The New Way Dominoes Will Now Deliver Your Pizza
Domino's purchased a fleet of company-branded Chevy Volt EVs to attract more delivery workers and service its environmental goals.
Domino’s Pizza is about to step up its delivery game in a big way. It will begin relying on a new strategy to help recruit more delivery drivers that so many of its restaurants are in desperate need of. To aid them in their pursuits, the company is purchasing its own fleet of branded Chevy Bolts, making them the first restaurant chain to introduce electric vehicles to its business model.
The pandemic served to usher in a huge increase in business for Domino’s Pizza, which was already performing well pre-pandemic. In particular, the pizza chain saw exponential growth on the delivery side of its business. However, an increase in delivery orders coupled with a still-sustaining labor shortage, meant the company found itself in a situation where it was not able to adequately keep up with all of the orders that it was receiving.
In fact, at one point the company was in such dire straits that it was paying customers to come and pick up their own orders. Essentially, consumers would receive $3 dollars back if they decided to get their pizza in person versus having it delivered. Given that Domino’s resorted to a promotion such as that, it makes sense why they were looking for a solution to prevent ever reliving that same scenario over again in the future.
Domino’s decision to purchase a fleet of its own electric vehicles comes alongside an underlying goal to incentivize potential new delivery drivers to apply. Specifically, it will allow the company to attract talent that would not have otherwise considered a role as a delivery driver for lack of not having access to their own car. This will enable Domino’s to provide its vehicle-less employees with a way to deliver a customer’s pizza.
The Wall Street Journal reported that initially Domino’s plans to purchase 800 cars. Those 800 cars will then be distributed to hundreds of its locations nationwide. If all goes well, then Domino’s will purchase more EVs to add to its starting fleet.
Domino’s CEO Russell Weiner is exceedingly confident that the EV purchase will turn out to be a very fruitful exploit for the company. He boasted in an interview, “We’ve got a long way to go, but we will have the biggest fleet of electric vehicles in the pizza industry, period.” In addition to beating every other restaurant chain to the punch by creating its own army of delivery EVS, the chain highlighted that this maneuver also aligns with the company’s desire to become more environmentally friendly.
Domino’s may be the only pizza joint buying up its own delivery EVs, but they certainly aren’t the only company to invest in this type of business move. For example, Amazon teamed up with emerging EV startup Rivian and is already utilizing the EV-maker’s vans to deliver packages to consumers. FedEx struck up a similar partnership with Tesla. And those are just two examples in a sea of other companies leveraging the same strategy.
All in all, Domino’s is smart for making a leap that will serve its business from multiple angles. So don’t be surprised if your next Domino’s order gets delivered in a Chevy Bolt branded with a big ol’ Domino’s decal.
