By Maria Cassidy
Busty’s Chippy and Pappa Busty takeaways are to pull out of the Just Eat app at the beginning of the New Year, it emerged this weekend.
The local takeaways say they are planning to pull out of the app because of high commission costs.
Lee Quinn, owner Busty’s chippy spoke out about the costs from Just Eat and how it has affected local businesses.
“Initially, I thought that I had to be on the app because everyone else is on it and it would be harder to get customers if I wasn’t," he said.
"But since being on it, the charges for commission have been growing and growing. My brother, Darren, who is the owner of Papa Busty's, joined the app late and so is being charged more commission that I am.
“The commission is based on the food value, the delivery charge and the card charge. If you want to be higher up on the list of takeaways on the app, you have to pay extra money. I’m sending away money to Just Eat, but that’s not including workers' wages and my facilities that I also have to pay out. It just seems that recently you have to pay out money from every corner. I didn’t open up my shop to work for someone else.
“On January 3, myself and my brother, Darren, will switch off our machines and will not be on the Just Eat platform. We are opening up our own apps, so all the customer has to do is type in ‘Busty’s Chippy’ or ‘Papa Busty’s’ into the app store and you’ll find our app. The money that would have been given in to Just Eat can go towards paying for my workers’ wages, my facilities or toward the local economy.
“I know that when we both go, other businesses will think to stay on because we are off. But I wanted to let the customers know where their money is going. I hope that other local businesses will start to follow to help the local economy.”
Affected
Zora’s is also one of the takeaways affected by the amount of commission to be paid to the app. Sanjeev Guram says he has paid increasing amounts of money to Just Eat and that it could get worse.
He commented: "In this situation, you are effectively working for Just Eat - the more your business grows, the more you are handing out."
Grainne McLaughlin, Marketing Executive of iWantFed, urges customers to champion local apps.
“We urge customers to use alternative local apps to order their food as they are invested in the local economy with locally employed staff and suppliers. We have over 30 staff working in Northern Ireland. I think it’s an important message to get out to the people of Derry and the app users, the importance of supporting the local economy and local businesses. I was talking about this issue with one of our Takeaway owners yesterday and he told me that he has recently paid up to £660 per week to an outside food-ordering app, which is a massive amount of money for a small independent business owner.”
Recently, Just Eat changed their admin fee charges. The 50p Admin charges that were previously only charged for card-only payments are now being charged to all orders through the app. Customers will now have to pay an extra 50p instead of the business. The business can opt out of allowing their customers to pay the charges however, they must incur the charges.
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