Doordash to penalize McDonalds when orders take too long

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Doordash has made a bold move recently by letting McDonald's know that if any of their restaurants are taking too long to get a Doordash order out the door, they will have to pay a larger commission fee. This is due to long waits that Dashers frequently experience when they are picking up a McDonald's order. Apparently, Doordash feels that this is happening too often and wants these long waits to stop.

Doordash wants to make sure that when a Dasher arrives, McDonald's has the order ready to go. If a Dasher arrives and has to wait more than four minutes, the penalization stage will begin and that particular McDonald's will have to pay stiffer higher commissions. These commissions can jump as high as 20 percent which is much more than what they normally pay. Generally, the commission fee for them is in the 11 to 14 percent range.

Also brought up was the refunds that Doorash frequently has to pay out to their customers through no fault of their own. When McDonald's workers forget part of a customer's order, they'll call Doorash and let them know about it. Doordash must then refund or credit these customers.

Apparently, it happens much too often with McDonald's as Doordash is implementing a threshold on these refunds. If a certain McDonald's restaurant reaches whatever this threshold is, they will begin to be responsible for the customer refunds. Information on what this threshold is was not shared.

How will McDonald's prepare themselves for these new Doordash expectations?

McDonald's franchisees will have plenty of time to prepare for the new expectations. Doordash will not immediately start implementing these penalizations until next year. This should be enough time for a McDonald's restaurants to prepare. Management at each restaurant will have to come up with a plan to make sure that Doordash orders are prepared on time and ready to flow out as soon as the Dashers arrive.

This Dasher's opinion on these Doordash demands

This should be great for Dashers, but it will be even better for Doordash customers. I can certainly understand Doordashs view here. As a Dasher, I've picked up so many different McDonald's orders and have had to sit and wait for 10 or 15 minutes.

With McDonald's it is usually a hit or miss. There are many times when I walk into a McDonald's and they have the order right there waiting for me, but then there are times when the wait is a bit too long. McDonald's gets very busy. It's safe to say that McDonald's gets busier than almost any other restaurant.

With that said, franchisees need to make sure that their managers are hiring enough staff and training them right to make sure they can handle the busy crowds. This includes the Dashers that are constantly coming in to pick up orders. Dashers should no longer feel like they are taking a back seat to regular customers.

There are a couple of McDonald's in my current area that close their lobby in the early evening. This is all started with the pandemic. At first the lobbies of these merchants were permanently closed. Then they loosened up, but they still close their lobbies at 5 or 6 pm. This means only the drive-thru can be used, and at times that can mean a 30 minute wait for Dashers. If these two McDonald's don't want to get penalized, they are going to have to keep their lobbies open longer. This will definitely be part of the solution to make Doordash deliveries quicker.

I believe that Doordash has put their focus on McDonald's because of the volume of orders the chain produces. In my opinion, McDonald's is the number one chain that any food delivery company would want to partner with.

If we tell the truth here, there are other chains that take longer or at least just as long. For example, every experienced Dasher knows to stay away from any Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant. Most of the time, a Dasher will have to wait at least 15 to 30 minutes for the order. Every Dasher eventually learns to stay away from Buffalo Wild Wings. Yes, Buffalo Wild Wings made the list of worst Doordash restaurants to pick up from.

Does McDonald's need Doordash?

All of this had me thinking, does McDonald's even need Doordash? I mean, the big boys at McDonald's corporate and Doordash have a nice partnership going that they all seem to view as worthy, but sometimes I wonder how beneficial it is and who is benefiting more. 

I've also wondered if a franchisee has the right to not engage with any delivery platforms if they choose not to. If they don't see higher profits, can they opt out? I actually have no idea, but when part of a franchise, I know it's possible that the franchisee may actually have no choice in the matter. I'm clueless on this.

Doordash began partnering with McDonald's in 2019. During that year, I remember doing a lot of Uber Eats more than Doordash due to the great pay Uber Eats offered. I remember Uber Eats had an exclusive deal with McDonald's at the time. The McDonald's employees even had Uber Eats logos on parts of their uniforms.

Uber Eats drivers would get a lot of orders for McDonalds. That is, until the big blow came. McDonald's became interested in partnering with other food delivery platforms. In came Doordash, and it seemed like the majority of McDonald's orders began coming from Doordash. Sure, there were still Uber Eats orders, but nothing like before.

I know without a doubt that McDonald's does not need any of these delivery platforms. McDonald's has always been fine without Doordash, Uber or any other food delivery platform. Even with the pandemic, McDonald's restaurants would have been fine without the food apps. There's a reason they have been the number one fast food chain in the world for many decades.

The McDonald's franchise may be looking at this a different way though. They may see this as a way for their franchisees to get on the ball or pay up. McDonald's in no way is dependent on Doordash, but McDonald's does have a reputation and tradition to live by. They want customers that order their food to receive fresh food in a timely manner. It's their name on the food, not Doordash or any other platform.