Twenty riders in a corridor
The building has eight kitchens, each run by a different food business. Riders from three apps arrive at the front door with an order code and a restaurant name that may be a virtual brand nobody on the desk has heard of. They wander down the corridor knocking on kitchen doors. Some wait outside the wrong one. Some leave and the app sends another rider, who does the same.
The site team at the front desk try to help, but they have no view of which kitchen is cooking which brand or whether an order is ready. They ring the kitchen, who are busy. At peak the corridor is crowded, the kitchens are interrupted, and the neighbours complain about riders waiting outside on the pavement.
Why collection breaks down on shared sites
Each operator connects to the delivery apps independently. Their orders, brands and ready times live in their own systems. The site operator, who owns the building and the front door, has no part in that flow and no data. So the one place every order passes through, the collection point, is the one place with the least information.
Brand names make it worse. One operator might run four virtual brands. A rider asking for an order from a brand name has no idea which kitchen that is, and the desk may not know either, especially when operators launch or rename brands without telling anyone.
Riders also work to the clock. They are paid per drop and every minute spent looking for a kitchen is a minute not earning, so a site known to be slow to collect from gets riders who accept its orders reluctantly, or not at all at peak.
What the corridor chaos costs
| Problem | Who it hurts |
|---|---|
| Riders at the wrong kitchen | Operators, through late pickups and lower ratings |
| Kitchens interrupted by knocking | Operators, through slower cooking at peak |
| Desk with no information | The site team, who take the blame |
| Riders waiting outside | Neighbours, and the site's relationship with them |
| No site-wide view | The site operator, who cannot show tenants the service is working |
For the site operator, collection is part of what tenants are paying for. If it works badly, operators leave, and the site's reputation with the apps suffers as a whole.
One collection system for the whole building
- Each operator shares a simple order feed with the site: order code, brand, app and status. This can come from their existing aggregator, kitchen screen or a small tablet app we provide.
- A brand directory maps every brand name to its operator and kitchen, kept up to date by operators when they add or rename brands.
- At the entrance, a screen shows ready orders by app and code, and which kitchen or collection shelf to go to. Riders can also type or scan a code at a kiosk.
- Where the site runs a central collection desk, operators mark an order ready and send it to the desk, and the desk system confirms the handover to the right rider.
- The site team see a live view of waiting riders and orders that are ready but not collected, or late, across every kitchen.
- Operators get a summary of their own collection times, without seeing each other's data.
Each operator's commercial data stays their own. The site sees only what collection needs, and we agree that scope with operators before connecting anything.
A busy evening on the site afterwards
A rider walks in, reads the screen and goes straight to kitchen five, or collects from the desk. The corridor is quiet enough for the kitchens to work. When an order has been ready for too long, the desk sees it and nudges the operator or the app. At the end of the month, the site shares collection figures with each operator.
- Riders sent to the right place first time
- Fewer interruptions for the kitchens
- A front desk that knows what is happening
- Collection figures the site can share with tenants
Does your site have these problems?
- Riders knock on the wrong kitchen doors.
- The front desk cannot tell which kitchen cooks which brand.
- Riders wait outside and neighbours have noticed.
- Operators complain about late pickups.
- You have no site-wide view of orders waiting for collection.