Online food ordering is the process of ordering food from a website or other application. The product can be either ready-to-eat food or food that has not been specially prepared for direction consumption.
History in the US
The first online food order was a pizza from Pizza Hut in 1994. The online food ordering market has increased in the U.S with 40 percent of U.S adults having ordered their food online once. The online food ordering market includes foods prepared by restaurants, prepared by independent people, and groceries being ordered online and then picked up or delivered. The first online food ordering service, World Wide Waiter, was founded in 1995. The site originally serviced only northern California, later expanding to several additional cities in the United States. By the late 2000s, major pizza chains had created their own mobile applications and started doing 20–30 percent of their business online. With increased smartphone penetration, and the growth of both Uber and the sharing economy, food delivery startups started to receive more attention. In 2010, Snapfinger, who is a multi-restaurant ordering website, had a growth in their mobile food orders by 17 percent in one year. By 2015, online ordering began overtaking phone ordering. In 2015, China's online food ordering and delivery market grew from 0.15 billion yuan to 44.25 billion yuan. As of September 2016, online delivery accounted for about 3 percent of the 61 billion U.S. restaurant transactions.
Service types
Restaurant-controlled
In restaurant-controlled online food ordering, the restaurants create their own website and app, or choose to hire a delivery vendor. If they choose to create their own website, they make sure to obtain software that manages the orders efficiently, meaning it has the capability to manage different orders at once. When they hire a vendor, the restaurant pays for a monthly fee or percentage-based fees. The vendor covers the developmental costs. A customer can choose to have the food delivered or for pick-up. The process consists of a customer choosing the restaurant of their choice, scanning the menu items, choosing an item, and finally choosing for pick-up or delivery. Payment is then administered by paying with a credit card or debit card through the app or website or in cash at the restaurant when going to pickup. The website and app inform the customer of the food quality, duration of food preparation, and when the food is ready for pick-up or the amount of time it will take for delivery. Papa John's is one of the restaurants that created their own Papa John's system, website, and app, and do their own delivery. In 2010, they redesigned their website and launched mobile apps for iPhones, iPads, iPods, Androids Phones, Blackberrys, and Windows Phones. The preexisting delivery infrastructure of these franchises paired with the online ordering system. In 2010, Papa John's International announced that its online sales had exceeded $2 billion.
Independent
In this case, a person cooks and offers meals or kits via their website, which are then directly sent to consumers. The consumer chooses which meal and how many meals they want sent to their office or home, and pays depending on the meals or the program they are interested in. People choose to order meals from other people for different reasons: not wanting or having time to cook, wanting to eat home-cooked meals, or to lose weight by eating healthy foods. Examples of this type of service include DineWise, NutriSystem, Chef's Diet, etc.
Food cooperatives
Some food cooperatives like Macomb Co-op allow members to place orders of locally grown and/or produced food online and pick up and pay for their orders at a central location.
Food riders and drivers
The riders and drivers for nearly all independent restaurant delivery app services are independent contractors, having the flexibility to choose when they work.. In Australia, specifically riders for the food app of Foodora, consider themselves employees because they sometimes work full time hours, are required to wear uniforms, and do set shifts. However, food delivery riders and drivers usually do not receive any insurance coverage, protective gear, or sick pay as independent contractors, which have led to some asking for improved safety standards. In response, Deliveroo gave riders a helmet with a GoPro camera to record any problems they may face, specifically with criminals. The riders have the opportunity to raise safety concerns about delivery areas in the app.
