As I had mentioned in another thread, I am reviewing a business for purchase in a university area which has about 50k-70k or even 100k people going through the area every day.
The business I am reviewing is about 500-700 meters (1500 - 2100 feet) away from the university core and a good 5- 7 min walk. The last few months however saw a few restaurants opening VERY close (200 meters/600 feet) to the university core and I suspect it would affect the sales at the business I am considering, because of the convenience factor.
I was wondering, what if I added online ordering/delivery right to the university core or main door of the university bldg. Students/customers would need to pick up their order from the main door, instead of walking all the way 5 mins away to the shop.
Delivery would be done in batches of 15 - 20 mins. Order before 11AM, your order will be delivered in the 11:15 batch, order before 11:15AM and your order will be delivered in 11:30 batch etc. It would take only about 2 mins to go from the shop to the university core.
The university core is the hub of all activity and acts like a gateway into the university itself and I think I would be able to tap into huge customer base by delivering to just 1 location, that is convenient to every one around that area.
I was thinking of charging $1 for delivery, since it is only 2 mins away.
Youre expecting drunk and high college kids to be at a meeting spot to get their food. Youre getting into this buisness in the age of convience-for the customer only-and always more inconvient for the pizza store.
Your idea while good on paper would amount to a giant mess
This is for the lunch hours so no drunk students here.
Also the drop off location is close to where their classes are. Its also close to other restaurants in the food court etc. Which are all within a minute or 2 of each other.
I figured it would be like delivering to a office or a warehouse.
Also this is sandwich shop delivery, not pizza. I don’t think that makes a difference.
I think you’re trying too hard to have a perfectly set plan in place. That sort of thing you need to just give it a try and see how it works.
We deliver to a local college pretty often. We deliver to wherever they’re at. I printed out a map of the school and we always try to get good directions. All my drivers know where all the different dorms and administrative buildings are now. Usually they like the driver to call when they’re there and they come out. We rarely have any problems.
Before I start delivering all across the campus I am thinking of just starting off small from 1 location and 1 driver at 1 time period (lunch), so as to not mess up and spend too much on labor or have service issues etc.
I am doing this just to get in on the action of that exists in the campus core, which I am unable to rught now because the shop is 5 to 7 min walk away from campus core and students like things which are only 2 min walk.
Your plan sounds good, but chances are you’re not going to have all these deliveries that you can’t handle right out the gate. If you do, then that’s a great problem to have. Most likely what will happen is you will start with your 1 driver and you will get very few deliveries in the beginning and gradually get more and more over time. Now are you really going to turn away a delivery that is across campus if your driver has no deliveries or could easily get it there without compensating any of the closer ones?
The dilemma is that the price of a sandwich is about $8 and the majority of the students dont want to pay a $3 delivery fee for it. So if I start delivering all across campus, it might not be feasible.
So I figured that I will let students order as little as one sandwich for $8, and will also deliver only for $1, but will limit delivery only to the campus core where are the food joints are, and there is also massive food court/lounge area seating there. The campus core is also only a 2 min drive away from my shop, which is convenient for me as well.
Advertising will be pretty easy cause there is only 1 major intersection close to the campus core which gets 80% of all the traffic going in and out of the campus, be it via public transit or cars. It might be like shooting fish in a barrel. Also my sandwich shop has a good product and brand equity, so I think I might be able to get about 5 - 20 orders at least per hour for the 3 hour lunch period. With initially starting off with 5 orders/hour to gradually increasing to 20 orders/hour over the course of a month.
How I derived that number is
there are 25000 people in 2 blocks adjacent to the campus core which has a lot the restaurants. Of those restaurants, 10 cater to sandwiches.
I am assuming
[LIST]
[]40% of students buy their lunch and
[]of those, 40% prefer sandwich for lunch and
[*]of those, 50% prefer eating at the campus core for convenience, instead of going further away.
[/LIST]
25000 (students) X 50% (who eat close to the campus core) X 40% (who buy lunch) X 40% (who prefer sandwiches)/10 (sandwich places close to campus core)
= 200 customers/sandwich shop in the campus core
= 70 customers/hour/sandwich shop in the campus core
If I can get 2 customers from each of the 10 sandwich shops per hour, I would have 20 customers per hour, just by delivering to one location in campus core.