the emergence of third-party delivery service providers and the challenges they face, such as labor costs and the impact of delivery on economics.
Delivery can add demand and fixed-cost leverage or replace better-margin orders. The answer depends on channel contribution and cannibalization.
A historical pizza case shows how delivery density, dispatch, customer ownership, and fixed fleet costs interact.
Convenience, smartphone adoption, dense marketplaces, and changing occasions expanded delivery, but unit economics still decide who wins.
Pizza delivery shows when an in-house driver fleet can create control—and when marketplace flexibility is worth the fee.
Marketplace sales are not automatically profitable. Commissions, cannibalization, packaging, labor, and unused capacity determine contribution.
