Consumers want what they want, when they want it. But when it comes to ordering meals, there’s a sense of urgency that outpaces everything else.
Enter mobile order-ahead services.
Generation Z and Generation X are hungry for convenience, and they are lauding meal delivery services with high marks — and rising adoption rates. Businesses from fast food chains to superfood cafes to even grocery stores are catching the cue from consumers and jumping aboard the mobile ordering bandwagon.
The December PYMNTS Mobile Order-Ahead Tracker ™ looks at how eateries big and small are aiming to stay in customers’ good graces and keep the commerce (and food) flowing with mobile order-ahead options.
Around the Mobile Order-Ahead World
Ordering a meal to get delivered to the home or office may start looking quaint compared to new mobile ordering options available at the airport. Now, passengers at Dubai International Airport can schedule drinks and meals to arrive right at their boarding gates.
Plus, the newest foodie find may be restaurants that don’t, in the traditional sense, exist. Uber Eats is letting customers order poke bowls, sandwiches and other items from so called “virtual restaurants” that lack physical dine-in presences, instead offering only take-out and delivery.
As for cooking-charmed consumers who don’t want to kick the kitchen but could take a pass on weaving metal carts down grocery store aisles, Kroger has a new solution. Select grocery store locations will let consumers place grocery orders via smartphone or desktop and then swing by the brick-and-mortar store to pick up their haul from the curbside.
Delivering Hot Meals and Hot Ways to Pay
Little restaurants, too, can join in the dash for delivery through companies like DoorDash, which connects eateries with app-armed, would-be-deliverers eager to snatch up a local gig. And at the end of the delivery line, hungry customers.
Abhay Sukumaran, DoorDash product manager, told PYMNTS that the app- and website-based delivery service doesn’t just bring businesses to small restaurants and nourishment to busy customers – it is also changing how people pay for deliveries. Customers can order from their favorite restaurant using any method that DoorDash accepts, even if the merchant doesn’t accept that particular payment option.
“We’ve found that there is a shift happening from traditional payment instruments, like credit cards, to things like Apple Pay,” Sukumaran said. “Our rate of Apple Pay penetration is four to five times the overall average across the industry.”
To read the full story, get the latest headlines and see rankings of 67 players in the Mobile Order-Ahead space, check out the newest Tracker.
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About the Tracker
The PYMNTS Mobile Order-Ahead Tracker™ serves as a monthly framework for the space, providing coverage of the most recent news and trends, along with a provider directory highlighting the key players contributing across the segments that comprise the mobile order-ahead ecosystem.
We’re always on the lookout for opportunities to partner with innovators and disruptors.
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