I grew up in a town that is 8 miles from the town that I own my shop in. It is a small town of about 2,000 people. We currently do not deliver to this town because it would slow our drivers down too much and they would rather make 4 deliveries in town then take 1 to that would take about 25 minutes round trip. This town does need something, there are only a subway. It also has a hotel with an indoor water park. I just bought a house in the small town and now everywhere I go people are always questioning me about why we don’t deliver here. I can’t go get gas or go have a beer without having to explain that it would be a burden on our drivers.
I have debated delivering to the town Monday-Thursday nights. That way it wouldn’t effect our busiest times.
I have also thought about buying a car that is exclusively for delivery and hiring someone that only delivers with this car to the town. That way they are not using there own car. I would charge a delivery fee that the store would keep. This person would also have to be an insider when we have no deliveries for them.
We have been slower lately and the extra money from doing these would be helpful, I just don’t want it to effect my current customers by having deliveries waiting for a driver to get back from a 25-30 minute run.
In addition to being a burden on the drivers you have to consider the burden on the budget. Is it cost effective to spend 30 min of additional labor to sell a large pepperoni pizza. Depending on how you compensate your drivers this could be a money losing proposition for you as well unless you tack on a large delivery fee or a hefty minimum order size.
One idea would be to have a central meeting place in the small town where you meet people at a pre-determined time with their order.
Deliveries at 6 pm and 8 pm at the firehouse.
please have orders called in by 5pm and 7 pm respectively.
If you had 3 or 4 orders each time it would definatly be worth the labor and if you start doing enough business you could always start delivering from 5 until 8 pm right to the customers door, and hopefully sending doubles and triples.
if so then i say go for it market the crap out of it your driver wont be taking just 1 at a time he can take 2-3 at a time quote 45-60 min del time let him drop an in town then shoot out there have them meet the driver at the 1st church or grocery store on that road call b4 leaving and let them know your eta 10-12 mins charge $5 del fee and split with driver 80/20 or gice it all when your driver is making 10-15 a trip and be able to listen to 3-4 songs he wont be upset
I don’t see where an 8 mile ride is going to kink your operations.
How long does it take to get there, maybe 10 min.? I do agree with the raised min. food purchase and increased del fee. I deliver daily to an area that is 5 to 10 miles away. We charge an extra $1, which goes to the driver. If you worry about your del. times, get another driver to “float”, work inside and deliver.
The important thing to do initially is to market in the town and have a build up of maybe 1 month so the buzz will build interest. I also would rethink the Mon to Thurs. idea. Half your sales probably come from Thur, Fri and Sat. or Fri, Sat and Sun. You are leaving out the best part of the week to deliver.
If nothing else, try it for 2 months and if you don’t see an increase in deliveries, stop going. This way when you are in the town and folks ask why you don’t deliver anymore, you can say you tried for 2 months and there was not enough interest.
We have a pizza place about 20 miles from us that delivers to our town only once per hour to group the orders. It is well known that you need to have your order phoned in before the hour (:00) and they will deliver after the half (:30). They are quite a popular alternative to the few places we do have in town.