Olo CEO Noah Glass said restaurants should expect deteriorating levels of incrementality, meaning that fewer truly new customers will be up for grabs in the coming year. The insight is part of the “Delivery Expert Series Volume VI” report from Cowen.
It’s been a big year for Chris Meaux, the founder and CEO of Waitr. The Louisiana-based company focused on restaurant delivery in underserved cities went public, and now has essentially doubled in size with the acquisition of Minnesota-based Bite Squad for $321 million. “It’s been quite a year, it’s lucky for us that we like to move fast,” said Meaux. He said management teams in both companies have been in close contact for about two years, given their very similar way of doing business. “They have W2 drivers, we have […]
The stakes aren’t as high as the days when a national pizza company promised your pizza in 30 minutes or it’s free (not surprisingly there were accidents, some more than just fender-benders), but the need to get up to speed on delivery quickly is sweeping the foodservice industry from restaurants to grocery stores to hospitality tech companies along in its wake. Last year at our first Food on Demand Conference, in Dallas, we were chipping at the surface of off-premise dining—should you? And if so, when, where and how? This […]
Integrating third-party delivery into restaurant operations is an ongoing challenge, but some of the largest franchised restaurants are seeing significant gains in overall delivery volume and average check sizes. According to the latest Restaurant Delivery Update from research firm Stephens, chains McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Wingstop are among several brands seeing consistently positive results as delivery becomes increasingly ubiquitous. Starting with the biggest players, McDonald’s now offers delivery in more than 40% of all locations in the system, with average check sizes for delivery coming in at 1.5x to 2x larger […]
Heading anywhere during the holidays or beyond? Be forewarned: you may get hungry. In an interesting partnership—one of countless announced with delivery providers in recent weeks—TripAdvisor has partnered with DoorDash in more than 1,800 cities throughout North America. By clicking the new “Order Online” button found on the TripAdvisor app or website, customers will be brought directly to DoorDash’s platform to place an order for delivery or pickup. By integrating with DoorDash’s platform that connects customers with hundreds of thousands of restaurants, TripAdvisor will add online ordering capabilities to more […]
Postmates has doubled membership of its Unlimited subscription service, and lowered the minimum order size for its members to $15, down from $20.
Checkmate has a fresh $3 million in the bank that will go toward a deeper technology bench but also help expand the company’s big differentiator in its competitive set: taking on the third-party headache. “We want to create a platform that integrates all the online order platforms in a very easy way to all the different point of sale (POS) providers, but we don’t just want to create the tech platform,” said founder and CEO Vishal Agarwal. “We want a tech platform that’s backed by customer service.” Agarwal said as […]
Panera Bread has reportedly passed $2 billion in digital sales this year, double the previous year, as the brand launches a new breakfast delivery program starting with 231 cities and towns across the country. In a press release, Panera said breakfast can now be ordered through the Panera app or its website, with service expanding to an additional 30 locations by the end of 2018. “Since we launched Panera delivery, guests have been asking ‘what about breakfast?’” said Panera CEO Blaine Hurst in a statement. “Panera is uniquely suited to […]
Amazon has quietly shut down U.K. restaurant delivery, emailing customers that the service would end after just two years. Why would Amazon do this? While some look at this development as the beginning of the end of a big shakeout or portends some third-party slowdown. It’s probably not. First, as other third-party delivery providers have shown, this industry is a lot of work for penny profits and requires massive scale and major marketing to be profitable at all. Amazon seems to show no fear when it comes to growing into […]
Wing, the drone arm of Alphabet, is heading to Helsinki next year. Wing has become a proper company or “graduated” within the company, meaning it’s no longer just a moonshot. And this test implies the technology is ready for prime time. The Helsinki test will be a major proving ground for Wing and aerial drones in general. A major part of the test will be Helsinki’s 560,000 people wandering beneath as Wing delivers packages up to 3.3-pound just over six miles. Google/Alphabet has done other tests before in the U.S., […]
