OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill. -- As the convenience-store industry wraps its mind around the next step in foodservice and convenience—that being home delivery—I can’t help but be drawn to the latest Domino’s commercial, featuring celebrity customers of differing ages and backgrounds each ordering a pizza via how they interact with the digital world.
Maybe that’s an app, possibly a PC, maybe a smartwatch, maybe a text or social media, and yes, sometimes a phone call. It all doesn’t seem to matter to Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Domino’s, but it’s certainly meaningful to all those people.
I’m also thinking prefect storm, as this revolution in pizza delivery plays into the football season now in full swing and how games fuel the year’s highest peaks in demand.
My mind goes in many directions:
- Across any of those digital venues, the pizza visuals and ordering process have to look and feel the same.
- Whether the order comes via app, website or social media, it has to route to the nearest Dominos to achieve efficiency.
- Payment has to happen seamlessly across those multiple channels.
- The food has to get to the customer hot, visually appetizing and delicious, within a delivery window of 30 minutes. (An Uber-style tracking feature in the app allows for digital visibility.)
- Silos between IT and marketing, online sales and cash transactions, corporate and franchises must have been bridged.
- Dominos has YouTube videos of drone and driverless-moped pizza deliveries.
Much has appeared in the media of Domino’s transformation, both in the expansion of its menu and its emergence as a technology implementer, as have companies like Seattle-based Starbucks and in our industry, Findlay, Ohio-based Speedway and Framingham, Mass.-based Cumberland Farms.
While I sit in awe of what Domino’s has done, I can’t help but wonder how the minds within our most technologically savvy convenience-store companies are whirring. Far beyond sitting on the couch and pondering pizza, I’m guessing they’re plotting their own reinventions.
Angel Abcede, who writes the Mobile 2 Go blog, has covered technology in the convenience-store industry for more than two decades. Share your thoughts with Angel at aabcede@winsightmedia.com.
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