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Just Eat adds a cheeky 50p service charge to dodge EU rules
Thanks to new EU regulations, you won't have to put up with irritating card surcharges for much longer. Unfortunately, minimum card spends you come across in small shops and such will stick around, but from January 13th, the Payment Services Directive comes into play. This stops retailers from charging you more for, say, using a credit card than a debit card, or generally just passing the transaction fee onto the customer. It won't, however, make your Just Eat delivery any cheaper. That's because yesterday, ahead of the new EU rules being implemented, Just Eat did away with its 50p fee for paying by card, and instead created a new 50p "service charge" that applies to all orders.
Just Eat made a 'magic wand' for ordering food
Just Eat, we need to talk. Your latest invention, a food-ordering "magic wand," is ridiculous. I get that you want to have some fun over the Christmas period — and somewhere, your marketing department is having a good chuckle — but you've gone too far. Enough is enough. First of all, is it meant for the kitchen or the bedroom? Actually, don't answer that. Then there's the operation. You have to download a separate app (ugh), login and make an order the old-fashioned way. Only then can you repeat this order — and nothing else — by waving the wand around like Merlin.
Just Eat gets the approval it needs to acquire Hungryhouse
Five years ago, a merger between Just Eat and Hungryhouse would have been impossible in the UK. They were two of the largest online takeaway sites and would, therefore, have created a monopoly. Now, of course, the situation is a little different. With Deliveroo, UberEats and Amazon vying for orders, both companies are now mid-sized players in Britain. As a result, the Competition and Markets Authority has approved Just Eat's acquisition of Hungryhouse, which was originally announced last December. In short, the regulator believes competition will still be rife in the UK, and that Hungryhouse wasn't large enough to survive on its own.
Just Eat is trialling restaurant deliveries like Deliveroo
For the longest time, all takeaway sites were the same. You searched by post code or cuisine type and then browsed the businesses listed in your local area. Then Deliveroo came along with its army of couriers and the promise of big-name restaurant food, like Byron, PizzaExpress and Strada. A wave of copycats followed, including Amazon and Uber, luring customers away from traditional takeaway websites like Hungryhouse. It's taken some time, but Just Eat has now admitted it needs to play catch-up. In an interview with the Financial Times, interim CEO Paul Harrison said it was running "some early pilots" with unnamed chain restaurants.
Just Eat devours takeaway rival Hungryhouse for £200 million
Just Eat, ravenous for global expansion, has bought rivals Hungryhouse and SkipTheDishes for £266 million. The two acquisitions will help the company to consolidate its position as one of the biggest food delivery startups on the planet. In the UK, Hungryhouse is one of its biggest rivals, with close but not quite equal marketing spend and brand recognition. Buying the brand from Delivery Hero for £200 million will increase Just Eat's scale and remove any threat it once posed. Likewise, picking up SkipTheDishes will bolster its business in Canada, while removing a potentially dangerous chess piece from an increasingly cluttered board.
Just Eat starts delivering takeaways by autonomous robot
Just Eat has today laid claim to delivering the first takeaway meal by autonomous robot. The online ordering company has been working with Starship Technologies since July, testing the latter's "last-mile" delivery robots in Greenwich, London. But these tamperproof, pavement-pounding boxes on wheels are now in active service in the area, after the first, apparently unknowing customer successfully received their falafel and lamb cutlets from a local Turkish eatery. While customers are not be able to actively choose robot as their preferred delivery option yet, Just Eat says Greenwich "will increasingly be serviced by the technology," ahead of plans to expand the rollout (no pun intended) to more parts of London next year.
