Whether you like a curry on a Tuesday, chippy tea on a Friday, or a cheeky Chinese at the weekend, there is no limit to online services to order your food to your door.
The introduction of mobile applications to be able to order your favourite food has revolutionised this industry! Hundreds of takeaways and restaurants at your finger tips.
Benefits of ordering food online
Ordering food online may seem daunting to some, but actually it is relatively simple and the benefits outweigh traditional methods of ordering:
- Pay online: no need to have cash on you (but you can). Most services give you the option to pay by credit/debit card, cash and even PayPal. Online payments are more secure and easier to track with a trusted service.
- Confirmation of your order: phone calls to takeaways can often end with missed or wrong orders. With language barriers and difficult accents, ordering online is easy; selecting products from a given list ensures the order should be taken with minimal confusion.
- Instant updates: a lot of mobile apps, such as Domino's Pizza, now allow you to track your order. From kitchen preparation to delivery, you can find out what stage your order is at. Perfect if you need to be upstairs and don't want to miss the delivery.
- Unbelievable choice: Indian, Chinese, Italian, Caribbean, Portuguese, Spanish, English and more... There is so much choice with these apps, you no longer have to order from the menus in your drawer. Trying new things is part of the experience. In addition, each choice of cuisine has various takeaways. Maybe you prefer "Café Spice" to "Ali Baba's 40 Dishes"?
- Customer reviews: once you have ordered, you can leave a review. But when you are ordering, you can read the reviews. Too slow, not hot, poor service, poor food. Everything you would need to know written by like-minded individuals. Think of it as the Amazon reviews of the takeaway world!
Efficiency
The major benefit is the fact that it is mobile. Order whilst at work and beat the delivery home. Order whilst at the pub for when you get home. The mobile app means the user can order the food from anywhere, at any time. They don't have to be at the address when ordering, but it helps when they want to receive the order.
And there are more and more apps becoming available. Just Eat, Eatsy, Takeaway.com, hungryhouse, Fill My Belly and many more! There are even services that go and collect from takeaways that don't offer online delivery, or any kind of delivery at all (for a small fee of course).
The future?
Will this last? Is this the same as the high street?
Will we be ordering takeaway food online completely, just like we order music online with Amazon and iTunes, instead of visiting HMV in our high street? If we did, would the smaller takeaways close, or would that allow smaller brands to flourish. After all, food is based on preference, not brand or review.
I personally think this is good for the industry and its customers. More takeaways will be accessible and visible to users who would normally not consider or try a brand.
Diversity is what food is about. Trying all the different cuisines, finding your favourite, trying something different.
