With Halloween approaching, pizza restaurants are gearing up for one of their biggest delivery days of the year. With families and neighborhoods trying to feed their hordes of kids before sending them off into the night, school-night parties and people flitting in and out like ghosts, it’s no wonder that pizza is the food of choice for many people on October 31.
For many pizza restaurant operators, Halloween is one of the busiest days each year and is a top 5 day for pizzas ordered using delivery service provides like DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub, according to the 30,000-plus restaurants and top brands using Delaget solutions. The same data shows the average pizza delivery order on Oct. 31 is $30.70. Pizza delivery traditionally has a relatively low dispute rate, but on Halloween 2023 clients saw 1.4% of transactions disputed across the top delivery apps, resulting in “scary transactions” that may cost the store revenue or — worse — their reputation with customers.
In the pizza industry, loyalty is everything. People expect accurate orders and timely delivery of still-hot food, and if they are disappointed, they may take future business elsewhere.
The rise of third-party delivery for pizza: opportunities and risks
Pizza franchises and restaurants are pioneers in delivery. Traditionally, many pizza places have had first-party delivery — their own drivers working at each location, giving the brands end-to-end control over the customer experience.
As third-party food delivery apps have proliferated and more people have joined the gig economy delivering food for those apps (rather than a specific restaurant), opportunities and risks have increased.
On the opportunity side, pizza restaurant operators can reach additional customers through the third-party apps, which make it easy for customers to have a single ordering experience and form of payment across many restaurants. Today, more than 54 million people use delivery apps in the U.S. Also, using third party drivers means a pizza restaurant can reduce headcount and avoid having drivers sitting idle during slow times.
Some pizza restaurants are even shifting to Delivery-as-a-Service (DaaS) — a dedicated contract with a delivery provider that lets the restaurant summon drivers as needed even for orders that come through the pizza place’s app, website or phone ordering system.
This approach also can present risks, however. Orders that come through a third-party app to the second-party provider don’t provide detailed customer data to the restaurant, and any shortcomings in how the app delivers customization requests, for example, might lead to an incorrect order.
How pizza restaurants can get in character for the Halloween rush
Here are some of the ways a pizza restaurant can get ahead of the October 31 delivery rush and reduce the risk of scary situations with third-party delivery:
- Staff and supply appropriately: Start with the basics. Make sure you have enough workers and inventory lined up for the rush, and a way for couriers to find orders.
- Make sure third-party pricing and items are correct: Before the holiday, update your menu and make sure your current pricing and promotions are reflected. Beware the ghosts of promotions past; if you had a limited-time item last month but don’t have it on the menu now, make sure it’s not listed as available. That’s another way customers can be disappointed.
- Prep for current offers and promotions: If you are running a combo special or LTO for Halloween — such as the jack-o-lantern pizza offered by Papa Johns — make sure those are reflected on all delivery apps, that you have amply supply, and that in-store workers keep combo items together. And on November 1, make sure limited time offers are taken down!
- Set aside
- Double-check orders: Make sure that sides, drinks and add-on items are ready to go. Drivers are in a hurry and may forget to check, so any work you put into ensuring delivery couriers have all the items at pickup will pay off by reducing errors and keeping customers happy.
Halloween has become one of the most popular holidays of the year for gatherings and is always a lot of fun for families. For many of those families, pizza is a part of the experience. With a little preparation and coordination with third-party delivery providers, the scariest night of the year can also be one of your pizza places’ best, and most profitable.
Andrew Critchell is Data Partnership Manager at Delaget. As the Data Partnership Manager, Andrew leverages his years of expertise working for delivery service providers to improve the profitability and efficiencies of restaurant operators in this important sales channel.
