
Ask HN: Neighborhood Pizzeria Needs Web Development Advice - JSeymourATL
Helping out a pal who owns a local neighborhood pizzeria.<p>Business is good, not great.  Several chain competitors have moved into the area in the past 2 years.<p>His current website is in need of a massive overhaul.  And probably should be scrapped all together.<p>We need advice on low-cost &#x2F; open source options for integrating online ordering, managing content (the menu), social media channels, etc...<p>Here&#x27;s a benchmark site, that may be worthy of emulation &gt;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.blazepizza.com<p>Any thoughts, ideas to compete online with the Big Corporate guys on shoestring budget?
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cimmanom
Some online food/delivery ordering services (Grubhub comes to mind) have
widgets that restaurants can embed into their website to display their own
menu and allow visitors to order for delivery or pickup. Combine that with a
static site or a basic CMS and you’re most of the way there.

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caruana
have you done a feature analysis of your competitors that you feel is
hindering your businesses growth?

I would think marketing / branding efforts would have a greater impact on the
local pizza market than technology solutions.

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JSeymourATL
Excellent idea, thank you!

One area impacting sales, the current site has no online ordering integration.
We feel that's an obvious opportunity we can capture.

The owner is concerned about giving up margin on his online orders vs current
phone-in orders.

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caruana
I can see why online ordering would look attractive to a small pizzeria but
you would still need to market that feature.

As a test pilot you could probably use a small WordPress plugin to see if
anybody tries out the added ordering medium.

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rajacombinator
How’s the actual pizza? Online ordering is good but I don’t think social media
blahblah is going to make a difference ... Chances are the pizza isn’t
distinctively better enough to compete with Big Pizza.

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JSeymourATL
We agree the best marketing in this business is good food and good service.
Their current use of social media is spotty at best. We think there’s an
opportunity to foster loyalty with customers. Especially in communicating game
night specials, pie of the day, coupons, etc...

