Dunkin’ Donuts To Trial Run Home Delivery App

Here to join the leagues of on-demand food, alongside the likes of the traditional Chinese and pizza takeaways across the country, Dunkin’ Donuts are proudly entering the arena of home delivery. The trial run comes shortly after similar plans have been announced by Starbucks, McDonald’s, and Chipotle.

Dunkin’ Donuts Chairman and CEO Nigel Travis spoke out about plans to bring home delivery into the structure of the company, a trend of convenience that is hugely popular throughout the U.S. In an interview with CNBC‘s On the Money, he stated, “Delivery is clearly a big opportunity.”

“We’re now developing mobile ordering and we’re doing a private test. We’ll move to a more public test later this year. We’ll probably launch mobile ordering sometime next year.”

Travis has led the Dunkin’ brand since January, 2009, overseeing the future of not only the Dunkin’ Donuts chain, but also Baskin Robbins. The British-born chairman described how the new delivery service is designed to appeal to the more technologically savvy consumers, and sees the plan as a means to not only drive business, but bring Dunkin’ Donuts into the increasingly convenience-conscious 21st century.

Despite his excitement for the new plans, Travis expressed that his primary concern is that service providers are able to keep up with the 8,000-strong chain across the country. For this reason, Dunkin’ Donuts will not be rushing the launch, and plans to make it structurally sound before rolling it out to all customers.

“The key thing is we have to make sure we can operationalize all these procedures. That’s why I’ve slowed up mobile ordering to make sure it’s operationally simple at the store level.”

Dunkin’ Donuts will not only be responsible for delivering the namesake doughnut, but as sales are expanding outwardly to other, more varied products, Travis explains that “about 60 percent [of sales are] beverages: coffee, tea, iced coffee, and smoothies.”

Popularity of the extended menu at Dunkin’ stores may serve to complicate the process of rolling out delivery. However, with major competitor Starbucks driving around 35 percent market share, pressure is on to keep the brand up to date and accessible to consumers.

“There’s a lot of competition,” Travis told On the Money, “one of the things I like about our business is you wake up every day and you’re competing.”

Despite this, Travis feels confident about the future of the brand and the economy, so much so that the company recently took part in a free doughnut campaign to promote National Doughnut Day alongside competitor Krispy Kreme. Travis intends to grow the Dunkin’ business further, saying, “I feel better than I did nine months or a year ago.”

[Image credit: Dunkin’ Brand]