Domino’s charged customer $47 delivery fee for five-minute trip

A woman is “perplexed and angry” after discovering she paid $47 for Domino’s to deliver pizza to her house, 3.5 kilometres from the store.

Joe, who asked for her surname not to be used, ordered 10 pizzas from the fastfood chain earlier this month, opting for delivery to her home in the Nelson suburb of Bishopdale.

This added up to $117 and seemed a lot to spend when cash was tight, she said.

But it was a special occasion, with all the family in one place for the holidays, and Joe wanted to treat her grandchildren.

There was no delivery charge listed on the on the order or on the confirmation email she received. “I just thought that’s what I have to pay [for the pizza].”

But later, when she looked at what the order would have cost if she’d collected it in store, the total for 10 pizzas was $70.

Joe was shocked that a five-minute drive from the central Nelson store cost so much.

“I don’t mind paying for delivery, but $47 is ridiculous.”

However, when Joe rang the store, they weren’t interested, she said. Neither was the Domino’s customer service centre, which sent her a generic response using wording from the company’s website.

Domino’s corporate communications manager Amanda Mains said that “for competitive reasons” she couldn’t give a breakdown of the costs and labour involved in a delivery.

However, she said this was “an unusual case given the order includes all large-value-range pizzas – so we will be investigating further”.

‘Doesn’t seem like a good deal’

Consumer NZ investigative writer Vanessa Pratley said Domino’s had a legal obligation to make sure its pricing was clear to avoid “misleading or deceptive conduct”.

“We think these pricing practices risk breaching those provisions,” she said.

This included Domino’s delivery cost structure. On its website, the company said delivery cost was covered “partly in the price of the first pizza ... Then a discount is applied to further pizzas to reward customers that order more.”

This might lead a consumer to think they were getting a good deal on delivery when this maynot be the case, a practice that risked breaching the Fair Trading Act, Pratley said.

A business can generally charge what it likes, but consumers can’t make informed spending decisions without the ability to see delivery costs, she said.

In comparison with Hell Pizza’s $9 standard delivery fee, $47 “doesn’t seem like a good deal”, Pratley said.

Pizza Hut uses a similar delivery pricing structure to Domino’s, and a search of its website showed that delivering 10 pizzas to Bishopdale, Nelson, would cost $32.

Pratley also addressed Joe’s claims that Domino’s had not addressed her complaint.

“Under the Consumer Guarantees Act, Domino’s is required to provide its services with reasonable care and skill. This should extend to its customer service too.”