E-Commerce Giant Amazon Announces An End to Digital Delivery Service Amazon Restaurants

Amazon announced yesterday that it was ending Amazon Restaurants on June 24. As a result, shares of rival online food delivery services GrubHub and Waitr Holdings jumped. Grubhub shares gained more than 7% on Tuesday, while shares of smaller competitor Waitr gained 3%. Uber, the parent company of Uber Eats, saw its stock rise less than 1%.
Amazon Restaurants first launched in Seattle in 2015. The service which delivers restaurant meals to Prime members’ households operates in more than 20 U.S. cities. Amazon Restaurants tried a U.K. expansion to mixed success. The UK service ended up being shuttered in November 2018. Amazon will also shut down Daily Dish, a lunch delivery service for workplaces that launched in 2016, on June 14. “A small fraction of Amazon employees are affected by this decision, and many of those affected have already found new roles at Amazon,” the e-commerce giant said in a statement. “Employees will be offered personalized support to find a new role within, or outside of, the company.”
Amazon recently acquired a stake in a UK food delivery service Deliveroo. Analysts speculate that Amazon plans to stay in the third party food delivery industry, possibly through additional acquisitions.
The battle for turf in the food delivery market is vicious. Uber, Grubhub, and DoorDash together hold more than 75 percent of the U.S. third party food delivery market share. A recent poll found that 34% of diners had food delivered in the last 30 days. Does your restaurant support online ordering?
Sintel’s Direct-to-POS ordering system offers vendors a custom mobile app for making orders on the go. Using our omni channel approach customers can order with an employee using a hand held device at busy drive thrus, order from a kiosk, order from their phone or order from a computer. Discounts, loyalty programs and gift cards can be added to the POS system and made available to all customers, no matter how they order. That’s the goal of omni channel POS, service is provided to the customer where they want it, how they want it. Let Sintel Systems help grow your online presence, food order and delivery business with a fully integrated Direct-to-POS system.