A Texas-based grocery retailer is launching a pilot program to test self-driving, autonomous grocery deliveries in San Antonio. The retailer, H-E-B, is taking baby steps to get started, using a single driverless van developed by Udelv, a California-based company that develops autonomous delivery vehicles, which it calls ADVs. Once the driverless van gets rolling, it will have multiple climate-controlled compartments allowing it to ferry multiple orders at a time, including those with fresh, frozen and dry goods. With more than 116,000 employees, H-E-B is the largest privately held employer in […]
There’s a running conversation in the restaurant industry about delivery’s impact on margins, and now investment advisor Hedgeye Risk Management has crunched the numbers in a range of scenarios, including how much delivery impacts the total volume, as well as incrementality and various commission rates. Hedgeye’s first scenario assumes that delivery is 5 percent of a hypothetical restaurant’s average unit volume, $75,000 in sales for total annual sales of $1.5 million. Assuming a 30 percent fee for delivery, that’s a $22,500 hit to the bottom line, for a total restaurant […]
When a big brand jumps into delivery, there’s a big decision to make: Do you open the brand to every delivery provider possible to meet the delivery consumer everywhere or forge a deeper partnership with a single partner? For Dunkin’ Brands, the answer was a close partnership with Grubhub to push their delivery efforts further. The reason was all about efficiency and deep integration so that delivery orders were seamless for customers and staff in the brand’s 7,500+ locations across the U.S. “We decided to get into a deep relationship […]
As the VP of off-premise sales at Newk’s Eatery, Courtney Smith and her team are tasked with helping the 127-unit restaurant brand grow delivery and catering sales, while also helping franchisees make sense of a quickly morphing industry. Their work entails negotiating with third-party delivery providers over fees and data, sussing out the cause of the occasional negative guest complaint Yelp review and making sure delivery providers literally answer the call when the company or one of its franchisees have concerns. Having done this with other restaurant groups, including La […]
Incrementality, margins, cannibalization and the true impact of third-party delivery on a restaurant business can become to be tricky math really fast. And that math is essential to move from testing the waters of third-party delivery to learning to swim. So to get a deeper look at the impact of third-party delivery, Sense360 unveiled Delivery IQ, a product dedicated to matching operating results with broader industry data. CEO and co-founder Eli Portnoy said it was designed to offer clearer insight than looking at the profit and loss statement alone. “Leveraged […]
DoorDash is adding the most new restaurants to its platform compared to its competitors, driving significant market share gains for the largest U.S.-based delivery provider, according to a new study from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Now with more than 233,000 restaurants available and 50,000 new restaurants added since February, DoorDash has more restaurants under its umbrella than Grubhub/Seamless and Uber Eats combined. While all of the surveyed delivery providers are still adding new restaurant options as on-demand delivery continues its shakeup of the global restaurant industry, the overall pace of unique […]
Until now, Olo had a bit of an issue; its popular enterprise point of sale integration had a hole in its service. Uber Eats, one of the largest delivery networks in the U.S., was simply not integrated. So while Olo customers could plug most services directly into their POS, they couldn’t really get away from the tablets if they were delivering with Uber Eats. In some markets, that was a big issue. So Olo Founder and CEO Noah Glass said it feels pretty good to deliver on the promise of […]
Third-party order integration provider Omnivore and Coca-Cola North America have teamed up on a digital marketplace launching this fall to connect the beverage giant’s customers to what it calls “industry best restaurant technologies with competitive pricing” covering everything from front- and back-of-the-house operations to direct connectivity with restaurant point-of-sale systems. The partnership is a result of a year-long collaboration between the two brands after Coca-Cola invested in Omnivore late last year. In a joint release, the companies referred to the new marketplace as a way to take “guesswork out of […]
Snap Kitchen, the meal delivery company that carved a diet-friendly niche, is going national. The Austin-based company will now ship dietitian-created meals for Keto, Paleo, low-carb and other diets nationwide. Prior to the move, customers could only pick up or order in Austin, Houston, Dallas and Philadelphia. Under the new program, customers can order one of the 36 menu options in meal boxes of six or 12 meals. The fresh, never frozen meals arrive within two days and can go into the freezer until ready to heat and serve. The […]
Data is everything for restaurants trying to make sense of third-party delivery, among other off-premises channels. In its latest survey of 515 delivery customers, Wells Fargo Senior Analyst Jon Tower and Associate Analyst William Miller found that promotions are a greater driver of behavior among respondents, with delivery fees less of a motivator than its previous studies. In the second part of the California-based mega bank’s food delivery survey focused on consumers, it surveyed 515 people who are 18 years of age or older, and who ordered food delivery at […]
