8 ms·

Americans Love Ordering Pizza on Facebook

45 points by mcone 9y ago

tyingq 9y ago
I'm somewhat surprised that national pizza chains in the US haven't done more with their existing driver networks and delivery tech. Edit: A little more detail... For their current use of the networks, the apps aren't at all competitive with Uber Eats, Doordash, etc. See http://blog.pizzahut.com/featured/track-your-pizza-with-our-delivery-tracker/ http://blog.pizzahut.com/featured/track-your-pizza-with-our-... , for example. It tracks only 3 states. The UI also doesn't do a good job of highlighting state changes...the current state is just a slightly larger circle, of the same color, and no "ping" when it changes. Then, it seems like they could leverage their networks to do something beyond just delivering their own products. I get that there are potential issues with that, but it's surprising that we've not seen at least some local trial run of that.
- brd 9y ago
  Change management at established organizations is hard. When franchises are involved I'm sure it's exponentially harder. With most things, HN overestimates the ability of most organizations to overcome inertia. FB, AMZN, GOOG, etc are anomalies when it comes to managing change at large organizations.
- Alupis 9y ago
  > For their current use of the networks, the apps aren't at all competitive with Uber Eats, Doordash, etc, for example. It tracks only 3 states. The UI also doesn't do a good job of highlighting state changes...the current state is just a slightly larger circle, of the same color, and no "ping" when it changes. I guess I'm getting old or something, because I don't understand why you would need anything more detailed than "order received", "order on it's way", and maybe "order delivered" (although you should assumably be aware of this event without an app or website informing you). If you have the time to watch second-by-second updates of where your food delivery is, why didn't you just go save the $5 delivery fee + tip and pick it up yourself? When I order delivery, it's because I'm doing something that needs my attention and I don't have time to cook or pickup...
  - tyingq 9y ago
    I did mention more beyond the 3 states. The missing ping is an issue, for example..say you're in the backyard. And the subtle visual treatment of "current state". Also, the additional info has been occasionally useful to me. Like when a driver gets obviously lost. Or "Oh, the food is cold because this place is just too far away from me for reasonable delivery"
    - tluyben2 9y ago
      > Or "Oh, the food is cold because this place is just too far away from me for reasonable delivery" I live in the mountains but GPS knows where I am; drivers (parcels/food/etc) can choose upfront if 'this place is just too far away', not after they did the drive.
      - tyingq 9y ago
        Uber eats has this problem. Many restaurants are too far away, but they will deliver anyway. The food quality suffers. With the map, I know why. So, for example, I don't short tip the driver. Unfortunately, with Uber Eats, I don't see the problem until after I pay.
  - SurrealSoul 9y ago
    It's for a similar reason, lets assume you are working on a 30~ minute task and you order food that will also arrive in 30 minutes. For the next 20 minutes you work extremely hard and finish your task, and you are now suddenly EXTREMELY hungry. Your brain being a normal brain makes the logical jump "my task took 30 minutes, food must be here soon" checking your position re-assures your brain that you just worked quickly. There are other reasons [ie: I have a 10 minute task, check to see if that can be finished before delivery] but I agree they don't add anything
- 659087 9y ago
  I feel lucky to live in a city where there are so many good pizza places that I've completely forgotten that chains like pizza hut exist at all.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- saosebastiao 9y ago
  There isn't anything special about Pizza delivery that makes it cheaper to do than UberEats or Instacart. The only difference is the margins. Pizza companies can make a $15 pizza for ~$3, and that means they don't lose money even if they spend up to $12 delivering it. Instacart, on the other hand, likely doesn't have any margins to play with at all, considering the fact that they are paying people to shop and check out at grocery stores. And the stores already have low margins (~1%) which means they likely don't have much in the way of sweetheart deals with the stores. They are likely in the red before the goods even leave the store. Some restaurant foods might come close to breaking even, but few restaurants approach the margins of pizza-making at high volumes. But don't worry. There isn't any indication that VC's have figured out math yet, so we aren't in any danger of these services going away.
