A few months back, my colleague Megan wrote about Yelp's new partnership with the delivery services Eat24 and Delivery.com, which allow customers to place online delivery and takeout orders directly from Yelp.
I stumbled upon the new feature myself earlier this week, and I can tell you that placing an order on Yelp is quite possibly the easiest thing you will ever do. So easy, in fact, that you might never want to use GrubHub or Seamless ever again.
What makes Yelp's new delivery platform such a game changer is that so many of my peers and I are already using the website several times a week for its discovery and review services. Now, instead of having to call the restaurant or (heaven forbid) open up a new tab to place an order on Seamless, we can order delivery or takeout immediately.
It's admittedly the most minor of conveniences, but I'm willing to bet it's enough to keep people who are already looking at restaurant reviews from migrating to one of Yelp's competitors to make their purchases.
At least that's what happened to me, anyway. I was really just trying to figure out if there were any restaurants open near my girlfriend's apartment late Wednesday evening, when Yelp asked me if I wanted to place an order at a Peruvian restaurant whose reviews I'd been looking at.
Having been convinced of the restaurant's quality by its four-star rating, I decided to place an order for pickup. From there, I was presented with a clickable menu screen powered by Eat24 that is substantially similar to one you might order from off Seamless or any other platform that allows you to order food online.
Yelp
From there, I promptly made my order, plugged in my credit card information, and received a confirmation email inviting me to contact Eat24's 24/7 chat support if anything went wrong. Nothing did, and I retrieved my delicious meal without hassle some 30 minutes later.
At present, Yelp's delivery platform is available for 12,000 restaurants across the United States, a figure that closely matches the number of menus boasted by Seamless.
Since so many restaurants that contract with online delivery services do so with more than one company, the sheer ease with which people can search, review, and place orders on Yelp could make it difficult for companies that do not have partnerships with the site to win sales against those that do.
"We've received great feedback to-date," a Yelp spokesperson told Business Insider. "Customers appreciate being able to read Yelp reviews before making an order, especially on mobile where they don't have to toggle between apps."
Morani Hakmon, Eat24's co-founder and vice president of corporate development, said its delivery services were available on Yelp for 10,000 restaurants at the moment, with an additional 10,000 restaurants expected to be added in the near future.
Hakmon said the partnership has led to a jump in sales for his company, but he declined to provide specific numbers.
"We generate tons of orders through Yelp," Hakmon said. "Clients like yourself and other customers have discovered the options, so they've started using it."
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/yelp-delivery-platform-could-kill-seamless-2013-9#ixzz2gNmkmSCT
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