Going delivery without poaching pick up customers......

[Luke]

Hi Guys,
Would love to hear your thoughts on how I can start delivery to try and get new customers without causing my existing pickup customers to switch to delivery at the same time…
We’re a 6week old local pizza shop doing solid fri/sat/sun business (about 150+ pizzas), but I want to expand the business in quieter mid week nights and later on weekend nights.
But I’m terrified as we’re so busy dealing with our usual rush hour pickup orders on the weekend, I don’t want to make it more complicated, and to have to increase labour for the same amount of pizzas.
We’re a one oven shop (wow ps640) and have about 3 people in from of our 3 door prep fridge making pizzas.

 

[d9phoenix]

Starting Delivery will incur a fairly large initial expense, and it will take time for it to start paying for itself.

But if you do it right, your ticket average should be higher then carryouts. So you need to decide if all the extra costs will be worth it in the long run, and make sure you can afford it in the short run.

From what you have said about your setup, in my opinion, you should not try to do delivery. It sounds like to me that you are already pretty much at max capacity during your busy periods.

Not trying to talk you out of it, just sharing my experience to give you a better idea of what you would be getting yourself into.

 

[Luca_Veltri]

I wish I had your problem. I wish I did NOT deliver. Unfortunately it is about 20% of my business. But finding drivers suck. Always communication problems with customers (example, they literately dont know their own address). The food doesnt taste the same. insurance goes up (if you get coverage. you can be sued for your drivers accidents and such). Not having delivery would be like winning the lottery for me. like D9phoenix said, if you don’t NEED it, then why? If you were struggling and not delivering, way different story. just my 2cents

 

[jerseydevil1977]

Try using one of the third party companies like uber eats or door dash that keep popping up. Amazon is even getting in on it. We ended up on door dash and we get one or two orders daily it seems and we didn’t even sign up with them. We do delivery so I’d rather not see the third party companies taking all the deliveries since that makes for disgruntled employees(drivers)and higher labor cost. Going from delivery to third party full stop wouldn’t shake out too well for us I suspect ad delivery usually makes up about 40 - 50 % of our orders.

Sent from my SM-G550T1 using Tapatalk

 

[bodegahwy]

if you decide to deliver (and I agree with the others that is sounds like you could do without) charge for delivery and move on. $5 delivery fee. If that is too much for the customer then they can keep on picking up.

In the end, some of them WILL switch to delivery. Don’t bother yourself about it. Provide the service the customer is looking for and charge for it.

 

[webtechads]

Totally agree with above. Also if your labor/operations are at max then delivery solution isn’t really a bad thing. Instead of customers huffing and puffing in a line waiting for their food you give that same food to a transport source (driver) and it is out of your store.

So just less that has to be done for taking the order at the front. Also if you have a 2nd POS for input ordering, just have the driver take orders. And wipe tables down every 30-40 min. Now you essentially have a supplemental employee on hand to do other minute stuff in between deliveries.

Charge fee and use that fee for the costs of insurance. Maybe speak to your insurance people about getting a discount in exchange for only hiring specific types of employees (over 25, no accidents etc.). Bring in an experienced delivery driver for that area and pay them 100-200 for few hours to consult about the area, places to park, dangerous areas, streets to remember, how to call customers etc. It sounds unneeded but when consulting with businesses, I cannot tell you how many times owners just don’t know anything about delivery other than the fact they hire drivers and they leave their delivery staff out to dry.

You end up having a bunch of workers who don’t know much, and what happens is bad habits get passed down. Enact few good habits, especially driving habits, and you will have amazing success with your delivery operations. I had one restaurant where I taught and tested drivers on taking left turns going perpendicular into dangerous traffic. For people who have only driven 20K or less miles in their lives, those are the type of turns that causes a great deal of accidents. Training them and having them aware of maneuvers like that go a long way in preventing accidents.

But long story short, train your drivers as much as you would in-house staff. It also is an operation that doesn’t have many complexities so once you get it right you can leave it on autopilot.