
Tech Startup Slice Helps Local Pizzerias Get Online - cpeterso
https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2018/04/10/pizza-unchained-tech-startup-slice-helps-local-pizzerias-get-online-and-fight-back-against-dominos/
======
covercash
I hate Slice. They basically came in and registered similar domains to
existing pizza shops but because they are better at SEO than the mom & pop
places, their results out rank the real sites.

They even went in and updated unclaimed listings on yelp, google, Foursquare,
etc. and put their site.

That would be fine if the pizza shops were on board with this. But none of the
shops I order from had any clue their orders were being hijacked. Oh, and
Slice charges more than if you ordered directly from the shop.

~~~
jiveturkey
The download.cnet.com of the pizza world.

~~~
adamqureshi
I spoke to the my local pizza shop in NYC. He said between grubhub, uberRush,
yelp and now slice, they are eating his pizza profit margins. He said he has
to deal with 3-4 software / hardware POS products for EACH service. They are
sucking him dry. He can't make money BUT needs them to bring the business.
Slice takes a 20% "slice" per order / of his business. Flour costs going up,
he makes his own mozzerella. UberRush takes 33%. I don't know about grubhub /
yelp % but its not good for him. His pizza is authentic neopolitina with
homemade ingredients. You Actually taste the marinara sauce and fresh
mozzerella. Dominos goal is to "squeeze" out and maximize profits using the
cheapest possible ingredients they find! Then tell you its good!

~~~
ShabbosGoy
Which will inevitably lead him to use poorer quality ingredients in order to
survive. 3-4 POS is ridiculous for a small business. Why hasn’t this been
solved yet?

~~~
adamqureshi
He said he gets called from india about some app / software that offers a
dashboard to connect uberRush, slice, yelp, grubhub guess what? they take a
fee on top of the fees from each POS / Software provider he is using. Its a
"Layer Cake" fee. Like that movie. Fee on top of fee. Each morning he wakes up
to further confusion when what he REALLY wants todo is make damn good pizza.
He also said no one comes to eat in his spot EVERYONE orders out or take out
using one of those apps above. He can't figure out all these different apps /
services and has to hire someone todo it. Each time he tries to call one of
these service providers, he can't get through to an actual human.

~~~
jgalt212
love "Layer Cake". Sienna Miller at the peak of her powers.

~~~
adamqureshi
Damn she was HOT in that movie. First time i saw her.

------
jedberg
Back about six years ago now, we had a new guy come on board my team at
Netflix as an SRE. He had come from Dominoes. He told us stories about how
Dominos saw the writing on the wall and reinvented itself as a tech company,
how every step in the pizza making process had an API.

He showed us command line tools that you could use to order and track your
pizza, so you could set it up in cron and then have it tell you when the pizza
is about to show up.

He told us about all the load testing they had to do before the Superbowl,
because unlike any regular weekend, where there is a burst of order activity
around dinner, the orders weren't spread across time zones. During the
Superbowl, _everyone_ ordered their pizza to show up at halftime, regardless
of their time zone.

So yeah, Dominoes has been working on this for a _long_ time, and they are
_way_ ahead. Their only real disadvantage is that their HQ is in Detroit, so
all their best engineers get pulled away to the coasts for better paying jobs
(like my friend did).

~~~
sharkweek
Hang on, what? People order pizza to show up at half time? I have only been at
Super Bowl parties where the pizza is there before the game starts, normally
part of a giant spread of other heart attack foods.

~~~
jedberg
Most people order at half time to resupply and also because for 1/2 the
country it’s closer to dinner time.

------
ardit33
Fun fact, some of the best "italian" pizzeria's in NYC are actually owned
and/or run by Albanians.

There is a whole generation of Albanians that moved in Italy (after the 90s),
learned the trade there and eventually moved in NYC and opened their places.

Fun fact number 2: A lot of greek places in NYC are actually operated by
albanians. (for the same reasons as above).

The main reason is marketing: People in the US know italian and greek food
very well, but they are not familiar with Albanian food (which is just as
good), so it is much easier for Albanians to market/open a italian/greek
restaurant.

~~~
lambda
Pizza is pretty universal these days. There was one pizza place near me in
college owned by an Indian family; they also sold Indian food. They didn't
appreciate it when we tried to order a chicken tikka pizza, though.

Another pizza place near where I used to work was run by an Irish guy, who
then later sold it to a Chinese guy.

Oh, and my favorite pizza place near where I used to live was run by a
Dominican guy.

I think that pizza place food is not really connected with Italians in the US
any more; it's pretty much just become mainstream American. Though there is
still a trend for them to have Italian names.

~~~
inferiorhuman
> Pizza is pretty universal these days. There was one pizza place near me in
> college owned by an Indian family; they also sold Indian food. They didn't
> appreciate it when we tried to order a chicken tikka pizza, though.

