Fast Casual Increasingly Embracing Mobile Payments, Mobile Order-Ahead
Fast casual dining, that pleasant little platform that lurks somewhere between fast food and “you want me to pay how much for a salad?”, has been gaining a lot of ground lately. Its comparative value, its slightly high-end fare, and its familiarity have made it a welcome guest for many who’d just rather not cook on any particular night. Fast casual has been working to improve its operations to strike while the iron is so clearly hot, and for many, mobile order-ahead—and by extension mobile payments—has proven one great way to call in users.
In retrospect it should have been obvious, but customers seem to like not waiting around for dinner at a fast casual restaurant—or anywhere else, really—and instead prefer placing orders via an app. While this was a great notion at fast food restaurants, which were already pretty slim in terms of wait times, fast casual like IHOP and Applebee’s started to pick up the notion too.
It goes on from there; around 13 percent of Starbucks transactions are made with mobile order and pay options, and GrubHub recently picked up LevelUp in a $390 million deal. Domino’s reports that its gets 10 percent of its app traffic at about six every afternoon, and with 150,000 Domino’s Hotspot locations now active and delivering to places like parks and sports fields, trade is up there as well.
Sitting around a restaurant and waiting—waiting for someone to take an order, for food to be cooked, for food to be brought, for a check to be brought, for a check to be picked up—gets in the way of the rest of the evening. Since Americans aren’t exactly known for time off, they want to get as much done with what they’ve got, and mobile order-ahead helps make that happen. The places that get what customers want will be more frequented, and the end result is survival in the market. So those who bring in mobile order-ahead will keep their customers and bring in new ones.
It’s a safe bet that mobile order-ahead will continue gaining ground; customers want it, and businesses that use it are seeing the value first-hand. So look for mobile order-ahead, and mobile payments, to reach your favorite restaurants soon…if it hasn’t already.