minute dinner on the table. So, I order from a pizza joint three blocks from my house in beautiful St Clair Shores. The Pizza I order is $16.99. Final charge is $21.99. Delivery is “extra”.
Just asked the young man who delivered the pie to us: “how much of the service charge do you get”. He told me $1.25. I’m surprized! Some pizza joint owner is sharing the bounty with his low paid employees.
Owner is prob sharing at all with the delivery guy because he gets stiffed out of tips due to the delivery fee. Because delivery fee plus the tip is suddenly half the cost of the food you ordered (!)
No, no no. Here it’s called a Service Charge. Where it goes after adding to the product cost is anyone’s guess. I’ve already determined that it doesn’t go to the driver as a delivery tip. The young guy driving for his pizza joint tonight was forthcoming when he told me he gets $1.25 of it.
The drivers for pizza joints in the Grosse Pointes don’t get a penny of it.
Wealthy people order out for pizza? I gotta get out more.
My personal beliefs imposed on this modern problem would decide on which delivery guy or gal was driving their own vehicle and which was in the corporate owned vehicle.
Go with the David, not the Goliath…
I am sure the owner of the spot will give you a break down as follows:
Cost of person answering the phone or responding to the internet order.
Cost of the paper ticket to information sent to the person making the pizza in the store (communication costs)
Cost of gasoline or energy for the vehicle.
Cost of operating the vehicle with the extra surcharge for insuring a young person or older person.
Cost of separately wrapping and supplying condiments with the order.
Software to track internally all of the orders , and the GPS unit cost to track the vehicle so the employee makes the delivery.
Cost of advertising the fact that they deliver.
I think you see why it is so expensive to deliver a pizza. (lol)
I recently encountered something similar on Postmates.
There is a service charge (about the same value as the delivery fee) embedded sneakily under “taxes and fees.”
Plus there is a separate delivery charge.
Plus they then ask you to tip the delivery person.
So many issues - the premise of the business is delivery… one would think they are paying delivery people to… deliver. Add to that the sneak charge which does not go to the delivery people (I had to look this up). And a delivery fee… which is fine, it’s a delivery business.
But if you reasonable add the three “charges” together, you are tripling what you think the cost of delivery is.
Well, so far in my area, the pizza joints are the only food businesses that impose a Service Charge on delivery. And, as I noted, only one of those pizza joints we’ve ordered from has decided to “share” a portion of the Charge with its drivers. So that $14.99 two medium pizza order is not $14.99, plus tax but really $19.99 plus tax. BTW, there is no pizza produced anywhere in SE Michigan worthy of a $20 price tag.
We continue to order scores of Chinese and Thai meals, and sub sandwiches delivered by a third party service, and pay a negligible processing fee that allows us to tip the delivery driver well.
I will continue to consider this Service Charge a SCAM invented by a cost accountant from one of the national chains and then stolen by all of the others to enhance the Bottom Line. For all I know, the franchisee just might have to share this Service Charge with Corporate.
So… is it worth 14.99? You can save yourself 8-10 dollars by driving all of six blocks round trip.
This sounds like Dominos or Pizza Hut. I suggest finding a local mom and pop which will be more expensive and I know cost appears to be a huge factor or just make your own.
I live in SE Texas and have no problem driving 10 plus miles paying extra for real pizza and not the junk the national chains peddle.
Chain pizza here in my neighborhood and close proximity used to be “an option” , because there were raging pricing wars starting in the 1990’s and extending well into the 21 Century. We, the customer were advantaged. Not so anymore.
We all spend our disposable income on purchases based on value for dollar. If some industry segment comes up with a fleece to steal from us, they should be thumped.
