Fifty-six percent of consumers now consider convenience stores viable options for made-to-order food over fast food restaurants, according to the 2024 annual Path to Third-Party Delivery Excellence report from Intouch Insight, an Ottawa, Ontario-based data analysis firm.
The data indicates that while convenience stores still have some ground to cover in catching up to restaurants, convenience store operators can take cues from restaurants to capture a larger share of this busy market. Additionally, 66% of American adults say they’re more likely to order food now than before the pandemic.
Delivery Audits
Between April and June, 600 deliveries were performed between the hours of 5:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. Shops were geographically spread across the United States. Three delivery services were evaluated: Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub. Each delivery service had 200 shops: 100 shops from a convenience store and 100 shops from a quick-serve or fast-casual restaurant.
Order Accuracy
For convenience store orders, in addition to a made-to-order food item, all orders included one pre-packaged item, such as a snack or beverage that drivers were required to pick up. The results indicate that 53% of inaccuracies with convenience store orders were made-to-order items at the fault of the store.
Order Accuracy By Time of Day
When examining overall satisfaction by time of day, we observed notable differences between restaurants and convenience stores.
Convenience stores saw their highest satisfaction during dinner (4:01 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.) at 87%, with breakfast (5:00 a.m. to 10:29 a.m.) at 85%.
For restaurants, the highest overall satisfaction was achieved during the breakfast daypart (5:00 a.m. to 10:29 a.m.) at 94%, followed closely by dinner (4:01 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.) at 93%.
Another insight that the study found was that for convenience stores, the lack of clarity on whether meal items were pre-packed or made-to-order severely impacted customer satisfaction.
Delivery Fees
Third-party app delivery fees from convenience stores are more expensive than they are for restaurants. The average total fees for restaurants are $4.08 for DoorDash, $6.25 fir Uber Eats and $5.74 for Grubhub. The chart below shows the averages for convenience stores.
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