Everyone and their mother, it seems, is just dying to bring food – cooked and otherwise – to your doorstep. With companies like San Francisco-based Munchery duking it out with Postmates, Sprig and Instacart, daily-deal giant Groupon has decided to join the brawl with Groupon To Go.
Hoping to stand out from the crowd by promising to save its customers up to 10 percent on every food delivery, Groupon plans to push its new service into Boston and Austin later this year after starting initially with a pilot-test in Chicago, its home base.
Sean Smyth, VP and GM at Groupon To Go, told TechCrunch that setting up a national network to order meals online and have them driven to your home piggybacks perfectly on the company s success with Food and Drink, a hugely popular category on the site s menu of discounts and deals. By adding a delivery component to the restaurants it already works with on dining-out specials, Groupon can add extra value to its vendors and to the diners who enjoy eating at their establishments but would rather eat at home tonight. Smyth calls that an end-to-end user experience, and Groupon s recent purchase of Baltimore-based delivery startup OrderUp will serve as the delivery, pardon the expression, vehicle for Groupon To Go.
It s one thing to promote menus and get order, but how do you get that last mile? It s that last mile that really inspired us to look at a company like OrderUp, he says, explaining why the company the Baltimore-based startup earlier in July .
Smyth explained to BusinessWire what a no-brainer the delivery idea is:
Most people get delivery and takeout multiple times a month, and with Groupon To Go, we re giving them an easy way to save money every time they do so. Delivery and takeout is a natural extension of our local deals marketplace, adding hundreds of the best restaurants to Groupon––including many that haven t offered online ordering until now.
The new service will launch with a slew of well-known restaurant chains that already offer delivery and take-out, including Quiznos, Popeyes, Subway and Papa John s. Eventually the service will be expanded to non-delivery restaurants around the nation. And OrderUp will handle the delivery duties for Groupon to Go. Over time, Groupon plans to enhance the service with things like real-time order tracking, so you can plot the progress of your delivery guy, along with group ordering and, as Munchery and others already do, setting up orders for future times and dates. The company posted more information at groupon.com/togo.
Credit: SiliconBeat
