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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 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.
