Increasing consumer use of mobile and voice assistants to order food for delivery – itself a booming sector – may force restaurants to invest in more technology to meet demand.
So finds online Italian food retailer, nifeislife.com, which analysed CGA’s Go Technology report, which says that with 40% of consumers believing that they will see “more restaurants offering delivery from their website” in the future, with restaurants fast becoming the go-to source of information for food orders. Comparatively, just 29% of consumers predict “more mobile delivery” in food.
With devices like Siri and Alexa becoming also increasingly popular in the homes of UK consumers, ‘automated voice’ is set to be huge in food. Consumers agree, with a fifth (22%) saying voice-based ordering is here to stay.
Together, this suggests restaurants may need to invest in their own tech, if they are to keep up with demand and lessen the risk of falling behind.
And they need to keep up – food delivery is a booming market. According to CGA’s Go Technology report, 28% of British consumers are now ordering more food online than a year ago.
Half of food deliveries are ordered by millennials and 44% of grub ordered is purchased via online channels.
61% of frequent delivery consumers think the quality of the food they receive is better than, or the same as, food served in a restaurant. An impressive feat, which may explain why chains like Jamie’s Italian, Carluccio’s and the Prezzo Group have faced rapid closure in the past 12 months.
Nifeislife’s analysis reveals that A third (33%) of consumers expect ‘GPS tracking’ to become an essential part of the food delivery process; monitoring a meals journey, providing a realistic ETA and combatting consumer concern over “misplaced orders.”
Lastly, fewer consumers predict advances in drone delivery (16%), such as pin-point location accuracy, and in driverless vehicle (15%) technology. Some restaurants have already begun experimenting with self-driving cars, drones and robots to make transportation and, in turn, delivery easier and more convenient.
