Fresh off its acquisition of Whole Foods, Amazon is making moves once again to disrupt the food industry. While it may not be as good for your wallet (or your waistline) as Amazon’s recent purchase, it’ll certainly be great for your belly and hanger pangs. Thanks to a new partnership with Olo, a company focused on digital orders, you could get Shake Shack, Chipotle, and your other favorite fast foods delivered to your doorstep.
Olo is the main ordering software provider for some 200 restaurant brands with around 40,000 locations across the U.S., which means that Amazon could soon be reaching a large swath of convenience-seeking Americans. While Italian eatery Buca di Beppo is currently the only Olo customer that has confirmed that it will use Amazon for delivery purposes, it’s likely that more will soon follow.
But wait, you say — hasn’t Amazon been offering one-hour restaurant delivery for quite some time now? While the answer is “yes,” the problem is that few restaurants have actually signed on to the service, which means that customers have a relatively limited number of choices for delivery. This contrasts sharply with other delivery platforms like GrubHub or Caviar, which have a much larger selection of restaurants available. However, the addition of Olo could change all of this.
GrubHub investors are certainly aware of this potential shift, as shares of the company fell 7.3 percent after news of Amazon’s new partnership broke. And given that fast-food delivery orders are expected to account for more than $35 billion in business by 2020, it’s no wonder that the Seattle-based tech giant is looking to get in on the game.
To make things easier still on customers, Amazon has recently announced an integration of Amazon Restaurants with its popular Alexa-enabled Amazon Echo, which means that you could say, “Alexa, order me a Chipotle burrito,” and have said burrito at your front door in a matter of moments.
“We’re thrilled to work with Amazon to provide Olo’s base of restaurant customers with a new delivery sales channel that drives increased visibility,” Noah Glass, Founder & CEO of Olo, said in a press release. And trust us, you’ll be thrilled, too.
