HOW THE CORONAVIRUS IS RESHAPING ORDERING AND PAYMENT

Until a few months ago, online preordering platform Allset was growing its business the old-fashioned way: by calling restaurants to convince them to sign up. But when COVID-19 made digital channels one of the only ways to order food, Allset had to switch from doing sales to accepting applications. 

“Instead of us calling restaurants, restaurants started calling us,” said founder and CEO Stas Matviyenko. 

Mobile ordering and payment have been on the rise for a long time. It’s convenient for customers, and it gives restaurants access to guest data. But when the pandemic hit, it became not just one of the only ways to order, but also one of the safest, because it involves little to no human contact. That has accelerated adoption by both restaurants and consumers. 

“Normally this process takes years,” said Brian Levine, VP with Mobiquity, a digital consultancy. “And that’s what coronavirus has done. It’s collapsed the technology adoption curve.”

That transformation is evident in the surge in first-time users of restaurant mobile apps. Levine analyzed about 100,000 reviews of such apps in Apple’s App Store during the coronavirus and found an increase in reviews that included the words “first time,” indicating that the coronavirus and ensuing lockdowns are driving users.