Millennials Want Pizza! Want a Slice? Get an iPad POS System2 min read

Last week, Nation’s Restaurant News reported that, in a recent consumer survey, research and consulting firm, Y-Pulse LLC, found that consumers in the key 18-34 year old demographic (Generation Y or Millennials) favor restaurants which offer a wide selection at low cost. Sharon Olson, one of the founders of Y-Pulse, said results showed Millennials consistently indicated they were most likely to eat at quick-service restaurants (QSRs) (i.e., fast-food) and pizza chains.

Millennials – the 84 million people born between 1976 and 1995 – also define the key demographic for online and mobile phone use and are early adopters of new technologies, including the myriad of ordering solutions and applications being driven by smart phones.

Moreover, according to Karl Martin, CEO of marketing firm, M&FM, Inc., more than 60% of phone orders for pizza come from a cell phone and “growth trends for cell and smart phone use are off the charts.” That all adds up to great news for the embattled pizza sector: “today’s most avid Web and mobile phone users, are also the heaviest users of convenience foods, with pizza a favorite choice.” But Martin, who has more than 25-years experience leading POS-system selection for foodservice clients, says that, for a restaurant to succeed in today’s hyper-competitive market, it is critical that it have a POS system, like the iPad POS system, that can keep up. The iPad POS system is compatible with the latest technologies and can seamlessly integrate with the next generation of ordering solutions and applications.

An iPad POS system also gives the operator far more control; the restaurateur can remotely monitor every aspect of the restaurant’s operations and receive real-time operational performance data, updated, tabulated and analyzed on a transaction-by-transaction basis. And, although it provides critical functions not found in outdated traditional POS systems, an iPad POS system costs far less than a traditional system.

(For an inside look at De Santos – the first restaurant in New York City to completely run on an iPad POS system, see our previous article, “Digital Menus Deliver the Future to NYC’s Music-Centric Eatery” and the related blog post, “Feature-Rich Digital Menus Save Time and Money for NYC Eatery.”)

An iPad POS system can be customized to meet the sector-specific needs of each segment of the hospitality industry. For pizza operators and other delivery and take-out businesses, for example, a delivery-oriented iPad POS system, with a customer database core, “gives the pizza operator the tools to mine guest data and drive sales.” Specifically designed to track guest habits, preferences, and affinities; mine customer intelligence; and leverage that information to enable restaurateurs to create effective, targeted, marketing campaigns, precisely tailored to their customers, an iPad POS system helps cut cost, improve response rates, and increase sales. “In this economy, operators who fail to mine guest data will see continued erosion of market share,” warns Martin. “But operators who know their customers and market to them specifically and effectively will see their sales and profits grow.”