The Scramble for the Rumble in the Tummy
This article looks to understand the current food scene. Through the analysis of these articles:
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/there-isnt-enough-special-sauce-to-win-the-burger-wars-11573813981?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=1
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/dominos-growth-story-is-getting-stale-11570550829
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/frozen-dinners-make-a-comeback-1536418800
- https://www.wsj.com/articles/restaurants-strike-back-in-food-delivery-war-11563184800
For the longest time, when individuals were hungry at anytime of the day, they generally had the following options:
- Bring food from home
- Taste: The quality would probably vary
- Health: Depends, but there is flexibility
- Convenience: Takes a chunk of the morning or the night before
- Cost: Generally a lot cheaper than any other option
- Go to a fast food restaurant
- Taste: Depends on the options but the quality is generally low
- Health: Generally unhealthy
- Convenience: Some transportation / waiting in line
- Cost: Generally cheap, but not as cheap as home
- Go to a sit down restaurant
- Taste: Depends, but will be better than home or fast food
- Health: Generally somewhat healthy
- Convenience: Long lines, waiting for the food, some transportation
- Cost: Expensive, tipping included
These tended to be the generally options for most eaters. Whether it was for students or for workers, the options were limited and depending on the time restraints most individuals were not expected to be satisfied with their meals. Around 2007, Domino’s began offering online pizza ordering. By 2008, they “revolutionized the online delivery experience by introducing the Pizza Builder and Domino’s Tracker tools” (the functionality that let’s you see the progress of the food). With the addition of such convenience and great taste, the market accept Domino’s efforts in the pizza world.
For a long time, Domino’s had a large market share of the delivery market. However, it wasn’t till the 2010’s that other players began to infiltrate the market space. Enter Postmates, Doordash, and Uber Eats, which would now allow individuals to purchase gourmet meals from their favorite restaurants and have it delivered to their office or school. This would end up opening numerous options for individuals to choose from. Individuals would now be able to worry less about the convenience/taste factor whenever they were hungry.
Although this introduces an interesting networks issue of multiple players in the market, this actually creates an issue of the boom-bust cycle. Not only does a large user base of the service increase the trust and belief for the use of these services, but the restaurants that are available for users to select from is also essential to the business model and the success of the service.
Another interesting thing to note is the fact that these new services are not exactly competitors with Domino’s or other fast food restaurants. They are actually services that have the opportunity to synergize with fast food. However, the issue is that fast food and domino’s is already “fast” and the convenience is already there; hence, their benefit wouldn’t be as great in comparison to other restaurants that make the decision to partner with them. These services do exactly what Syndrome set out to do in The Incredibles, “when everyone is super, no one will be.” By allowing other sit-down restaurants to become “fast” and deliverable, it eats away Domino’s and other fast-food player’s markets and takes away the their edge. Which is most likely, why there is an increase in experimentation and efforts by fast-food restaurants to create new unique meals and healthier options for the market.
From the perspective of networks, it can be viewed as edges drawn from stranded sit-down restaurant nodes to consumers. Although these nodes might have been popular among some loyal customers that would make the trip, through the new delivery infrastructure, these restaurants are now more accessible to different audiences and a rating system that allow for information cascades to influence eaters’ decisions.