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<p><strong><span style="115%; Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#333333;background:white;bold">In the late 90&#8217;s when tech companies were first the rage,</span></strong> <span style="115%;Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#333333;background:white">I scribbled out a few of my own ideas for tech oriented businesses, and off-handedly told more than a few people that I wanted to start an &#8220;internet company&#8221;.  Little did I know at that time, I was already running one!</span></p><div>&nbsp;</div><div><span style="  color: #333333;">As I established in the 1</span><sup style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#333333">st</span></sup><span style=" background-color: white;"> </span><span style="  color: #333333;">article in this series, &#8220;<a href="http://scottgittrich.com/2016/01/28/pizza-is-a-growth-industry-for-some-part-1/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=toppers-continues-down-the-path-of-innovation-with-e-commerce-site-3866" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" style="word-wrap: break-word"><strong style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color: #990100;   none;">Pizza IS a Growth Industry (for some</span></strong><span style="word-wrap: break-word; color: #990100;">)</span></a>,&#8221; there is substantial growth happening in the Pizza business for certain <u><a href="http://www.restaurantnewsrelease.com/backed-by-strong-franchise-system-toppers-pizza-steals-market-share-plans-industry-domination/8560569/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=toppers-continues-down-the-path-of-innovation-with-e-commerce-site-3866" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" style="word-wrap: break-word"><span style="word-wrap: break-word"><span style="color: #990100;">players</span></span></a></u></span><span style=" background-color: white;">; winners and losers, if you will.  I recently returned from a conference where I attended a panel of Private Equity investors that were asked to discuss business and consumer trends that their firms were looking to take advantage of.  It was no surprise to me to hear one panelist describe the opportunities that they see in certain segments of the Restaurant Business that are positioned to capitalize on large important shifts in consumer demands.</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong style=" word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#333333;bold">One of those critical shifts is Technology</span></strong><span style="  color: #333333;">.  Pizza delivery companies are in a particularly good position to capitalize on the consumer demand to order online.  50% of the US population is less than 30 years old, and those people (and the rest of us!) want to do everything possible on their phone and other mobile devices.  [I believe that incredible opportunities exist for most, if not all businesses that see that future and invest into serving customers this way.  I recently tried to convince my old-school brother in the carpet business that our kids will buy their carpet on a device&#8230;not in a big carpet store.  You watch.]</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong style=" word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#333333;bold">An incredible 42% of Toppers Pizza&#8217;s sales</span></strong><span style=" background-color: white;"> </span><span style="  color: #333333;">today are obtained through our website-commerce site, <u><a href="http://www.toppers.com/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=toppers-continues-down-the-path-of-innovation-with-e-commerce-site-3866" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" style="word-wrap: break-word" target="_blank"><span style="word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="color:#990100">toppers.com</span></span></a></u></span><span style=" background-color: white;">!  There are top-5 pizza chains that aren&#8217;t reporting numbers that high!  This statistic has climbed steadily and will no doubt cross the 50% mark in 2017, if not late 2016.  When we open a new restaurant, we know that hundreds of thousands of dollars of annual sales will reliably be delivered to that store on toppers.com!</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong style=""><span style=" Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#333333; bold">Choosing this high tech route has changed our business</span></strong><span style=" background-color: white;"> </span><span style="  color: #333333;">in so many positive ways, as you can imagine. Customers are more satisfied.  Their orders are more likely to be accurate, and they do not feel rushed on the phone with an order taker.  Even though customers can order in seconds with just a few clicks, most take their time, looking at pictures, browsing the menu and offers we tee up for them.  They customize their pizzas at a high rate with <u><a href="http://scottgittrich.com/2016/02/17/people-are-the-main-ingredient-2/?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=toppers-continues-down-the-path-of-innovation-with-e-commerce-site-3866" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" style="word-wrap: break-word"><span style="word-wrap: break-word"><span style="color:#990100;none;">quality toppings</span></span></a></u></span><span style=" background-color: white;"> that are unique to Toppers.  Ultimately, they get more of exactly what they crave and on average spend quite a bit more.</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong style=" word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#333333;bold">Restaurants are much easier to run</span></strong><span style=" background-color: white;"> </span><span style="  color: #333333;">when almost half of all orders are simply arriving from the website!  Compared to the days when the phones were ringing sometimes hundreds of times an hour, now it is simpler and even quieter during the rush as the orders stream to the kitchen lines for Toppers Pizza makers to hand make!  Our franchisees and managers do not need to staff quite as many people to handle the high volumes of business and this improves store profitability while providing better service and keeping prices down for our customers.</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><span style="color: #333333;   background-color: white;">Of course </span><strong style="color: #333333;   word-wrap: break-word; background-color: white;"><span style="">we have incredible data</span></strong><span style="color: #333333;   background-color: white;"> that we dissect to run better, more efficient restaurants, serve our customers better, sell more, and generally to crush the competition!  Many of our customers want us to interact with them online and provide them alerts, emails and texts with offers and reminders.  Marketing today is completely different than it was just a few years ago.</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><span style="color: #333333;   background-color: white;">When </span><strong style="color: #333333;   word-wrap: break-word; background-color: white;"><span style="">nearly half of customers are making the choice to order online</span></strong><span style="color: #333333;   background-color: white;">, what does that tell you?  It tells me that pizza companies that either don&#8217;t have that functionality or have functionality that sucks (and most of them out there do!) will lose market share.  And that is exactly what we are seeing today.  There are a relatively small number of pizza companies that have built and are investing into next generation, state of the art consumer websites.  Companies like Amazon have created a customer expectation of sleek, simple, and rich functionality that is not cheap to deliver, but it&#8217;s a commitment that Toppers has made for its franchisees and customers.</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong style=" word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#333333;bold">In the mature burger business</span></strong><span style="  color: #333333;">, chain restaurants account for approximately 95% of all burger restaurant sales, while in the pizza business, chains account for only 56% of all sales, but that number is climbing steadily.  Mom and pop pizza places, while I love them mightily, will continue to lose market share to emerging companies like Toppers for many reasons.  One of those reasons is technology.  They simply can&#8217;t make or sustain the level of investment necessary to give the customer what they demand in this arena.</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong style=""><span style=" Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;;color:#333333; bold">The $40 Billion US pizza business is in flux</span></strong><span style="  color: #333333;">.  There are significant winners and losers inside that $40 Billion.  To understand how Toppers Pizza has continued to steal market share and grow by about 25% every single year, you have to understand what is happening inside the pizza business overall.  When you do, you&#8217;ll understand why we are so confident about the future and where we are headed.</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong style=" word-wrap: break-word;"><span style="Arial&quot;,&quot;sans-serif&quot;; color:#333333;bold">We pride ourselves on our made-from-scratch pizza and Topperstix</span></strong><span style="  color: #333333;">, delivered fast by the best and proudest restaurant people on the planet.  But we are also proud of our innovation and technology.  It took me a few years to get there, but I am proud to say that I run an exciting Tech Company.</span></div><div>&nbsp;</div>

Toppers Pizza | E-commerce Innovation | 1851 Franchise

1851 Franchise

Scott Gittrich is the founder and CEO of Toppers Pizza. These are his thoughts on life, leadership and pizza.

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