Each on-demand food delivery platform has a slightly different interface. That can be confusing enough for couriers. However, restaurants trying to offer their food through these apps face a similar challenge – and many are pulling out of the gig economy because of it.

On-demand food delivery growing

There are the big names in the food economy: Grubhub, UberEATS, Caviar and DoorDash. There are also more than 30 other start-ups have received funding in this area of the economy. Restaurants that are struggling to keep up with their phones and counters are understandably overwhelmed by such a wide variety of interfaces for orders to come through.

However, restaurants may lose out by pulling out of this growing industry. The on-demand food economy saw over $16 billion in sales last sale year (year ending June 2017). Delivery traffic for non-pizza delivery jumped by 33 percent. Reuters analysis indicated that investors dumped $2.5 billion into the on-demand industry overall.

At the same time as food delivery is going up, interest in actually eating inside a restaurant is going down. This last June saw only 37 percent of customers opting to eat their meal inside the restaurant.

Mighty Quinn’s, a barbecue chain in New York City, reported huge success using a plethora of on-demand apps for their business. They went so far as to have a dedicated counter just for on-demand delivery orders. They said they started with Caviar and worked from there. However, in Mighty Quinn’s case, an app of their own makes sense. They are working on their own app, and hope to launch this fall. They said they will not entirely eliminate their presence on the other apps, just severely cut back.

Some restaurant owners are not convinced

Some restaurant owners claim they haven’t seen a jump in sales, though – just a jump in publicity. In addition, investing has toned down as the smaller start-ups have either been acquired by larger corporations or else shut down.

Commission costs for the apps can easily consume 10 to 30 percent of the restaurant’s profits anyway, providing another disincentive for restaurants to stick with the on-demand food delivery economy.

What’s ahead?

Brook Porter, a partner with venture capital group G2VP, a spinoff of Silicon Valley investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, recommends one of two solutions for on-demand food delivery apps. She says they should either specialize or else lower costs.

Improving efficiency overall can lower the cost of operation and delivery. In the wake of recent upheaval about working conditions in the gig economy, however, companies would be unwise to take efficiency improvements out of their workers’ paychecks. Improving technology in order to improve efficiency would be the best move, Porter said.

On the other hand, deciding to specialize could be as simple as on-demand apps picking a particular niche of the food industry to cater to as they search for partners. As restaurants look to streamline their operations, they are likely to choose the one or two apps that best meet their business needs.