Like many of you who participated in Halloween merriment last weekend, there came a point in the night where my friends and I became really hungry. So what did we do? Go to an all night diner? Grab a slice of pizza from the late-night pizza joint? Feast on leftover candy corn at home?The answer: go to SeamlessWeb for delivery.
SeamlessWeb is a web service that allows you to find all of the restaurants that deliver to your address. For each restaurant, an up-to-date menu is provided, online ordering is setup, and payment (including tip) is handled by credit card. Once you complete the order and the restaurant acknowledges it, you receive an email confirmation that displays your order and the estimated time of delivery.
At first blush, the SeamlessWeb concept sounds like an incredibly simple business model. And the barriers to entry seem very low. So as a business model analyst, you have to ask yourself: what are the control points that lock-in the customer and lock-out the competition?
Like all websites, SeamlessWeb offers basic functionalities that encourage stickiness with customers. For example, the web site offers customers easy click-thru for repeat customers. If you have a favorite meal at a restaurant, SeamlessWeb allows you to reorder the same meal in just a couple of clicks.
More importantly, SeamlessWeb has established relationships with many of the large law firms and investment banks in New York City. The SeamlessWeb system provides “seamless” integration to corporate accounting systems, enabling greater accounting efficiency, reduced admin costs, and better budget control. In doing so, SeamlessWeb creates loyalty and builds recurring revenues with a customer segment that orders lots of catering and late night delivery.
And as an added bonus, SeamlessWeb's corporate business allows the company to form strong relationships with high income, B2C customers (e.g. lawyers, bankers) who order delivery often.
0 comments:
Post a Comment