Pizza on doorstep at the click of a mouse

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

A loud knock on the front door told us the pizzas had arrived.

We had been expecting them at any time between 9.30 and 10.20 but the delivery guy turned up conveniently on the stroke of 10, just after The Sopranos.

Much to the delight of my flatmates, I had been asked to look into the feasibility of ordering fast food online. My mission was to find a website offering suitable comestibles and make a sample order.

As we now live in a world where you can ring up a taxi company and the call centre system knows your pick-up address before you have uttered a word, you might think this would be an easy task, but you would be wrong.

A search on the web for the most obvious candidates soon showed that the likes of McDonald's and KFC don't seem to be interested in taking orders online.

At least McDonald's rival KFC does have a working website, and it does include a special offer for internet users - buy three Ultimate Quarterpacks at $7.95 each and you will get the fourth one free.

But you cannot order this special offer online. Instead you are invited to select the print option from your browser and print the offer coupon at home.

Presumably you can then redeem the coupon at your nearest KFC outlet, but don't bother because the offer expired on October 29.

At this point I sought help from internet consultant and self-confessed fast-food junkie Dylan Reeve, who has been maintaining his pizza habit via the net for several months.

As Mr Reeve's single telephone line is almost permanently tied up to provide him with dial-up internet access, this method of ordering suits him much better than using an 0800 number.

"These days it's a big hassle using the telephone at all, as it means I have to disconnect," he explains.

He first started ordering food from Pizza Hut but was put off by apparent teething problems with the order-taking system.

"You would place an order and then you got a call 35 minutes later from someone asking, 'Did you order a pizza?"'

Mr Reeve now uses the e-mmediate neighbourhood online delivery service.

"They are prompt, and their mobile Eftpos terminals are the handiest thing in the world," he says.

The main catch with e-mmediate is that you must live within a 10-minute drive of the company's base in Ponsonby Rd, but two further outlets are due to open in Newmark and Meadowbank this month.

I found setting up an account with e-mmediate was straightforward and within a few minutes I was able to peruse the menus from several outlets in and around Ponsonby's Munchie Mile.

These included Bella (Italian), Duo (tortillas), GPK (gourmet pizzas), Thai Classic, Masala (Indian), Burger Wisconsin and Kabylia (Mediterranean).

In the end, I settled on two gourmet pizzas from GPK in Ponsonby Rd - a Moroccan (seared spiced lamb, salsa, wood-fired red onion, harissa, fresh mint) - and a Tuscany (hot smoked-house bacon, wood-fired tomato, olives bocconcini and fresh basil pesto).

Clicking the buy button added each pizza to the shopping cart, and when I had finished ordering I was able to select the payment terms, which may be credit card, cash or mobile Eftpos.

The pizzas cost $19.90 each, so with a delivery charge of $3.50 the bill came to $42.40.

I was ordering from a single outlet, but a big advantage of using e-mmediate is that you can order food from multiple stores for an extra charge of 50c an outlet.

Judging by the flurry of server messages that flash past your screen as soon as you click the proceed button, the logistical effort to get all this all to work smoothly must be arduous.

But the pizzas were delivered hot and well within the time quoted, so I will be using this service again.

KFC

Pizza Hut

e-mmediate