Pizza and Porter owner Ed Rhode said he’d had issues with Uber Eats. Photo: Nikki Bailey.
Eateries in Esperance have encountered delivery issues caused by glitches with the Uber Eats service.
Owner of the newly established restaurant Pizza and Porter, Ed Rhode, said the restaurant started using Uber Eats for deliveries recently to expand the businesses operations.
But he said on multiple occasions orders had been automatically cancelled without his control and other times orders came through but had no information attached.
“The way the algorithm appears to work is it tries to match up delivery time with drivers with prep time,” Mr Rhode said.
“There’s a portal tool we look at so I can see the order being scheduled but there’s no other information.
“I see a first name and a dollar amount but there’s no information about what’s in the order and no personal information so I can’t even call the customer.”
Pizza and Porter’s delivery service finishes at 8pm and Mr Rhode said most of their issues happened in the last 30 minutes.
“If you put an order in at 7.30 and it never gets matched up and it gets cancelled then customers are not very happy because they’ve just waited half an hour, like: ‘where’s my food?’,” he said.
“I’ve been back and forth with Uber on it and they said they’re looking into it but it’s a really slow process.
“It’s just a little bit of logistics so it’s not a major issue, I just want people to understand that if things like that happen, it’s not us doing it because it’s our reputation that’s being affected here.”
Uber Eats started in Esperance in mid-March and Mr Rhode said the local delivery drivers had been patient.
“The drivers are really good — they’re all local people and a couple of working holiday people doing it so no complaints about the drivers whatsoever,” he said.
“I think once it matures a little bit more and once it gets busier and we get closer to the tourist season we’ll probably have more drivers in town.”
Mr Rhode said despite the problems, the delivery service had added revenue to their restaurant and was much more convenient than delivering themselves.
“The food delivery side of it is a little bit tricky because you’ve got to have the platforms and the only reason we went with Uber Eats is because the cost of delivery services now is astronomical for a small business,” he said.
“The insurance, you’ve got the payroll for the driver, you’ve got the car, the insurance on the car, the public liability you’ve got to pay, it’s just huge.”
Mr Rhode said they were fortunate enough to have a big oven so if takeaway orders went slightly wrong the food stayed hot.
