Do you discount carryout ?

Pizza Shop Talk The Think Tank
1

So i was wondering how many people discount carryout or run a carryout special (even if it is just 1 size) ?

Currently i run 2 sizes (we do it for all sizes but we only tell people about the 12" and 14"). I have been thinking about this for awhile now, and i can see points for doing it and not.

My biggest pro reason is when a customer orders carryout, i do not need to employ the extra body (driver) to finish the order. This also means i spend less on insurance, Hence the discount.

But the Con that keeps bugging me, is the customer perspective of seeing a tiered pricing and the perception that we are making deliveries pay more.

2

We have coupons out there and if a customer looks they can always find one to use. They are welcome to use them on carryout too.

We have a delivery charge… so clearly that does not apply for C/O. I guess you could call that a discount.

3

We have the same price for pick up, dine-in or delivery, but delivery gets charged a delivery fee with half going to the driver and the other half to our operational expenses. We do not have a low minimum wage where it can be offset with tips so, on average our drivers are paid around $19 per hour, plus the delivery fee component. That is why we keep half the fee, but with delivery we still get less in the pocket than pick up.
Dave

4

We have the coupons in the computer if someone ask for them. Its an extra $1 off and it seems to make them happy. Most people don’t ask.

5

Depends on who you competition is. Our brand is direct competition with Big 3. But I do not ADVERTISE a special price but it is hanging in my lobby. I make more money on a delivery even when you consider the cost of a driver and delivery service. When my average price per carry out is $14 but my delivery is $21 I know for a fact it does not cost an extra $7 to deliver.

Back to your question though - depending on your individual market is what you can deem appropriate. I do not see many true independents having a tier price and even a local chain like Abo’s does not - but if you are fishing in the big pond then you have to do what the others are doing or you get less bites. There are 3 -4 ponds out there. Big 3 is a 70 share while bottom feeders like Pizza Patron and Little Caesars are bottom 10 share. Indies are top 20 share. Choose your pond and use the right bait.

6

We charge a $3 delivery fee. This is more than a dollar less than it costs us to deliver so as long we are using the same coupons for both we make more money on a carryout. We also find that many customers looking to save money will prefer carryout because they do not feel the need to tip or tip as much.

Our average tip for a delivery is about $5 so a carryout that puts a couple bucks in the tip jar on the counter saves $5-6. This price leverage can give us access to a different customer too. In our off season we promote carry-outs with a specific offer to attract this customer even though the offer is the same they could find on a delivery except for the delivery charge.

7

I was tempted to start charging more for our carryout due to the consumable usage (circles, boxes, etc etc) nearing $0.85 per pizza.

its more beneficial to our bottom line to have them dine in-house than it is for them to take it our the door, I see higher per guest averages, and no disposables getting used.

8

We do Carryout special 12" 1 top for $7.99 14" 1 top for $8.99
For delivery 12" 1 top is 9.49, 14" 1 top is $11.79 and add $2 delivery charge
we’ve had these carryout specials for several years and sell a lot of them.
Carryout accounts for 35% of our sales. Delivery is 65%

9

In our market, with our labor and occupancy costs I would go out of business with those prices.

10

When we first purchased we used to offer 10% off for pickups. Nobody even noticed it and our average pickup was 25$ at the time.

I changed it about 2 years ago to any purchase over $30.00 gets a free 2 litre pop, since then my pickups have gone up considerably.

Considering I pay at most 1.87 + deposit/tax on them and we usually stock up when they are on sale for $1.00 ea (usually monthly)… We save quite a bit. It allows us to up sell and people see the free bottle of pop as a much higher value than it really is.

11

I may need to try that promo, it seems as if any freebie offered will get people flocking to you.
We started doing free cheese-bread (sub roll, garlic butter, mozz & herbs) with any pizza, and saw a huge increase.
I did the freebie because I had a batch of sub rolls that were cut too deep and a sandwich wasn’t holding together properly, so instead of tossing them out, we used them up and gained higher pie sales

12

my angle with discounted carry out vs delivery is the drivers: i co-own this place and it seems to find good,reliable drivers who willing to work! our number 1 driver gets up to 1500! he drives a bmw for deliveries (for crying outloud) and he always complains about doing little stuff as dishes or occasional swiping and (or ) mopping.other drivers even worse. got to the point that i would back up delivery times on purpose so customer comes in for pick up . now we do better business this place ever done-but- pick ups and dine in decreased and the deliveries went up. so i want to offset it back and keep or increase the business volume.