- Food hall startup Wonder eliminated all delivery fees this week, the company said.
- Wonder operates its own delivery network as well as a growing list of food halls.
- Fees have long been a contentious issue among food delivery customers.
Food delivery customers often find a list of fees on their receipt when they order dinner in.
Wonder, the food hall startup helmed by entrepreneur Marc Lore, has a solution: Eliminate delivery fees altogether.
On Monday, Wonder eliminated its $1.99 fee on delivery orders, Courtney Lawrie, Wonder's senior vice president and general manager in charge of Wonder's restaurants and delivery experience, told Business Insider.
The company also waived its 12% service fee for orders placed through Wonder+, its $7.99-a-month subscription service.
Delivery fees have become common for many delivery services such as DoorDash and Uber. DoorDash, for example, says that its delivery fee covers "costs associated with getting your order directly to you."
The fees can also provoke frustration from customers when they see their delivery order's price rise as they select the delivery option.
"People are tired of paying fees across all of these marketplaces," Lawrie told BI.
Wonder operates its own food halls as well as its own delivery service, making it more vertically integrated than most of its competitors, which deliver food from an array of restaurants. The startup also acquired delivery service Grubhub earlier this year.
All that means that Wonder doesn't have to deal with middlemen when it needs to get food to customers' doorsteps, Lawrie said.
"We're uniquely positioned to be able to provide that savings to customers," Lawrie said.
Wonder has just under 50 food halls at the moment. Customers can have their food delivered, or, for a 5% discount, they can stop by one of the food halls to pick up their order themselves. Wonder's food halls serve dishes created by chefs including Bobby Flay and Marcus Samuelsson.
At Wonder's New York City locations, menu items range from a fried chicken sandwich with a side and a drink for around $12 to a 16-ounce ribeye for $37.
Its locations span city centers as well as more sparsely populated suburbs.
Wonder sees an opportunity to grow its business among suburban diners by giving them the range of choices in Wonder's food halls, Lawrie said. "They might not have access to the variety that we can provide," she said.
Many consumers are cutting back their spending, including on eating at restaurants, due to worries about a potential recession.
Even so, demand for food delivery — both restaurant orders and grocery hauls — remains steady, companies like DoorDash and Instacart have said in recent earnings reports.
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