With that said, a large percentage of the population does use food delivery services offered by companies such as Doordash, Postmates, Grub Hub, Uber Eats and other companies on a regular basis. For many of them, it has become part of everyday life. Generally, those that regularly use on-demand food delivery services are of the younger generation.
As of today, almost all of us can remember when on-demand food delivery didn't exist. That's going to change soon in the upcoming years. In the very near future we will have a young generation of people that will not be able to remember the age when on-demand food delivery did not exist. To them, they'll wonder how we all survived without it. These people are the on-demand food delivery generation.
When we could only have pizza or Chinese food delivered
The 1980s was a great time to be a kid. Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, We Are The World, Ronald Regan, Red Dawn, The Karate Kid, break dancing, arcades, MTV, cassette tapes and Saturday morning cartoons. During this time, there was no such thing as having McDonald's, Jack-In-The-Box or Wendy's delivered. Denny's, IHop, BJs, AppleBees, and the list goes on and on. If you wanted food from your favorite restaurants, you had to actually get up and go get it yourself. Nobody ever thought of it as a difficult task. You just got up and did it.
We did have a few options for food delivery though. Pizza delivery was a normal thing in the 1980s. In my neighborhood, we had Pizza Hut, Dominoes and a lesser known pizza joint called Pizza Man. If you had five bucks you could have a medium pepperoni pizza delivered. Of course the times I am thinking about is when you could also get gas for $1 per gallon and a pack of Marlboro cigarettes was $1.60. Yes, a $20 bill actually had some value and went a long way back then.
Ordering pizza delivery was a normal thing back then. Sometimes, it was part of what many people called a Blockbuster night. Order pizza and rent a few movies and you were good to go. Chinese food was also an option to have delivered back then. I have never been a Chinese food guy, but my sister used to always order Chinese food from a local restaurant and have it delivered. Basically, if you were too lazy or restrained for some reason from picking up your own food; pizza or Chinese food were your only two choices. Nobody ever complained though. That's just the way life was.
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| Using food delivery apps has become second nature to the on-demand good delivery generation |
Is this the generation of lazy kids that depend on on-demand food delivery companies like Doordash?
I first discovered all of this on-demand food delivery stuff back in 2015. I really had no interest in using it though. Quite honestly, it seemed ridiculous to have somebody pick up food and deliver it to me. For some reason, pizza was exempt from this kind of thinking. Surely this had to do with the way us 80s kids minds were trained. Having a pizza delivered was normal, but having other food delivered was just weird.
As a teenager and young adult I remember walking to fast food restaurants with friends and not thinking anything of it. It is just what we did. We didn't sit around wishing that there was some kind of instant magic that would instantly have food in front of our face. Besides, it gave all of us an excuse to hang out and wander the streets. Sometimes we would run in to adventures along the way to the restaurant. These adventures became childhood memories that would live on forever.
My initial thinking about the on-demand food delivery service was that it was for lazy people to use. I just couldn't understand why a person would not prefer to pick up their own food. There was just no reason to have it delivered. If you were hungry, you either cooked something at home or went out and got your own food. Since I began dashing many years ago, my thoughts have changed. Although I still have never personally used on-demand food delivery services, it is very possible that one day I will.
When I started delivering for Doordash, I learned that my thinking about the subject was partially true. Sure, I seen the lazy people that would not walk one block to pick up their own food. Instead, they had me deliver their food while they sat there on their couch playing video games. Basically, I could see that they were slouching around their house being lazy. These people were generally teenagers and young adults. Sure, lazy slackers irritate me, but I didn't know them. What business is it of mine. Apparently, they have paid to be lazy and have their food delivered, and that meant more deliveries for me. That's all a dasher should care about. Professionally deliver the customer's food, get paid and move on.
The convenience of on-demand food delivery apps like Doordash
After doing Doordash for many years, I realized that most on-demand food delivery customers were not lazy slackers. Of course some are, but generally I just think that this new generation of people that are growing up with this technology is just doing what they know. They are paying for convenience, and there is nothing wrong with that.
No matter what generation a person grew up in, they surely somehow paid for convenience that the preceding generation may have thought was ridiculous. To many of the kids today it may seem like this on-demand food delivery technology has always been around. They can't imagine life without having the ability to order food from any restaurant whenever they want.
Making Doordash deliveries taught me that there are a lot of different reasons people use on-demand food delivery services. Many deliveries that I have done have been a great distance from any restaurant. If these people didn't have a vehicle, it would be a hell of a walk to get something to eat. Personally, I never lived miles away from restaurants. That most likely had to do with growing up in a big city. I could never relate to people that lived way up in the hills that had to come miles down to find a restaurant. Now I understand why they would use a service like Doordash.
Dashing also showed me that many handicapped and elderly people have great use for the service. This is something that I had never thought of before. Even if they have a vehicle, it isn't as simple for them to just jump in their car, get something to eat and be back home in a half hour. I honestly can say that I think the handicapped and elderly can benefit from the on-demand food delivery service more than anybody else, and all dashers should be glad to help these people out.
Parents frequently have food delivered to their kids when they cannot be home to prepare food for them. A lot of times these are the orders that say "Please leave food on front porch." There's nothing wrong with this. I wouldn't want my kids opening the door either if I wasn't home. Anyways, what a great convenience this is for parents.
Lastly, I have to mention those customers that are at work and either can't leave or just don't have the time to go get something to eat. As we can see, there are so many reasons for a person to use on-demand food delivery services. Yes, everybody has a right to order convenience if they are willing to pay for it; yes, even the lazy slackers.
On-Demand food delivery has a large market
Don't think for one moment that it's only teenagers and young adults using on-demand food delivery apps. Though not as frequently as young people, the middle aged and older generation have found enjoyment with the convenience that these apps can offer. The Zion and Zion research team surveyed 2,928 consumers that were 18 plus years old and found that 41 percent of people had a multi-restaurant food delivery app on their cell phone. This means that they had Doordash, GrubHub, Postmates, Uber Eats or another service on their cell phone! That is a very large percentage!
According to the Zion and Zion Research Group, when asking consumers about how many times they have used one of these apps to have food delivered during the past 90 days; the younger a person was the more likely they were to have used the service. From those that were 18 to 29 years of age, 63 percent of people ordered food. For those that were 30 to 44 years old, 51 percent had ordered food. It shrinks to 29 percent for those 45 to 60 and reaches its low point at 14 percent with those over 60
These statistics are not surprising at all. The kids of today, teenagers and young adults are the on-demand food delivery generation and will enjoy the services that are provided to them for many years to come. Don't expect Doordash or any of the other food delivery companies to go anywhere. These companies provide a service that people will always be in need of. They have made all of our lives easier. It's a great feeling knowing that you can have food delivered to you no matter where you're at!
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