  - tyingq 9y ago
    It not arguing that their model is cheaper. Just that they have an established process and tech that could be used for other things. Passenger airlines, for example, sell cargo services. (Yes, I get that's not the best comparison as "excess capacity" is less clear)
- ghaff 9y ago
  >existing "driver networks" and "delivery tech"? Those are something like some local high school kids who work mostly for tips and a telephone.
  - futurix 9y ago
    Is it still the case in America? In Germany and UK pizza 'boys' tend to be middle aged immigrants.
throwaway2016a 9y ago
Sorry for the tangent but... About a year ago I started making my own pizza instead of ordering it in. Not only do a save a lot of money but it is a higher quality product. It takes about a half hour of prep so I only do it on weekends. I found a quick crust recipe that doesn't require waiting for hours for the dough to rise [1]. The ingredients are just bread flour, yeast, water, salt, olive oil, and sugar. The toppings and sauce are the most expensive parts. Though I'm sure if I made the sauce from scratch I could shave a dollar but probably not worth the effort. Tip: buying a jar of yeast is MUCH cheaper than the pre-measured packets that only make one pizza. Those are a rip off. A jar is almost the same price and makes 15 pizzas instead of 1. [1] http://allrecipes.com/recipe/20171/quick-and-easy-pizza-crust/ http://allrecipes.com/recipe/20171/quick-and-easy-pizza-crus...
- Lewton 9y ago
  > About a year ago I started making my own pizza instead of ordering it in. Not only do a save a lot of money but it is a higher quality product. Unless you have a wood oven, you need to find better pizzarias to order from
  - chris_7 9y ago
    Beating delivery/take-out at home isn't really unreasonable, unless you live on top of the pizzeria or something. It loses a lot in the box, with a baking steel preheated under the broiler, your homemade and immediately eaten pie will probably be better. But yeah, you're not going to best Paulie Gee's or whatever with your home oven that tops out at 550°F. I don't really get delivery food in general, would much rather just walk to the restaurant.
    - ghaff 9y ago
      I eat out a lot because I do a lot of business travel. I don't get food delivery at home because I don't really have any options I like. But I do pickup takeout sometimes. It can just be nice to relax at home rather than eating at a restaurant.
  - 9y ago
twothamendment 9y ago
"The company began accepting orders on Facebook in June, and the feature was an instant hit: Hundreds of orders flowed in during the first few hours. In all forms, digital orders now make up over 60 percent of Papa John’s sales." So what percent are from facebook? Online orders are 60%, but what percent are from FB? I doubt there are that many. My closest pizza place wasn't Papa John's, but I ordered online 100% of the time - but I'd never do it through FB.
- losteverything 9y ago
  Is it a national chain? Or does your local independent pizza joint have online
  - twothamendment 9y ago
    I've since moved, so I don't have any chains near me, but it was Domino's. I never had a mistake and except for one time, it was always ready on time. I'd go pick it up based on when they told me it would be done - just walk in and walk out with pizza. My local pizza place in the same area (better, pizza, but twice the price) could lookup my last order by phone number - that saved time and mistakes. It was nice, but would have been better if it tied into caller ID. Some employees acted like it was a burden to have me tell them a phone # and hit the reorder button - but it was so much faster and error free.
- vkjv 9y ago
  Yes. I prefer to order online mostly because it minimizes the chance of a mistake. Speech isn't the most accurate form of communication. But, I've never ordered from facebook.
- wepple 9y ago
  Seems like a fairly non-sequitur paragraph to me. Hundreds within the first few hours could mean 210 pizzas in 5 hours because of novelty factor, then tailing off.
losteverything 9y ago
When looking into the decline of automats (Amazon's recent announcement is automat like), one was the fact that vending machines did not have a bill acceptors. Inflation meant more coins was a hassle... Now, paying by human exchange is being trumped by the finger only

