Domino’s upgrades online ordering

Domino’s Pizza began a national campaign Monday to promote a new “pizza profiles” feature for its digital-ordering platform, allowing customers to save their information and frequent orders for faster service.

Chief marketing officer Russell Weiner said in a statement that the ability to reorder favorite pizzas and other items would allow Domino’s customers to place orders in as few as five clicks.

“Our new campaign is the ultimate in bringing together convenience and value,” Weiner said. “We are extremely proud of the online-ordering platform we have made available to our fans and customers for the past five years, and today — with the addition of customized profiles and the ability to place a lightning-fast order from Domino’s — it gets even better.”

Beginning Monday, Domino’s will also reward fans who create a pizza profile by giving away 100 $10 gift cards per day through Dec. 1. Official rules and details are available at dominos.com/sweeps.

Domino’s and its major pizza segment competitors, Pizza Hut and Papa John’s Pizza, were among the first brands in the restaurant industry to invest in and roll out digital ordering on a systemwide scale, and they have leveraged their dominance in online and mobile orders to take market share from smaller regional chains and independent pizzerias the past few years.

Recently, Pizza Hut began testing a digital-ordering app available on the XBox Live network for online gaming and streaming entertainment. Papa John’s was the first pizza chain to roll out an online loyalty program, Papa Rewards, which tracks customers’ order history and gives away a free pizza once they attain certain levels of rewards points.

In an interview, Domino’s spokesman Chris Brandon said a similar loyalty rewards program could be added to pizza profiles in the future, but for the near term the gift card giveaway would be the major incentive to encourage customers to establish profiles. “We’re always going to be looking at ways to get people to give it a try,” he said. “The profile is going to be a big part of the convenience we offer. We’ll keep looking at ways to drive people to it, and giving away 100 gift cards a day is going to be a good initial offer.”

Digital ordering already accounts for about 35 percent of Domino’s domestic transactions, and that percentage continues to grow, he added. “Mobile ordering is the fastest-growing method for us,” Brandon said, “so the whole pizza profiles program is another way to continue growing that.”

Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Domino’s operates or franchises more than 10,400 stores in the United States and 70 international markets.

Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].
Follow him on Twitter: @Mark_from_NRN