Google Adds Food Ordering Direct From Google Mobile SERPs

[engine]

The mobile SERPs are going to become more challenging for th average site.

When you search for a nearby restaurant on your phone, you’ll see an option to “Place an order” in the search results. Just tap that, choose the delivery service and you’ll be taken to their website to complete the order. Google Adds Food Ordering Direct From Google Mobile SERPs [plus.google.com]

[goodroi]

I doubt this will make much of an impact. It has few participating companies and its not very obvious. I suspect most people will still search and then call the phone number.

[EdwardMao]

The search engine always try to replace the work that average usually does. But average people will not accept this because whey money is involved, they want every step to be seeable and in control.

[netmeg]

I dunno. GrubHub is pretty popular here. Google might make something out of it.

[EditorialGuy]

Sounds like a win for the delivery services, the restaurants that the delivery services represent, and people who are looking for a quick way to order food from a variety of restaurants (not just the usual pizza joint or Chinese place down the block).

Some restaurant owners may resent the promotion of middlemen (the delivery services), just as some hoteliers hate booking services, but others will welcome the additional exposure.

[mcneely]

It will be a win for the delivery services just like booking is a boon for Hotels or Kayak .. order or book, and the special deal, service, or price won't be the same as the service or food is being presented on the booking site .. Buy a burger on a food ordering site for 5 bucks, and it'll cost you 10 bucks when you go to pick it up .. Booking sites are notoriously wrong 90% of the time, so I'm not seeing why the food ordering sites would be any different.

Experience is such that says, if you need a room, a flight, or food, you would be better served to just booking or ordering direct - This way then, at least you know the price up front and your food order or reservation will be handled directly by the ones that provide the service being offered.

[EditorialGuy]

Experience is such that says, if you need a room, a flight, or food, you would be better served to just booking or ordering direct - This way then, at least you know the price up front and your food order or reservation will be handled directly by the ones that provide the service being offered.

That may be your experience. It hasn't been mine.

In any case, from a restaurateur's point of view, Google's food ordering via smartphones has the potential to be a great marketing tool by bringing in new customers. After all, the target audience consists of people who aren't already phoning Pete's Pizza or using the Sal's Steak House app whenever they're hungry.

[mcneely]

That may be your experience. It hasn't been mine.

Not sure how it is in the east, but out here on the coast it's a whole 'nuther animal ... out of the 8 Hotel bookings made over the past 18 months, only one got it right .. Hotel 1000 in Seattle was the only one that delivered as the booking site presented .. the others weren't even close on price, and a few didn't even log a reservation.

9 flights over the last 18 months and Alaska Airlines was only 2 of the times delivered as the booking site indicated .. the rest were either wrong on departures or reserved seats .. 6 of them didn't even offer the price being touted on the booking site ...

But, to each his or her own I guess - It's one thing to have a huge database full of info, but it's quite another to communicate with service providers in order to present that database in an accurate fashion ...

[netmeg]

Like I said - GrubHub seems to be doing it.

[EditorialGuy]

It seems to me that this is as much about the rise of delivery services as intermediaries as it is about Google. Whether that's a positive development or a negative one depends on where you fit into the ecosystem and how good you are at exploiting it. (Amazon comes to mind: I know a bookstore owner who has a successful international e-commerce business that's conducted almost entirely through Amazon. The bookstore itself is popular, but few customers realize there's a big basement downstairs where staff are shipping books off to Europe or Asia. For the bookstore owner, sales through an intermediary--Amazon--represent an online extension of a brick-and-mortar business. Restaurant sales through intermediaries like GrubHub offer a similar opportunity in the food biz.)

[Whitey]

People want full transparency, true filter comparisons. They don't want half baked results they have little control of that don't produce the best deal for them.

Do these types of Google offerings provide the best possible search experience, or are you better off going to other sites that do meta search etc. ?

[ethan11james]

Google now testing so much services and improve search result for users. Its provide more accurate data to users. let see how many changes we see in future

[engine]

This is encroaching on other aggregate food ordering systems, and we've seen this before with other services.

I can see Google being accused of favouring it's own service over independent services. Only time will tell.

[goodroi]

For everyone that thinks this is going to be successful, I dare you to prove me wrong by ordering me a pizza with extra cheese and don't forget the garlic knots :)

[EditorialGuy]

For everyone that thinks this is going to be successful, I dare you to prove me wrong by ordering me a pizza with extra cheese and don't forget the garlic knots :)

I might, but if the pizza and garlic knots got sent to your StickyMail box, they might not pass the sniff test after a few days. :-)

[loner]

... might not pass the sniff test after a few days.

Yet another Google condom.

[Whitey]

This is encroaching on other aggregate food ordering systems, and we've seen this before with other services.

@engine - not much interest on here with my remark about Google adding less value than data aggregators with relatively unbiased filtering versus Google. I would have thought that this would be key to discuss, as to whether it is a threat or not to webmasters / small business owners / aggregators.

How can Google maintain an effective content platform for advertising / organic that users will find truly meaningful. If this isn't addressed then I think we are missing the mark on the potential success of Google.

I doubt if they could achieve this even with a dedicated search engine for each vertical. Somehow, this points to some severe gaps in Google's offering as other players do it so much better.

[edited by: aakk9999 at 12:59 pm (utc) on May 12, 2015]
[edit reason] Edited on member's request [/edit]

[engine]

There are two issues here.

Firstly, Google doing what others already do and favouring their records over the sites already offering the services. That is the bigger question that the existing businesses need to deal with. How this is going to impact all those with local entries, i don't know yet.

Secondly, Google SERPs are moving more and more into becoming a portal, and less so a search service. SERPs pollution is rife, and we just have to accept it.

Sometimes, I wish Google had created a portal of it's own and allow people to choose: Google.com for search and GooglePortal.com for "all our great stuff" If you get my drift.

[netmeg]

Maybe, but it didn't work that well for Yahoo.

[martinibuster]

I don't think this as a standalone feature that will either fail or succeed. It is another step in the direction of turning Google into a mobile app that can do many things. That in itself is a part of Google's ultimate goal of transforming into more than just a search engine. That's all being left behind. This is part of that evolution.

[EditorialGuy]

This is encroaching on other aggregate food ordering systems, and we've seen this before with other services.

Google is working with a number of food-delivery services (or "aggregate food ordering systems," if you prefer that term). It's just providing another point of entry for existing services that restaurants have chosen to use.

[engine]

Google is working with a number of food-delivery services (or "aggregate food ordering systems," if you prefer that term). It's just providing another point of entry for existing services that restaurants have chosen to use.

But why another point? If you're an aggregator, you're going to gave to play ball, or you're competing with the 800lb gorilla. And if you are a restaurant already in a food ordering aggregator, why would you need to be in another layer? Remember, many of these aggregators already have a mobile app. In other words, 'stop using the app and come through us so we can get a share.'

It's not clear what the costs are. Do you really believe it'll be free? As ever, only time will tell.

[EditorialGuy]

For the food-delivery services and restaurants:

More exposure = more leads = more sales.

For Google:

Another reason for mobile users to use Google Search.

And yes, the aggregators or delivery services may have apps, but apps serve existing customers or users, as opposed to new ones.