Domino’s Takes The Lead In Online Pizza Orders

Domino’s has been raising the stakes with a major rebranding effort lately, starting with the reformulation of its pizza ingredients and its counterintuitive marketing campaign based on criticism of the chain’s old recipe.

But maybe just as important in the long run is that Domino’s has moved to the forefront of the future of pizza ordering: online. Last year, the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based chain launched an app called Pizza Tracker that allows customers to monitor the progress of their online orders and delivery ETA.

Online orders now account for about one-fifth of Domino’s overall orders, and the company reportedly has moved ahead of Papa John’s and Pizza Hut to become the US leader in online orders.

In its online push, Domino’s may have drawn inspiration from a regional pizza brand in Michigan, Hungry Howie’s -- which significantly boosted its online ordering throughout last year. Hungry Howie's learned early on the value of not having workers waste valuable time answering the phone. Plus, orders posted online tend to be more accurate, and the tickets tend to be bigger because customers are more likely to add sides of bread and salad that they might not customarily order over the phone.

Of course, Domino’s isn’t new to delivery innovation: Its promise of free pizza if drivers couldn’t make delivery within 30 minutes of a phone order became the brand’s calling card as it grew in the 1980s to become a national player. Questions of liability for accidents caused by speeding Domino’s drivers eventually negated that positioning.

And until the industry figures out a way to deliver a virtual pizza, for now it will be customers who are logging on and delivery people pulling up to the curb.