CNN profiles the online ordering efforts of the nation’s largest pizza chains:
In the past seven years, Louisville-based Papa John’s International Inc. has made a lot of dough from online ordering — more than $1 billion to be exact.
The nation’s third-largest pizza delivery chain trumpeted the $1 billion milestone Wednesday, noting that its U.S. online sales have been growing at an average clip of more than 50 percent per year. In 2001, the chain’s online sales totaled $20.4 million. Last year, its online sales approached $400 million.
I write about it because “pizza” is the archetypal local search subject. But I also bring it up because this is very much like Circuit City or Wal-Mart’s “buy online, pick up in store” feature. It’s also like online booking for local businesses (e.g., HourTown, ZocDoc, GenBook, Booking Angel). So is this “e-commerce” or local commerce?
It’s a hybrid model that reflects the integration of the Internet with the “real world” and points the way to much more of this sort of thing in the future: online order taking with offline fulfillment.
Screenwerk 
May 8, 2008 at 11:24 pm
Lets not forget Pizza.com just sold for $2.6 million
May 9, 2008 at 1:32 am
Right!
May 9, 2008 at 3:22 am
Domino’s Pizza has done something similar plus added this cool “track your pizza” feature that ties in with their 30 minute delivery offer. We were a local pizzeria family until my 2 oldest kids found this feature and now when it is pizza and movie night everyone is screaming Domino’s.
May 9, 2008 at 4:21 pm
[…] John’s passes $1 Billion in Pizza online orders/offline delivery. Greg’s post on Order (Pizza) Online, Deliver Locally and his notes on Circuit City and Wal-Mart’s success with “online ordering and offline […]
May 12, 2008 at 4:15 am
I love Domino’s feature “Track your pizza.” It really makes you feel like it’s on it’s way. Everything is about informing the status of things in real-time.
May 20, 2008 at 2:00 am
Pizza Hut also do this in Australia – it’s really useful.