Subscribe to RSSSmarter, Faster, Cheaper: Why Online Food Delivery is not Strictly an Academic Affair
For many of us, the daily routine of deliberating over lunch or dinner options is more a question of convenience than a quest for the total culinary experience. As a recent college grad, I often frequented food delivery sites, like GrubHub.com and CampusFood.com, to save both time and money. As a young professional, I must admit that I still love to use these services, and as it turns out, I am not alone!
GrubHub and CampusFood each generate about 170,000 visitors each month. It appears, though, that while GrubHub user counts steadily increase as the year progresses, CampusFood visitors fluctuate around the school schedule. Visitor counts to CampusFood take an end-of-the-year dip in June, as well as Thanksgiving and winter vacation drops in November and December.
Similar trends for site visitation confirm the seasonal shifts of collegiate life. Especially notable is Grubhub’s increased visits per user over the summer months, as evidenced by the greater visit counts for July and August, despite the lower unique user counts. This might lead us to believe that Grubhub has more repeat visitors, and perhaps greater loyalty, in part, because of fewer college users.
Let’s take a closer look:
The age distributions across both sites are alarmingly similar, with both sites claiming about 30% of traffic from users between the ages of 25-34, a range we typically associate with young, entry-level professionals more so than college students.
Let’s delve a little deeper:
The income distributions support the theory that these sites cater to both the college students and professionals. The largest income group visiting these sites is the less than $30K group, likely consisting of college students. However, a surprising number of users gross more than $60K/year, which leads me to believe that young and established professionals also enjoy the convenience of online takeout delivery!
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Your conclusion makes a lot of sense Jordan that once out in the world, grads would want to use these services. Perhaps Grubhub gets a bit more loyalty during the summer because its brand isn’t tied down to campus connotations…generally, i don’t believe too much in this theory, as certainly college connotations didn’t stop the world at large from using Facebook, so just a slight perhaps then.
–John
Online food delivery is a busy office worker’s best buddy during meal times. It’s fast, affordable and convenient. You can actually save more by preparing packed lunches but why go through the hassle when you can have hot food conveniently delivered to your workplace? I hope more food delivery businesses crop up throughout the nation.