45 points by mcone 9y ago

I'm somewhat surprised that national pizza chains in the US haven't done more with their existing driver networks and delivery tech. Edit: A little more detail... For their current use of the networks, the apps aren't at all competitive with Uber Eats, Doordash, etc. See http://blog.pizzahut.com/featured/track-your-pizza-with-our-delivery-tracker/ http://blog.pizzahut.com/featured/track-your-pizza-with-our-... , for example. It tracks only 3 states. The UI also doesn't do a good job of highlighting state changes...the current state is just a slightly larger circle, of the same color, and no "ping" when it changes. Then, it seems like they could leverage their networks to do something beyond just delivering their own products. I get that there are potential issues with that, but it's surprising that we've not seen at least some local trial run of that.

brd 9y ago
Change management at established organizations is hard. When franchises are involved I'm sure it's exponentially harder. With most things, HN overestimates the ability of most organizations to overcome inertia. FB, AMZN, GOOG, etc are anomalies when it comes to managing change at large organizations.
Alupis 9y ago
> For their current use of the networks, the apps aren't at all competitive with Uber Eats, Doordash, etc, for example. It tracks only 3 states. The UI also doesn't do a good job of highlighting state changes...the current state is just a slightly larger circle, of the same color, and no "ping" when it changes. I guess I'm getting old or something, because I don't understand why you would need anything more detailed than "order received", "order on it's way", and maybe "order delivered" (although you should assumably be aware of this event without an app or website informing you). If you have the time to watch second-by-second updates of where your food delivery is, why didn't you just go save the $5 delivery fee + tip and pick it up yourself? When I order delivery, it's because I'm doing something that needs my attention and I don't have time to cook or pickup...
- tyingq 9y ago
  I did mention more beyond the 3 states. The missing ping is an issue, for example..say you're in the backyard. And the subtle visual treatment of "current state". Also, the additional info has been occasionally useful to me. Like when a driver gets obviously lost. Or "Oh, the food is cold because this place is just too far away from me for reasonable delivery"
  - tluyben2 9y ago
    > Or "Oh, the food is cold because this place is just too far away from me for reasonable delivery" I live in the mountains but GPS knows where I am; drivers (parcels/food/etc) can choose upfront if 'this place is just too far away', not after they did the drive.
    - tyingq 9y ago
      Uber eats has this problem. Many restaurants are too far away, but they will deliver anyway. The food quality suffers. With the map, I know why. So, for example, I don't short tip the driver. Unfortunately, with Uber Eats, I don't see the problem until after I pay.
- SurrealSoul 9y ago
  It's for a similar reason, lets assume you are working on a 30~ minute task and you order food that will also arrive in 30 minutes. For the next 20 minutes you work extremely hard and finish your task, and you are now suddenly EXTREMELY hungry. Your brain being a normal brain makes the logical jump "my task took 30 minutes, food must be here soon" checking your position re-assures your brain that you just worked quickly. There are other reasons [ie: I have a 10 minute task, check to see if that can be finished before delivery] but I agree they don't add anything
659087 9y ago
I feel lucky to live in a city where there are so many good pizza places that I've completely forgotten that chains like pizza hut exist at all.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
saosebastiao 9y ago
There isn't anything special about Pizza delivery that makes it cheaper to do than UberEats or Instacart. The only difference is the margins. Pizza companies can make a $15 pizza for ~$3, and that means they don't lose money even if they spend up to $12 delivering it. Instacart, on the other hand, likely doesn't have any margins to play with at all, considering the fact that they are paying people to shop and check out at grocery stores. And the stores already have low margins (~1%) which means they likely don't have much in the way of sweetheart deals with the stores. They are likely in the red before the goods even leave the store. Some restaurant foods might come close to breaking even, but few restaurants approach the margins of pizza-making at high volumes. But don't worry. There isn't any indication that VC's have figured out math yet, so we aren't in any danger of these services going away.
- tyingq 9y ago
  It not arguing that their model is cheaper. Just that they have an established process and tech that could be used for other things. Passenger airlines, for example, sell cargo services. (Yes, I get that's not the best comparison as "excess capacity" is less clear)
ghaff 9y ago
>existing "driver networks" and "delivery tech"? Those are something like some local high school kids who work mostly for tips and a telephone.
- futurix 9y ago
  Is it still the case in America? In Germany and UK pizza 'boys' tend to be middle aged immigrants.

