A deliveryman is ready to depart from a restaurant in Seoul for the delivery of lunch boxes to office workers on Sept. 2, 2020, as tough social distancing guidelines are enforced amid the resurgence of COVID-19. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — The rapid growth of the food delivery market accelerated by the coronavirus outbreak is causing more disputes between restaurant owners and delivery riders.
In the delivery market, where ‘time is money’, disputes between restaurant owners and riders occur over various delays.
Restaurant owners blame the delivery riders for picking up the food too late, while riders blame the owners for not being able to deliver more because the restaurant prepared the food too late.
“Once, I had to wait for 30 minutes at this restaurant. They kept on saying that the food was going to ‘take a while’, without telling me how much time they needed,” a local delivery rider said.
“There was this one rider who came early, and pushed us to prepare the food faster,” said a local restaurant owner.
Most of the disputes between riders and restaurant owners involve pick-up delays, delays in food preparation, and fights over language and behavior.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
