Sorry QFC, my personal opinion is that there is no competition with the big chains in term of food quality and maybe even in the pricing category. Your biggest success comes from a quality product and superior customer service – both of which the major chains lack. Basically the only real thing they have to offer is low prices and a familiar name.
Houston that was kind of the point I was trying to make. The problem that I see in here is that it looks like there are a lot of people that are trying to open pizza establishments and are trying to go against the national chains. Personally I do not think it is financially wise to try that route. You have to make it on quality and customer service. I believe that people will pay that little bit more for the better product and the comment I was making was in reference to my local competition that I will be opening against. 10 years and no delivery since day 1. They make a good pizza and they charge a premium price and every single one has been picked up or eaten there. That’s what I was talking about…not actually supporting the idea of trying to compete with the mass produced garbage out there.
Bubba you will always have both ends of the game in whatever type of food catagory you look at. You have the big companys that sell mass produced garbage and the smaller ones that make the higher quality products. It all depends on your market and what you want to make out of your business. If your market only supports the coupon loving always needing a buy on get one free mindset…then you need to buy cheap so you can sell cheap… but the other side of the coin is if you do not want to be tied down by that rat race you can build a client base that will pay for a decent pizza as a meal and not just as a fast food option. The dollars can be there on both ends…just depends if you want quantity or quality. Pick the middle and find which side your market pulls you towards.
110% on the money…if you are going to do it, do it from the start…tell your partner that on those bad weather days that pick-up and dine-in are dead you will be very happy that you deliver…not only does it save your day it might even be better than normal…we did not deliver for 20yrs and in 3 yrs it has become a major part of our biz
. Try to work out the kings before you open. Soft or otherwise. Even though you will find there is always kinks that have to be worked out on the fly. We tested almost everything on our menu before opening the doors, including the delivery service. You might think it’s a waste of money, but in the long run it’s not. We started with and still use a delivery service. I just finished a mail out promoting a $2.00 delivery anywhere in our area. Depending on where you are from will dictate delivery charges. Most places in our area charge $4 to $5 for delivery. But the point is our product prices stay the same but there is a difference in the prices our customers pay over our competition and I guarantee our business will go up as a result of the delivery promotion.
Having your but taken to the cleaners opening day sucks. I have been there. Taking the safer route is better than taking the chance that you will give bad service to your customers. Getting out the idea that you deliver is easy enough. Just drop your whole delivery area with door hangers. Do inserts, Advo, and direct mailings. That is basically a marketing problem. With one store opening, we did a Grand Opening and printed that delivery would start two weeks later on 30,000 fliers. Started distributing them two weeks before the opening, and things were not only smooth, the customers knew what was going on, and we did actually deliver the few delivery orders that came in before the actual delivery start date. People are much more understanding if you let them know ahead of time than they are about getting a 2 hour old pizza delivered.