Online Ordering Introduces New Revenue Stream for Pita Pit Franchisees

If there’s one thing most quick-service restaurants have in common, it’s this: long lines during peak hours.

That’s why, more and more brands are turning to online ordering. And it’s making mealtime quicker, more convenient and easier than ever before. Just ask Pita Pit. Today, nearly 85 percent of their locations offer mobile or digital orders, and it’s helped to increase revenue and boost store traffic in a significant way.

According to Bill Wilfong, Pita Pit’s vice president of franchise development, online ordering gives each customer a faster way to get their grub—because Pita Pit lets guests customize their orders in a variety of ways, a mobile order-ahead feature has been a timesaver for the chain’s busiest locations.

“The ability to condition the consumer to order ahead of time, skip the line and pick up their meal has a huge impact for us,” Wilfong said. “If you can get people to do that, that’s the difference between making or breaking that day potentially because you’re only going to be able to move that line so quickly. We’re finding that the stores that focus on online ordering and promote that to their customer base are really seeing a significant increase in use and sales. And that’s because they make consumers think differently about the way they purchase their meals.”

For Andrew Turek, the owner of a Pita Pit location in Tampa, Florida, adding online ordering to his daily operations has introduces an entirely new revenue stream to his store. Currently, these orders make up nearly 30 percent of his location’s revenue.

“Introducing this option takes away the need for a phone call, and eliminates room for error since a customer can customize their meal exactly how they want it right on their phone—they know what they’re going to get, and there’s very little room for error,” Turek said. “This also allows our employees to concentrate on serving the customers in-store. Less staff involvement for online orders means that we can increase our output without overworking anyone.”

But beyond speeding up the process, for Pita Pit, those orders come with an added bonus—a nearly 100 percent higher ticket order than average. Turek attributes this to several factors, including some franchisees putting a minimum dollar amount on a purchase and consumers often ordering ahead of time when they are feeding more than themselves.

Turek has introduced incentives for online ordering, too, and that’s helped to tap into an audience of both new and returning customers. By enhancing their presence on social media networks like Facebook and Instagram, they’ve been able to target audiences with weekly deals and advertisements. This includes a $2 off the first online order and buy three get one free deals—among many others.

“Ordering online is just the way consumers get their food now—you can use your phone to order just about anything. So it’s become essential for us to stay in front of them—to live where they live, which is online,” Turek said. “In the end, it’s really helped to broaden our customer base in a way we never really thought possible.”

To learn more about franchising with Pita Pit, click here.