Oh that's too bad. There are a few Indian pizza places out here. Some are
mostly Indian food on pizza dough, and some have embraced the hybrid (mozz +
chicken tikka masala on dough). It's a great combination.

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whalesalad
Life imitates art. [https://sf.eater.com/2018/3/26/17165314/hbo-silicon-
valley-s...](https://sf.eater.com/2018/3/26/17165314/hbo-silicon-valley-
sliceline-pizza-promo)

~~~
gfosco
Slice has been around a lot longer than the Sliceline episode, but the
business model questions raised are still pretty relevant.

------
scrooched_moose
> Yet Sela believes consumers have been abandoning local shops--even those
> with fresher ingredients, better flavors and ties to their communities--
> mostly because they lack the ability to take mobile orders.

That may be part of it, but among people I know the majority of it is cost. A
16" pizza at most of our favorite spots ends up around $25. I can get a 14" 3
topping pizza at Dominos for $7.99.

The local pizza is great and we get it a couple times a month, but it's not 3
times better.

~~~
ahallock
Local pizza is more like 100x better. I couldn't even finish a slice of
Dominos, at least the one I ordered from on the west side of Cleveland. I've
had better frozen pizza. I don't get who's ordering it. It's not even the
'good' kind of bad, like, say McDonald's fries that one indulges in on
occasion.

~~~
subpixel
Chain restaurants don't succeed by being better, they succeed by being
consistent. The fear of having a bad meal is much, much stronger than the
desire to have an exceptional one. This - along with price - is why McDonald's
in NYC is packed with tourists.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Sadly, I don’t think it’s even mostly tourists. Every McDonalds I walk by in
NYC is always busy, even in parts of the city with fewer tourists.

------
jasonjei
I’ve always joked that Domino’s is the original food delivery “tech” company.
Reading this article confirms it, as well as watching the Netflix _Ugly
Delicious_ “Pizza” episode where they show how as much of the Dominos’ process
is automated.

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sjg007
This is what sliceline should’ve been in Silicon Valley.

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seba_dos1
Interesting. In Poland there are two well-known for years online food ordering
services, where small local pizzerias and bistros can offer their dishes and
take your orders - PizzaPortal and Pyszne.pl. Only recently they got some
competition in form of Uber Eats, which also handles the delivery for the
restaurant; however, Uber's catalog of restaurants and supported cities is
still very limited when compared to those other two.

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chiefalchemist
Somewhat off topic but the majority of the indie pizza joints near me (central
NJ, 60ish mins from NYC and PHL) have gone bottom market. That is, flavorless
and mediocre.

If Domino's is winning from convenience then perhaps the M&P product needs
more help than their technology?

------
ghostbrainalpha
The last time I ordered Domino's the delivery person brought me a completely
empty box.

It was so light when they handed it over, I immediately opened it before
signing the check. I remember the driver just looked at me, like _Dang, that
's a weird order_. He didn't jump in with an apology or anything.

When I said I wouldn't pay for the pizza, he asked me to sign the receipt and
said he would go back and bring me another pizza. I said that's not what a
receipt is for... a receipt means you RECEIVED the product.

I am pretty sure that guy ate my pizza, and after I signed the receipt he
would never have came back. I called the store to complain and they offered to
send me a free pizza the next day, but it never came.

------
lifeisstillgood
My default advice to workers getting rough end of the stick is "unionise".

here companies with SEO skills are stiffing smaller shops and i cannot think
of any better advice.

It is of course hard to do - basically the Teamsters were the only effective
ones at it and they used ... unethical approaches - but i do think it's
feasible.

Also this is the essence of the open source critical mass problem. Proprietary
houses can afford the initial upfront investment to say make a pizza site but
which non profit union exists to run an SEO operation to compete here?

Is this just a failing of small shops who are destined to be beaten if they
don't grow? is this a failing of SEO at google who cannot distinguish between
a local shop and a chain?

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tjmehta
Sliceline?

~~~
philfrasty
relevant
[https://www.reddit.com/r/SiliconValleyHBO/comments/88048t/wh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SiliconValleyHBO/comments/88048t/what_exactly_did_slice_line_do/)

------
rahimnathwani
I'm surprised to see no mention of Open Table in the article or here in the
comments.

It sounds from the comments that Slice is creating an intermediary where none
existed before, by providing a service (acquire g and processing online
orders) that's hard for any single restaurant to build at small scale. So when
the first few restaurants sign up, it's incremental revenue for them. Over
time, though, as every pizza place uses Slice, it's no longer a competitive
advantage but expected.

