How Digital Marketing is Impacting Our Eating – and Spending – Habits

Would you like to add cheesy bread for only $4.99?

Of course you would. Just tap “Yes” and you get cheese-covered bread. And that $4.99 isn’t real until you see it included in the order total, anyway. And that’s the last screen in the ordering process – you’ve gone to far to turn back now.

An article from the Economic Times came out discussing the strategy that major food delivery brands have of pushing add-on, lower-cost items in pop-ups between stages and pages of the food ordering process. It’s ubiquitous, and it’s also highly effective.

As Domino’s spokesman Tim McIntyre says: “…[the customers] tend to upsell themselves”. Domino’s didn’t share the exact numbers publicly, but they said that customers tend to spend more online than they do when they order in-store or over the phone. So Domino’s made an old-fashioned yet elegant move to push more people to order online: A direct mailing campaign of coupons, half or more of which are only redeemable online. Direct mailing print coupons is the best way to reach the non-digital customers, and making special deals available only online is a great way to nudge them to order online – potentially getting them to spend more.

But this isn’t limited to delivery-prominent restaurants. Restaurants like Chili’s and Olive Garden, among others, have started putting tablets at every table for customers to use to order. This has led to a similar increase in orders of appetizers and desserts – two product categories that are normally afterthoughts.

The takeaway? When you see everything you want in beautiful HD only a button touch away, the real-life value of the money those items cost is even more obscured by immediate satisfaction.