Ok, I’m about to share two embarrassing personal statistics for the sake of a point. First: From March 3 to June 15, my family of two adults and a 2-year-old spent $561 in delivery orders from one single restaurant. The second and arguably more embarrassing stat: The restaurant is a mere 1.4 miles from my house, literally two turns from driveway to doorstep. It’s a perfectly fi ne restaurant, nothing fancy and not particularly fast—despite paying about $12 in delivery tips and charges each order. But it’s convenient and craveable and a nearly mindless transaction.
I order through Bite Squad, a third-party service like the ones mentioned above. I am able to watch our driver work his or her way down the streets via GPS tracker on the service’s website. My cellphone dings as the driver pulls up, and food is handed over without any exchange of money, no signing of receipts, no person-to-person tipping. All that messy business is done upon ordering so that by the time the delivery person hands over my bag of goods, I’ve made peace with my rather lazy meal preparation.
The growth of third-party services promises even c-store retailers the opportunity for delivery without the investment in infrastructure. The threat? If you don’t act on what Taco Bell CEO Brian Niccol claims is the biggest consumer demand, are you giving restaurants one more way to steal a meal occasion?
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