Domino’s personalises site to be ‘true digital retailer of food’

The site is in beta testing now with 20 per cent of visitors going through it. Conversion rate, spend per basket and bounce rate are being used to asses its commercial performance with a view to launch nationwide by September.

Updates aim to enhance value perceptions of the brand, combining “great food photography” with clearer transparency around discounts so that local bundle deals are signposted and automatically applied to baskets rather than customers having to specifically redeem them when ordering.

Underlining the experience is user-specific landing pages highlighting previously saved orders and personalised offers based on purchase history. While the previous site let customers re-order past orders through the “MyDomino’s” feature, it now uses cookies to create landing pages based on content relating to the last purchase. The change is part of the company’s move to create a consistent customer experience spanning all its retail environments.

Domino’s hopes the plan will lift sales of its bundle deals, after claiming recent promotions boosted side dish volumes by a third in the first half of the year. It sold more than 7.2 million pizzas in the period and nearly six million more sides, a trend it says shows it is getting more food out of every customer. The plan to increase basket sizes is the company’s response to the growing popularity of smaller chains such as Nando’s and Byron Burger.

David Wild chief executive of Domino’s, says the online makeover will accelerate its migration to becoming a “true digital retailer of food”

He adds: “Our online activity, where we’re able to communicate menus much more flexibly and compellingly, fuels this trend towards people buying more products. It is [accelerating] our like-for-like sales growth.”

Like-for-like sales at Domino’s restaurants in the UK increased 11 per cent for the 26 weeks to June, propping up a European business hampered by a sluggish German market. Online sales accounted for more than two thirds (69.7 per cent) of UK deliveries with mobile representing 38 per cent of the amount. Domino’s anticipates mobile will become its most popular ordering channel in 2015 as the company shifts more of its media budget to digital.

The restaurant spent nearly half (48 per cent) of its media outlay on digital channels in the first half of the year, exploiting the trend of “second and third screen viewing by consumers who are interacting with one or two other devices”. It plans to renew its sponsorship of the X-Factor app this summer as well as ramp up the promotional support for its “DomiGoals” app, which lets fans win prizes every time a goal is scored, for the start of the Premier League season.

Elsewhere, Domino’s plans to stay top of mind with consumers during the key summer trading period through Twitter stunts designed to trend nationally on the micro-blogging site. Its recent “Melting Man” competition, whereby fans could win a years supply of pizza if they ‘tweet the heat’ and help melt a giant ice statue of a Domino’s delivery driver, reached more than 18.6 million people on the social network, the business claims.