Domino’s Adds GPS Tracking to Delivery Orders

Need to Know

• Domino’s Pizza is adding GPS tracking technology to their apps, enabling real-time tracking for pizza orders.
• The pizza chain is the largest in the US, pulling in over $12.2 billion in revenue from nearly 15,000 locations.
• The announcement comes as third-party delivery apps such as Uber Eats—already equipped with GPS—are moving into profits.

Analysis

After years of tracking pizza order progress in-store, customers can now follow their dinner journey from restaurant to door. 

After months of testing, Domino’s Pizza will join the likes of Uber Eats and other delivery apps by adding GPS tracking technology to their already popular delivery app.

“We know that customers love Domino’s Tracker and the ability to monitor their orders in the store. Now they will also be able to watch their orders on the way to their house with our delivery tracker,” said Dennis Maloney, Domino’s senior vice president and chief digital officer. 

For years, the pizza chain has built a “reputation as one of the most tech-friendly restaurant companies, as it tries to improve its delivery by testing drones and self-driving cars.” 

When Domino’s released a tracker in 2008 that allowed customers to monitor the progress of their pizza order, it changed delivery for the industry. But keeping up with the massive number of competing third-party apps such as Uber Eats, Seamless, and DoorDash left DOmino’s current tracking technology fairly obsolete.

“Since Pizza Hut launched the first-ever pizza online order back in 1994, online food delivery has become a billion-dollar business,” writes Statista. In Canada, almost 11 million people ordered food online in 2019, which is a twelve percent increase from the year prior. 

But as it turns out, third-party apps are actually beginning to replace restaurants’ core business rather than complementing it. In 2016, delivery transactions made up about 7% of total US restaurant sales, and analysts at Morgan Stanley predict that “that number could eventually reach 40% of all restaurant sales.” 

However, with delivery apps, 20-40% of revenue can go towards the third-party company, meaning restaurants are not seeing a return on investment.

As a result, while more delivery apps are created and iterated upon, many restaurants are creating or improving their own delivery services. This means that as platform-to-consumer delivery apps like Uber Eats and DoorDash skyrocket, restaurant-to-consumer delivery, like Domino’s, grows too.