Two of the largest online food delivery powerhouses, GrubHub and Seamless, are merging. A new name has not yet been decided, but it has been stated that GrubHub co-founder Matt Maloney will be the CEO of the new company, while Zabusky will serve as president.
After combining directories, they will have a remarkable roster of 32,000 restaurants and more than 90,000 orders a day. This is a huge differentiation from other competitors, such as Delivery.com, who offer services in 10,000 restaurants in just 50 cities. In 2012, the companies reported about $875 million in combined gross food sales to local takeout restaurants. Raking in revenues of more than $100 million, the merger will allow the companies to achieve even more and easily dominate the online food ordering industry.
By growing their network and product options, they will also have the chance to speed up product development and serve more customers while innovating the restaurant industry. The companies said that the merger will allow them to expand technology, product offerings and increase participating restaurants in the U.S. and U.K.
While the two giants will now have obvious advantages over the competition, are there still opportunities for smaller companies looking to expand in the online ordering and delivery market? The answer is a yes – and in fact, even more for those serving niche markets.
Currently, small online delivery businesses face a usability hurdle when approaching potential restaurants to add within their online directories. Restaurants are hesitant to participate when they are unsure of how they can effectively use the system to incorporate online ordering with existing operations and POS systems. This merger will fuel more restaurants to participate and find solutions in order to keep moving forward with expected changes in the industry. With this dilemma solved, a window of opportunity will be opened for smaller online ordering companies. While they cannot expect to compete for head-on with the GrubHub and Seamless’s uber baby, it is possible to successfully co-exist by targeting specific niche restaurants, users and/or international markets.
The emerging market has also fueled platform development. One breakthrough solution, developed by iScripts.com, offers these new startups and existing businesses a complete, ready-made multi-restaurant online ordering system. Rather than build a costly platform from scratch, businesses can quickly customize, launch and operate a portal built around the same business model as GrubHub and Seamless, more like a clone script. iScripts NetMenus includes a dynamic interface offering users a rich web experience while allowing them to locate nearby restaurants and place orders or reservations. The system enables businesses as it already incorporates Google Maps, newsletter capability, major payment gateway integration, customer order history, high security, unlimited user support for expandability and more. See all the features and try the online demo.
Although the idea of operating a company within this environment may now seem intimidating, companies just have to look a bit further to see the silver lining.
