Do you need this convenience - online food ordering?

[gerryonline]

I regularily receive emails from Anthill, its a fantastic online magazine.

Recently came across this article - Customer convenience makes a comeback – Foodies lead the charge - Anthill Magazine

It covers some excellent ideas by savvy online types bringing the food industry online.

This has always been an interest of mine, do you think ideas like these have merit in an aussie marketplace?

[LudaKris]

I definitely think food can be sold online and there is an opportunity there.

Although the 'traditional' advice is that online retailing is not suited to products with a short shelf life, provided the correct infrastructure is in place, there is no reason why it cannot succeed.

I can't remember the name of the company (nothing to do with their brand - just my memory) in Sydney that supplies fresh fruit and veges via an online shop and delivers within a day or so. They are looking to expand into bread, milk, fruit juice etc. I remember the owner talked about the infrastructure and focus on customer satisfaction was the key.

I am also personally interested as I have a client who supplies seafood products to takeaway food outlets (i.e. fish and chip shops) and has an established network of distributors. I would like to investigate the feasibility of adopting an online system that would run side by side the existing old school system of visit customer -> take order -> deliver a few days later.

And if you step back and look at the big picture, consumers are increasingly web savvy, are hunting for bargins more, want an alternative to Coles and Woolies, want great service and a time poor - so YES I definitely think there is a niche for this in Australia.

Research research research!

[Brendan]

Ludakris.. do you think there is room for online ordering of takeaway food? I know menulog are already doing it, but can you picture an update at all int his area.

A bit like what pizza hut tried, order your pizza online and get it delivered 45mins later.. image you could do that for any takeaway place!

[JakeThomas]

I've always been a fan of ordering groceries online and I've done it for some time now.

I've started to ramp it down a little bit and in all honesty the reason why was because they used far too many plastic bags (There was only ever 1 or 2 products in a plastic bag!)

Whenever I order pizza, I'll order that online. There was a service floating around a while ago, where standalone fast food shops could order online and the order would be faxed through to them. I can't remember the name of this though.