Comments for Pizza Hut Announces Nationwide Mobile Ordering

Pizza Hut Announces Nationwide Mobile Ordering

2008-01-17T09:57:59Z

Pizza Hut may not be the world's best pizza, but now that they've rolled out nationwide mobile ordering—via their website on any web-enabled phone, or text message on the rest—they're certainly one of the easiest pizza joints to order from.

Within five years, Pizza Hut aims to earn half its revenue from orders placed via computers and mobile phones, he said.
Pizza Hut is not the first to offer mobile ordering services, but the Dallas-based company says its service is the broadest and most comprehensive.

Domino's in September gave customers with Web-enabled phones the option to place mobile orders at nearly half of its 5,100 U.S. restaurants.

According to Reuters, Papa John's has been offering text-message ordering nationwide since November.

"Pizza Hut rolls out nationwide mobile ordering" [Reuters]

Comment from econobiker on 2008-01-18

2008-01-18T19:41:20Z

@morganlh85: yeah or the pizza hut five miles from me but in a different town/county who won't deliver to our apartment complex...

Comment from Buran on 2008-01-18

2008-01-18T09:12:20Z

@Buran: OK, got it from someone else. It's [quikorder.pizzahut.com] -- BUT -- it sent me to the regular login page even though I'm using a phone and want the mobile page!

Who codes this stuff!? I'm seriously considering cornering a few execs and sending a complaint, though I should probably try regular CS first.

Comment from Buran on 2008-01-18

2008-01-18T06:01:13Z

@jkarasik: Feed them a fake email address if you don't care about the order confirmations...

Comment from morganlh85 on 2008-01-17

2008-01-18T02:01:16Z

Yeah, as long as your Pizza Hut isn't in the ghetto. I ordered a pizza online and showed up at the specified time to find they have "forgotten" about my order so I ended up having to wait a half hour anyways.

Comment from Buran on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T23:57:55Z

@Buran: A little progress. I looked up the pocket IE user-agent, set up the User Agent Switcher Firefox extension with that user-agent, went to the site, and it then tried to push a file named waplogin.php on me (via download, their mime-types are wrong). I then tried to go to that URL with /waplogin.php appended, on the iphone, and got the IIS 404 error page...

Can someone with a different phone try logging in, and then posting what the URL it sends you to is?

Comment from Buran on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T22:07:57Z

@DallasDMD: I think there is some Flash in the regular version, and as I pointed out, iphones can't run flash, so that wouldn't work too well. Even if it did, however, a common reason for wanting to use the mobile site would be because you want to pick up food on the way home from somewhere, and when you're not at home you probably wouldn't have wifi available unless you were lucky. So, a fast version that works well over slower cell networks is the best bookmark to have.

I tried spoofing the iphone user agent, went to the quikorder site that was suggested (thanks for that), and was still sent to the regular version; I'm looking for the more-basic version shown in the demo linked from the PH front page. So that's the URL I'm looking for.

Comment from DallasDMD on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T21:46:09Z

@Buran: So just use regular internet ordering.

Comment from Buran on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T21:33:24Z

@Front_Towards_Enemy: ... let me guess. If it doesn't come from a hole in the wall microscopic place, you refuse to eat it.

Comment from Buran on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T21:32:13Z

@dgcaste: Several million people beg to differ and in any case it's got the lion's share of the mobile phone buzz. For PH to ignore the iphone is sheer idiocy.

Comment from Front_Towards_Enemy on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T21:22:24Z

Pizza Hut Pizza is Pizza ? You mean to actually tell that they really sell Doughy, Greasy, Processed Cheese-food crap is actual Pizza ? Ummm No.

Thank god I can now ignore it Nation-wide on my Cell-phone!

Comment from jkarasik on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T20:56:46Z

Pizza Hut's registration process requires you to opt-in to receive promotions and emails. There's no way to register without getting the spam.

Comment from Chris Walters on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T20:55:34Z

@Buran: Try [quikorder.pizzahut.com]

That's the address I was automatically routed to when I typed in pizzahut.com on my N95.

You'd think Pizza Hut would anticipate iPhone usage and properly sniff/redirect those customers...

Comment from sototallycarl on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T20:36:56Z

watch out for that MSG...

Comment from disavow on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T20:10:27Z

I've always gotten my pizza via online ordering, but their pricing system never seems to work right. Even using a coupon link on their own website, a $9.99 "any way you want it" medium, with only cheese and sauce on hand-tossed crust, came up as $13.49 before taxes/delivery. I gave up and ordered by phone.

