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Home delivery: Why it's worth a thought now more than ever

Are you leaving lots of potential business on the table in your customers' kitchens? You are if you haven't at least considered the very real possibility that now exists for all restaurants to deliver to customers' homes.

July 8, 2016 by Noah Glass — CEO, Olo

New York University Professor of Clinical Marketing Scott Galloway shares an enlightening perspective on Uber in his speech last year in which he described the company's fleet of drivers as a “vascular system for business” and a “broadband pipe for atoms." The bottom line is that we’re entering an era in which it is incredibly inexpensive to move both people and things from point A to point B. Now, just about anyone can use on-demand logistics on a trip-by-trip basis.

As a result, restaurants who have never previously offered delivery now find themselves looking more closely at that possibility. This is particularly true after many restaurateurs discover that consumers have doubled their weekly use of home-delivery for meals in just the past five years alone. So a lot of restaurants are now seriously considering using a third-party, on-demand delivery provider like Postmates, GrubHub and Uber itself. 

These companies are in the business of collecting food at the restaurant and delivering it to consumers wherever they are for a fee. Typically, consumers pay the additional cost for the delivery service, just as consumers pay shipping fees for e-commerce purchases. But, instead of being shipped, perishable food orders are delivered. The premise, however, is the same: One party prepares the food, while the other party delivers it. 

When restaurant brands prepare operationally for delivery, they must start by learning the skills required to use digital ordering successfully. That means employees must be able to:
•    Efficiently receive orders from outside the traditional point-of-sale interface.
•    Prepare orders just-in-time.
•    Package orders for off-premise consumption.
•    Conduct all the above activities without disrupting in-store operations. 

Key factor: Flow to the pick-up point
First prize in this new game goes to operators who can successfully manage alternative hand-off locations for orders retrieved at special pick-up counters and curb-side pick-up areas. In recent months, new and alternative technologies for last-mile delivery have emerged.

One example is Amazon Prime Air, a program that can send a drone from a centralized warehouse to the customer’s drop-off location. This comes with a pledge from Amazon "to deliver packages to customers around the world in 30 minutes or less." 

But, why stop at warehouse packages? The same concept can be used to deliver food in three ways: 
1.    Through restaurant-owned drones that deliver food to the customer and return to home for the next order.
2.    Through customer-owned drones which go to restaurant sites to collect delivery orders curb-side then return them to their customer/drone owner.
3.    Through third party-owned droneswhich circulate in the area between customers and restaurants much like today's car-sharing services, responding to collection and                delivery requests before returning to their roving mode. 

Still another possible option is the use of vehicles like Tesla Motors cars, some of which CEO Elon Musk said have had a software upgrade to include a new program called Summon. Much like the fictional character, Kitt, in the television show, Nightrider, Summon allows the Tesla owner to "summon" his or her vehicle and have it self-drive to that individual's location.
   
This feature could easily be tweaked to essentially turn "Summon" into "Fetch," to send a car to a restaurant's curbside pick-up to retrieve dinner for the family. This might even be enhanced through the added inclusion of something like that of Domino's Delivery Expert that heats the food en route.

Sound like science fiction? It's not. It exists, so the technology is already there. Of course, mainstream use will require both regulatory approval and social acceptance of delivery-by-robot. In fact, several people I’ve discussed these ideas with labeled them “creepy” or “scary." But companies like mine are here to cut through the unknown of these technologies, take away that fear and put them to work for you and your customers. 

About Noah Glass

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