Still questioning the demand for mobile services? Mobile restaurant orders for SeamlessWeb increased 545% in seven months time from July 2010 when their iPhone and Blackberry apps launched to February 2011 (their Android app was released just this January). Mobile has grown from representing 0% of the company’s business to more than 10% on weekdays and 14% on weekends.
SeamlessWeb is a homebase for placing restaurant takeout and delivery orders online with more than 477 restaurants signed on in Boston alone (they expect 650 by the end of the year). The company’s CMO Ryan Scott tells us that Boston is above average when it comes to placing mobile orders, with 13% of orders being received over mobile compared to 11% for all geographies. In fact, between February and March mobile ordering in Boston grew a whopping 50%.
“Currently and going forward, we will continue to look to tech-savvy cities like Boston to lead the charge of mobile adoption,” Scott told BostInno.
The company has made a calculated effort this Spring to get their suite of apps into more users’ hands, including a free coffee day and $5 off delivery right here in Boston. The company tells us its focus has been split between converting current users of SeamlessWeb online into mobile users as well as acquiring new customers looking for a mobile ordering solution.
“Internally, we make it easy to find info about our apps on our website and have sent emails and posted updates across our social media channels (blog, Twitter, Facebook) to make sure that all of our members know how easy it is to use SeamlessWeb anywhere,” shared Scott. “Externally, we have used several forms of PR and other tactics to drive targeted downloads and these have been very effective at converting people into mobile users.”
SeamlessWeb seems to be asserting itself as the dominant player for restaurants looking to offer mobile ordering capabilities. The company boasts hundreds of thousands of downloads across iPhone, Android and Blackberry devices. Reviews are no short of great: 96% of the SeamlessWeb’s iPhone app reviews are at least 4 stars. In fact, they are the highest ranked app among competitors like GrubHub. While the company could not provide us repeat user statistics, they did tell us that the majority of first-time orderers come back to place a second order.
And more features are on the horizon.
“Based on member feedback, we’re adding the ability to sort and filter restaurants by a number of different variables on the iPhone app over the next few months (the same capabilities are already available for Android and BlackBerry),” explained Scott. “And we will continue to look to our members for ideas and inspiration for new features and functionality across our entire suite of apps. The entire mobile experience is only going to get more Seamless.”
SeamlessWeb monetizes the app (and its online platform) by charging restaurants a fraction of each order it receives through the company’s offerings.
Have you placed an order through SeamlessWeb? You can find their mobile offerings — including a mobile website — available for download here.
