Dark stores boost drops per hour

The key constraint in point-to-point delivery is geometry, not effort. A courier starting from many different restaurants cannot keep chaining short, tidy routes all hour, so even strong operators in dense cities top out around 3 to 3.5 drops per hour. Hub-and-spoke dark stores change that by starting orders from one node, which makes stacking easier and pushes more deliveries onto the same route, especially when baskets are small and close together.

• In marketplace delivery, the rider first goes to the merchant, waits for pickup, then rides to the customer. That pickup leg is the tax on the model. Better dispatch software like Glovo’s can reduce idle time and bundle nearby orders, but it cannot remove the fact that supply starts scattered across the city.
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• Dark stores and cloud kitchens work more like Domino’s than Deliveroo. Orders leave from a fixed hub with known prep times and a controlled handoff, so one courier can take multiple bags on one run. That is why hub-and-spoke models can move from roughly 2 drops per hour in point-to-point delivery toward 4 to 6 in more centralized formats.
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• This difference matters because courier pay is anchored to hourly earnings. If a rider needs to make about minimum wage, every extra drop per hour lets the platform pay less per order while keeping the rider whole. In grocery, that leverage is partly offset by picking and packing labor inside the dark store, which point-to-point marketplaces do not carry.
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The next phase of on-demand logistics keeps pushing supply into denser, more controlled hubs. Marketplace apps will keep improving dispatch, but the bigger unit economic gains come from owning where orders start, how they are packed, and how many can leave together. That favors dark stores, cloud kitchens, and other formats built to turn one pickup into several drops.