Excessively marked-up prices feel inescapable online, even when I’m just trying to grab dinner.
\n\nI’m often hit with eye-popping menu costs and shifting fees when ordering through popular apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash. The major players charge restaurants commissions on each order, and those expenses often pass down to consumers, inflating the price of that chicken Caesar salad wrap.
\n\nApps that initially felt like a convenient way to order food can now seem like a bad deal. But that’s what Olo, a new food-delivery app launching nationwide today on Android and iOS, is trying to avoid.
\n\n“Restaurants are paying 20 to 30 percent commissions to the marketplaces and are offsetting that by increasing the price,” says Noah Glass, Olo’s founder and CEO. The core selling point is that it doesn’t use this kind of menu markup.
\n\nOn Olo, restaurants charge users the same menu price posted in-store, and Olo’s service fee is a flat 5 percent. Yes, you still have to pay a fee for delivery.
\n\nWhile you could save money by ordering directly from the restaurant, Glass sees Olo as a potential middle ground for people who still want the ease of a streamlined food-ordering app without all…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/