Comment from theblackdog_BackToWork on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T19:38:42Z

That's nice, but I still bet that they wouldn't deliver to my old apartment complex. At least 4-5 food delivery people get robbed there per month.

Comment from mmcnary on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T19:34:12Z

I have used this service for years. It's great when you are staying at hotels and need to feed the kids something quick and easy.

Comment from kenboy on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T19:25:55Z

I'd rather order from a local pizza shop that actually makes edible pizza, but I might just be weird that way.

Comment from Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!) on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T19:25:23Z

Except that I've ordered online at Pizza Hut probably a dozen times, and only twice have I actually gotten my pizza, and both of those times they called to tell me the 28-minute estimate on the ordering thing was wrong, and I'd actually be waiting 90 minutes to 2 hours.

The other 10 times it either didn't go through, or they called me to tell me it would take so long that I cancelled the order, or they called me to tell me it went through to the wrong place and all I could do was call it in to the other place. ("Can't you call it in to them, or send it over?" "No.")

And once my card got double-charged for an order I cancelled.

Pizza Hut online ordering is AWESOME!

Comment from davere on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T19:21:28Z

I rather order online. No hold times. No teenager who is completely uninterested in taking my order. Online coupons since I rarely ever have any laying around.

Comment from dgcaste on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T19:14:28Z

@Buran: because it's really not that hot?

Comment from Macroy on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T16:16:24Z

@Buran: I think visiting the website is supposed to redirect you to the "real" mobile ordering site, but Mobile Safari just takes you to the regular PizzaHut.Com.

Anybody know the real URL to the mobile site?

Comment from rbcat on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T15:43:39Z

@weave: Don't worry, I remember it, too. That was, and still is, the coke machine at CMU. See [www.cs.cmu.edu] There's also the Internet coffee pot at Cambridge ([www.cl.cam.ac.uk]) that was one of the best uses of a webcam ever. :) (yes, even over "that" use)

Comment from weave on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T14:12:16Z

A Pizza Hut in California started online ordering in 1994. It was insanely cool at the time. Another net thing back then was the ability to "finger" a Coke machine at some Ivy League University to see how much stock it had.

Yeah, I know, I'm old :(

/get off my lawn

Comment from elislider on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T14:04:13Z

i think its funny that likenesses of sony ericsson phones are often used in cell phone ads

Comment from i wonder why comments have been disabled? Nobody told me why. on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T13:15:09Z

umm, how much did pizza hut pay to run this ad? seriously? yawn!!1 korea and japanhave probably had this for like a decade

Comment from Buran on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T13:06:57Z

@DallasDMD: If you're hard of hearing, this is great. Please don't forget that not everyone is equally capable of using a standard phone.

I just tried loading this on my iphone and I got a popup informing me that I need Flash. The iPhone doesn't have Flash and there is no way to install it. Why is Pizza Hut ignoring the hottest mobile phone there is?

Can someone figure out what the link is to the mobile page so I can go there directly and bookmark it?

Comment from marasolo on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T11:17:44Z

It's better than waiting on hold on a busy night. Though I think cell phones in general are a few years behind what they should be. Nice idea.

Comment from MercuryPDX on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T11:14:06Z

@joemono: You actually set up a "playlist", and text something like 'FAV1'.
[www.pizzahut.com]

Comment from joemono on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T11:07:37Z

Yes, ordering online with coupon codes is great. The last couple of times we've been able to get 4 or 5 dollars shaved off the price.

I guess this is for people who can text "lrg w/ pep xtra chz plz" faster than they can say it?

Comment from MercuryPDX on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T10:47:07Z

@DallasDMD: Pfft... as if? A landline? To order Pizza? So un-l33t! OMG Grampa you are so cute working that rotary phone!
---------
New customer base going for the "Cool factor" alone? The one problem I see (with PJ) is you're stuck getting the pizza at one address.

I prefer ordering online because the chances are greater they'll get it right, and there's coupon codes out the wazoo.

Comment from DallasDMD on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T10:34:14Z

or pick up the phone and just call them? I can't see how ordering from a dinky phone is any easier.

Comment from MercuryPDX on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T10:31:30Z

Meh... wrong link... [papajohns.com]

Comment from MercuryPDX on 2008-01-17

2008-01-17T10:30:29Z

Papa Johns started it a few months ago:
[papajohns.com]