8/28/2007 | It’s time to go online

Video games, sports and fitness equipment and event tickets are among the top-10 items purchased on the Internet.

Will pizza join this elite group anytime soon? Domino’s Pizza predicts it’ll happen as soon as 2008.

With the July 31 national rollout of its online ordering platform, Domino’s joined Pizza Hut and Papa John’s as the only national restaurant chains to offer the click-and-eat option to their customers.

Other concepts, however, are catching on to make online ordering available as an added patron convenience. Multi-tasking diners who don’t have time to visit a restaurant can get food delivered without making a call, and many say they enjoy the assurance their order will be correct because they placed it themselves.

“It gives the customer the feeling they’re in control of the order,” said Mike Frangos, founder of six-unit Rascal House Pizza in Cleveland . “It saves them time, they order exactly what they want and they get to look at the whole menu. … And they don’t have anybody asking them, ‘What was that? How do you spell your name?’ or putting them on hold.”

Though it’s the newest segment in the foodservice industry, fast-casual is a laggard when it comes to online ordering. According to Darren Tristano, executive vice president at Chicago-based Technomic Information Services, only 4 percent of fast casuals offer online ordering, among them Chipotle Mexican Grill and Baja Fresh Mexican Grill.

Tristano believes it’s only a matter of time before more fast casuals offer online ordering because its customers are some of the heaviest Internet users. The hurdle is making the investment, he said, and the slowdown often centers on approval from a large number of franchisees.

“The cost is very high in development and startup integration,” Tristano said. But “given the availability of open-source software, these costs are coming down.”

Still, the change is coming, he said. “I'm sure that fast-casual operators feel it will become a significant part of their business. Convenience pressure from consumers, especially the younger generation, will force operators to adapt to meet expectations.”

What’s the benefit?

On a recent Friday afternoon, an Internet order lighting up Frangos’ computer screen bore much more than pizzas. Sandwiches and mini-cheesecakes helped drive the transaction to more than $120, items he said might not have been ordered if the customer was using the phone. With the Web, the transaction proceeds at the customer’s speed, and inevitably, they buy more.

“We’re averaging $40 per transaction each time we get an Internet order,” he said. “We do a lot of catering, and there’s no question this helps that. People can see everything we have to offer, that it’s not just pizza.”

Annie Joseph-Maver, director of operations for 100-unit Pizza Pan, also in Cleveland , said the Internet allows the company to reach customers who might not receive its direct-mailed menus. Like Frangos, she believes people browse longer and find items they didn’t know were offered.

She also believes the Internet helps Pizza Pan’s non-English-speaking customers place orders.

“We have a big Spanish-speaking following, so we have our menu in Spanish,” she said. “They still have to order in English, but they can understand enough of it to do it on the Internet.”

Many Pizza Pan Web site users are college students, but Joseph-Maver said Internet orders aren’t limited to university campuses or the computer savvy generation.  “We’ll get orders from areas where you might not have thought people would have computers. But if they have a computer, they’ll order off the Internet.”

The time has come

Stan Garber , senior sales manager for Onosys, a provider of online-ordering platforms for the restaurant industry, said convincing restaurateurs they need online ordering isn’t as difficult as a few years ago when he and two friends started their company. But actually getting them to do it—that’s another story.

“We’re at the point now that independents really want it; when we get a call, they’re usually really gung-ho about it,” said Garber. “But you’ve got others who, though they want it, believe they’re not ready for it technologically. Some say, ‘I’ve still got to get my POS figured out.’”

Garber said many independent restaurateurs use Internet ordering to purchase supplies for themselves, so they understand the technology’s inherent convenience. But they often fear they need expensive equipment to offer it to their customers, or they’re concerned about security with credit card orders.

In its most basic form, fax machines are all operators need to receive Internet-based orders, he said. Not many operations, other than large chains, receive them directly into the POS system.

After receiving orders via fax for two years, Rascal House’s system moved a step further in the tech chain.

“Now it’s hitting directly at our ticket printer on the line,” Frangos said. His cooks handle Web orders as if they were any other order, he added, but then those tickets have to be reentered into the POS. “It’s not the fault of (our provider) that it’s not going directly to the POS; that’s a change we have to make. We’re hoping that within the next month we’ll make that upgrade.”

Garber said some of Onosys’s casual-dining customers are using Internet ordering strictly for carryout service.

“Outback Steakhouse has adapted it for its (Curbside Take-Away) program and done a great job of it,” he said. “It’s much more than ordinary carryout. The presentation is great and the packaging is really well done. They’ve really thought it through.”