ILLUSTRATION BY NICO HEINS/FIREFLY
To conduct the study, Intouch shoppers ordered delivery from 600 restaurants and convenience stores from each of the three major third-party delivery services, along with first-party delivery offered by companies in both industries. Among the first-party brands were pizza chains Domino’s, Papa Johns and Marco’s Pizza. But it also included several fast-food chains that contract with delivery companies to provide first-party service through chains’ own mobile apps and websites. Delivery has become a growing source of sales and traffic for restaurants over the past few years, thanks largely to the emergence of providers such as DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub. The growing importance of the channel makes it important to measure companies for
the services they’re providing to consumers. The study reveals the strengths of delivery services while demonstrating their growing maturity, particularly in the way they interact with consumers. For instance, delivery is easy to order. Ninety seven percent of delivery orders were considered “easy,” and in most cases that ease increased. But every service scored at least 97% and first-party providers scored 95%. The delivery services are nearly perfect at getting the location right, with 99% of orders sent to the right spot, up from 98% last year. Both DoorDash and first-party brands were right on that 100% of the time. No service scored 100% a year ago. Meanwhile, delivery services are better at estimating the time it takes to get food to a customer’s door—even if they tend to promise
speedier delivery initially. Overall, 57% of customers said their delivery was early compared with the estimated delivery time, up from 54% a year ago, while 37% of orders were late, down from 42%. Each service saw improvement. Grubhub, at 63%, had the highest “early” rate, followed closely by first-party providers. The biggest improvement came from DoorDash, where the percentage of early orders increased to 58% from 54%. Yet while they the estimated delivery time is getting better, the delivery services are less likely to match the times they initially promise. AVERAGE DELIVERY TIMES Overall, 34% of deliveries came in slower
OCTOBER 2025 RESTAURANT BUSINESS
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