throwaway2016a 9y ago

Sorry for the tangent but... About a year ago I started making my own pizza instead of ordering it in. Not only do a save a lot of money but it is a higher quality product. It takes about a half hour of prep so I only do it on weekends. I found a quick crust recipe that doesn't require waiting for hours for the dough to rise [1]. The ingredients are just bread flour, yeast, water, salt, olive oil, and sugar. The toppings and sauce are the most expensive parts. Though I'm sure if I made the sauce from scratch I could shave a dollar but probably not worth the effort. Tip: buying a jar of yeast is MUCH cheaper than the pre-measured packets that only make one pizza. Those are a rip off. A jar is almost the same price and makes 15 pizzas instead of 1. [1] http://allrecipes.com/recipe/20171/quick-and-easy-pizza-crust/ http://allrecipes.com/recipe/20171/quick-and-easy-pizza-crus...

Lewton 9y ago
> About a year ago I started making my own pizza instead of ordering it in. Not only do a save a lot of money but it is a higher quality product. Unless you have a wood oven, you need to find better pizzarias to order from
- chris_7 9y ago
  Beating delivery/take-out at home isn't really unreasonable, unless you live on top of the pizzeria or something. It loses a lot in the box, with a baking steel preheated under the broiler, your homemade and immediately eaten pie will probably be better. But yeah, you're not going to best Paulie Gee's or whatever with your home oven that tops out at 550°F. I don't really get delivery food in general, would much rather just walk to the restaurant.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    I eat out a lot because I do a lot of business travel. I don't get food delivery at home because I don't really have any options I like. But I do pickup takeout sometimes. It can just be nice to relax at home rather than eating at a restaurant.
- 9y ago

twothamendment 9y ago

"The company began accepting orders on Facebook in June, and the feature was an instant hit: Hundreds of orders flowed in during the first few hours. In all forms, digital orders now make up over 60 percent of Papa John’s sales." So what percent are from facebook? Online orders are 60%, but what percent are from FB? I doubt there are that many. My closest pizza place wasn't Papa John's, but I ordered online 100% of the time - but I'd never do it through FB.

losteverything 9y ago
Is it a national chain? Or does your local independent pizza joint have online
- twothamendment 9y ago
  I've since moved, so I don't have any chains near me, but it was Domino's. I never had a mistake and except for one time, it was always ready on time. I'd go pick it up based on when they told me it would be done - just walk in and walk out with pizza. My local pizza place in the same area (better, pizza, but twice the price) could lookup my last order by phone number - that saved time and mistakes. It was nice, but would have been better if it tied into caller ID. Some employees acted like it was a burden to have me tell them a phone # and hit the reorder button - but it was so much faster and error free.
vkjv 9y ago
Yes. I prefer to order online mostly because it minimizes the chance of a mistake. Speech isn't the most accurate form of communication. But, I've never ordered from facebook.
wepple 9y ago
Seems like a fairly non-sequitur paragraph to me. Hundreds within the first few hours could mean 210 pizzas in 5 hours because of novelty factor, then tailing off.

losteverything 9y ago

When looking into the decline of automats (Amazon's recent announcement is automat like), one was the fact that vending machines did not have a bill acceptors. Inflation meant more coins was a hassle... Now, paying by human exchange is being trumped by the finger only