When I was in college (early to mid 1980s), I remember that Domino’s Pizza’s big selling point was “Delivered in 30 minutes or it’s free”. I did not eat a lot of Domino’s, or have much pizza delivered, but I saw a lot of their ads. I don’t remember ever getting a pizza in more than 30 minutes. Another watchword was “don’t order without a coupon”. Paying full price was a pretty significant hit. Every pizza I ever got from Domino’s had a sheet of coupons glued to the top of the box, and I saved those for my future purchases. It wasn’t the greatest pizza, but it was fast.
Now, fast forward to today’s Domino’s Pizza. In my town, there is one Domino’s, along with Pizza Hut, Little Caesars, Papa Murphy’s, and a local chain, Abby’s Pizza. You can see that we are covered pretty well for pizza, and that they are all doing well. I have seen 6 cars at a time at Little Caesars waiting to get their “Hot and Ready” pizza. Anyway, this summer we have been taking advantage of ordering Domino’s Pizza online and picking it up at the store. The average order time is 20-25 minutes. Every time I have picked up pizza, and been there long enough for them to answer a phone order, they tell the person that it is a two hour wait for delivery. And some people still order the pizza! So much for fast delivery. The coupon rule is still a good one. The online site tells me how much I am saving versus the regular price (almost 50% most of the time). When someone walks up to order pizza, and doesn’t have a coupon, the “specials” that the employee tells the customer are considerably more expensive than ordering online. Oh well…some things never change. From my observations, most of the orders are online for takeout.
As a cross-check, I got some pizza from Abby’s Pizza this past week (the local chain). Before they started accepting online orders, you either had to go there or call ahead. Sometimes, I had to call up to 10 times before I could get someone on the phone (kept getting a busy signal). They are a pretty popular pizza place, and could always use a few more employees. After making my online order, I headed over to the restaurant. Their standard time for pizza orders is “ready in 30 minutes”. The pizza was ready within 30 minutes, but I had to wait for them to make a sandwich. While I waited, the next four people to come to the counter were all picking up online orders. Yep – online ordering is the current wave, all right.