Texting for Takeout Food: Let Your Fingers Do the Ordering

As if ordering delivery take-out food wasn’t already easy enough, USA Today recently reported that soon it may no longer be necessary to even talk to another person on the phone to put in your order. That’s because text ordering is being adopted by more and more national fast-food and other restaurant chains, allowing users to send their requests for sustenance via a cell phone.

 

Among the chains now offering or looking into offering text ordering: Papa John’s (national TV spots now promote the service), Domino’s (launched last July), Pizza Hut (soon to get started), Quiznos (considering), Dunkin’ Donuts (considering), Subway (considering), McDonald’s (testing in Seoul), and Starbucks (trial underway in London and in one U.S. store).

 

The USA Today report quoted Papa John’s CEO Nigel Travis as saying that the potential of texting can be compared to online ordering, which currently accounts for 20 percent of the company’s sales. (He went on to predict that, within two years, texting will account for 3 percent of sales.)

 

Americans send about 30 billion text messages each month, USA Today noted. GoMoboo.com CEO Noah Glass was quoted in the report as predicting that texting very well might account for 25 percent of all takeout food orders by the time another decade is gone.

 

Not everyone is thrilled about using cell phones to text in takeout orders, though; some users are concerned about privacy. For example, one user quoted in the USA Today report said he guards his cell phone number carefully, describing it as “the last firewall of privacy.” Giving it to a national restaurant chain in the process of placing an order could be in invitation to unwanted calls, he implied.

 

What do you think—do the benefits of text ordering outweigh the potential privacy breaches?