Order Pizza Like Sandra Bullock
Pizza Hut
Three boys who used to share a large pizza with Mom and Dad can now devastate two if left alone, leaving none for the poor hard-working parents who sweated and slaved to earn the money so they could summon Mr. Friendly Pizza Man. The formerly preferred method of summoning this chap was by dialing the telephone when said instrument was not already in use by someone grunting about PlayStation games or who said what about whom at the lockers before lunch.
But Mr. Friendly Pizza Man no longer interrupts such pressing conversations. Instead, he can be summoned with a few mouse clicks. And if this trend towards convenience isn't checked soon, we'll have trouble right here in River City because Mr. Friendly Pizza Man's website may soon be storing that credit card thingy that people use instead of money.
The Great Pizza Online Bake Off
Well, not exactly a bake off, but our family has been playing with the major delivery chain web sites to figure out which one satisfies the wild lads' pizza cravings at the best price. We have typically ordered from the local pizza guys, but the chains are aggressively courting at home wired users so we've been returning to them to see which we prefer.
Ordering Pizza Like Sandy Bullock
Remember web geek Sandra Bullock ordering a pizza online in the 1995 thriller The Net? You are forgiven for not remembering because at just over $50 million in revenue, the film was hardly the highlight of Bullock's career. But her Angela Bennett character managed to surf to a pizza shop and custom build a pie years before the rest of us could.
The movie's producers weren't exactly prescient. Pizza Hut was one of the Internet's food delivery pioneers, first testing online ordering in Santa Cruz, California in 1994. But the company still doesn't do a good job promoting its online offerings and doesn't even have national distribution yet. Much ado is made over gimmicky marketing, but the company still hasn't publicly stated, "Order online from everywhere" and still relies on a zip code locator prospective customers check to find out if online ordering is available in their area.
Once you have confirmed that you can contact Mr. Friendly Pizza Man with a mouse, you too can be ordering pizza like Sandy Bullock.
Make It Cheaper and Buy Their Business
The obvious advantage to ordering pizza online is that stores are able to cut expenses. In a pure market, this would ultimately result in lower prices through a chain of competition and price changes. This has not happened yet, but the ruling oligopoly of Dominos, Pizza Hut and Papa John's continue to fight a vicious price war among consumers who are indifferent to brand.
Pizza Hut's online strategy appears to intensify this price war by offering web only coupons including a $7.99 any size pizza with unlimited toppings for first time web purchasers. Whether the price cutting continues remains a mystery, especially given Domino's long delayed entry into online ordering. Meanwhile, Pizza Hut is using a fairly robust shopping cart application called QuikOrder to track order history and provide a visual upsell on every order.
Perfecting The Pie
Always go for olives and pineapple on a thin crust? Or do you like the stuffed crust with red onions and anchovies? Pizza Hut's QuikOrder allows you to select a crust and choose from fifteen toppings. You can also order toppings on half a pie just like you could by ordering on the telephone or in person. You can even choose four sauce variants — including no sauce, although pizza without sauce is called an open-face sandwich in my house
Quick links lead to best sellers and the chain's more expensive Lovers pizza line. Those are the pizzas that sound good on television and wind up costing you twice what you though pizza cost. Also located on the order screen are all the side orders on the standard menu including 2 liter bottles of soda (Pepsi products, natch, given the company's ownership) at a hefty $1.89. Customers who don't mind check building can even order extra dipping sauces for a small fee.
When Did We Start Charging For Delivery?
Remember when we went over basic economic theory that states lower costs result in lower prices in a pure market? At Pizza Hut, lower costs mean adding a fifty cent delivery charge to online orders. Perhaps this fee was always bundled into telephone orders, but the cynic in me screams out that this is an accountant's idea of recouping costs for building the online application.
The store requires registration and warns that first-time orders may be verified to ensure they are legitimate. We didn't receive such a call, but the Brotherhood of Friendly Pizza Men most likely has a large map somewhere with a huge red circle around our house.
You can pay for your order using any major credit card, but this is where the system miserably fails. Despite billions of dollars worth of goods and services annually ordered on the web, Pizza Hut requires the credit card be presented and a charge slip signed when the order arrives. My inner cynic, now raging, figures that this allows Pizza Hut to simply store the credit card number on the order rather than paying the extra transaction fee to verify the credit card and address. Let's face reality. Most folks are ordering pizza delivery from home using their own credit card. For a small fee that most web merchants consider the cost of doing business, their credit card processor will verify the credit card number's validity against the address. The company does send a verification email, but since email is never tied to an address, that seems rather pointless.
The Bottom Line, Clicks and All
Convenience is the name of this game. Remembering the Pizza Hut phone number is harder than typing the web address. Taking your time to make sure you get everything you want and having a chance to upsell is like icing on the pizza. Or tomato sauce. Or something like that.
Ordering from Pizza Hut Online saves the trouble of a phone call if you're already actively on the web when hunger pangs strike. Rather than asking for the specials or digging for coupons, you also have electronic coupons on your screen.
Perhaps the most convenient aspect of the entire process is the ability to place an order online for a future time. If you know you will be buying pizza later, placing the order to arrive at a certain time has its appeal — perhaps the key differentiator between Pizza Hut and Papa John's.
The entire service gets a wary thumbs up from me. I will try the service again since we always have at least one computer online, but I will also be watching for hidden charges and pricing that differs from telephone-based ordering. And heaven help us if the company does start accepting credit cards for payment without seeing the actual card and my boys find out. Mr. Friendly Pizza Man could become a regular visitor for an entire month until his cousin, Mr. Friendly Credit Card Statement arrives to tally the damage.
Five Things To Remember From This Review
1. Online ordering is not available in all areas.
2. Ordering online triggers a fifty cent delivery charge that may be bundled in the cost when ordering by phone, but is still blatant here.
3. Credit card orders also require the card be present when the pizza arrives.
4. You can place an order to be delivered at a later time, but not on a different day.
5. You will have to register to use the site, which results in the company tying an email address to your physical address.
