Content area
Full Text
SEATTLE -- Using 19th-century technology (their telephones) mom-and-pop pizzeria owners, along with regional and national chain operators, in four metropolitan areas have begun testing the marketing might of the Internet in a bid to generate takeout and delivery orders.
As many as 1,000 pizza restaurants in and around Boston, New York, San Francisco and Seattle had registered to participate in the new Internet marketing initiative by privately held CyberSlice Inc. of Seattle when the program was launched earlier this month.
The CyberSlice system enables computer users with Web-browsing software and an Internet connection easily to locate pizza restaurants serving their neighborhood, look over each restaurant's menu, search for daily specials, place an order and receive E-mail containing confirmation the order was received and an estimated time of delivery.
Computers at CyberSlice headquarters in Seattle translate the orders into digital-voice messages that are relayed by telephone to participating restaurants, where employees using special combinations of telephone keys can manage the incoming information and communicate with the computer making the call.
By the end of the first week of operation CyberSlice had functional Web sites for more than 400 of those initial 1,000 restaurants and was adding the others at the rate of about 75 a day, a company source said.
Despite CyberSlice's use of sophisticated new technology to give restaurateurs a flashy presence on the World Wide Web and route orders to their establishments, participating operators pay nothing up front and pay no Web site maintenance fees. CyberSlice charges operators a pertransaction fee of from 50 cents to $3,...