I imagine that, at the early stages, those restaurants that adopt the model
win at the expense of laggards. Over time the gains probably accrue to the
middle man, with some gains going to consumers (who have a wider range of
places to order from) and some losses to the restaurants (who end up competing
with the whole extended neighbourhood, and giving margin to Slice for both
incremental customers, and customers who would have bought direct before this
whole thing started).

------
iosDrone
Actually it's called SliceLine

------
JackCh
Maybe I'm just out of touch, but the appeal of online pizza ordering is
something I can't wrap my mind around. Calling and placing an order using the
traditional telephone method seems far easier to me. I do it often, more often
than I should. Furthermore it seems better for the business since presumably
the phone company takes a much smaller cut of the sale than whatever web
platform they may be using.

Is it because people are growing more adverse to the brief limited social
interaction of a phonecall? Is it because people are placing very large and
complex orders that are difficult to convey over the phone? (admittedly most
of my orders are for a single pizza with two or three topping specified..) Is
it because websites have more pictures that people find attractive?

~~~
nxc18
1) having to talk over the other restaurant staff; receiver can't hear you. 2)
reading my credit card number over the phone 3) explaining the details of the
order. The human always messes it up. 4) getting surprised by the cost, or
having to calculate the cost for all the items ahead of time. I'd rather
negotiate my order with a machine in the privacy of my own home than with a
person on the phone.

~~~
JackCh
I see. I typically pay with cash, however whenever my trip to an ATM is
overdue I pay with credit and they have my number _(and delivery address, and
typical pizza order)_ on file, correlated with my phone number. The pizzeria I
most frequently order from is a loud bar and I hear the din of the bar noise
in the background quite clearly, but I've never had to repeat myself when
talking with them over the phone.

Often times I can order a pizza over the phone using nothing more than three
words _" yes ... yes ... yes"_, in response to the questions _" are you still
at [address]"_, _" same order as last time?"_, _" cash?"_. Certainly a website
can remember such details as well, but poking around at a webpage that
remembers such details isn't nearly as straight forward in my mind as simply
talking to a person for a few seconds.

~~~
Operyl
Which is just as terrifying if someone knows you order from that place ..
caller id spoofing is pretty easy and I doubt it’d be hard to convince them to
change the address.

~~~
JackCh
Honestly I have better things to worry about. Despite that being theoretically
possible, how often do you think it actually happens? It's more likely that
I'll be hit and killed by a car tomorrow, a more likely scenario with a far
more severe consequence. And even that is a scenario I don't find myself
dwelling on.

Possible? Yes. Terrifying? Not even remotely.

------
andjd
I can appreciate that Slice is trying to undercut competitors like seamless,
but their app is little more than a minimum viable product. It lacks any user-
generated content, such as reviews or photos, so there's really nothing to
make your choice on, unless you already know the place you're ordering from.
The menus have no standardization, so you don't even have a reliable indicator
of how much food you are ordering. I have trouble seeing how they can compete
when their many competitors provide a much better UX.

------
gowld
This is part of the plot of The Internship
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k__jmmSIUEE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k__jmmSIUEE)

------
RandomInteger4
Huh, interesting. I never considered pizza to be one of those markets that
could be threatened by a franchise corporation.

I mean, I know there's Little Caesars that has their super cheap medium
pizzas, but they're super cheap for a reason and pizza seems like one of those
things people are willing to pay a little more for, because quality can vary
quite significantly.

~~~
DrScump
I think part of it is that people often buy pizza out of their neighborhood,
so they want a name they know with menu items they can just recite... hence
not only national chains but regional chains (e.g. Round Table in CA).

I would never have a chain food app on my phone just from a privacy-suck
standpoint. For example, here are the permissions the Dominos app wants on
Android:

This app has access to:

Location

\- precise location (GPS and network-based)

Phone

\- directly call phone numbers

\- read phone status and identity

Photos/Media/Files

\- read the contents of your USB storage

\- modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Storage

\- read the contents of your USB storage

\- modify or delete the contents of your USB storage

Camera

\- take pictures and videos

Microphone

\- record audio

Device ID & call information

\- phone status and identity

Other

\- receive data from Internet

\- view network connections

\- pair with Bluetooth devices

\- access Bluetooth settings

\- full network access

\- control vibration

\- prevent device from sleeping

~~~
nathanaldensr
That's incredible. I feel sorry for anyone installing apps like that. They get
what they deserve, IMO.

------
dgritsko
> "the opportunity to build a business that could compete with Big Pizza by
> uniting tens of thousands of mom-and-pop shops"

This summary of Slice's business feels like it ought to be generalizable to
other industries. Anyone have other examples of companies trying to do
something similar in different verticals? (s/Big Pizza/Big Floral, or
something?)

~~~
gowld
Big Floral does this, for many years already:
[https://www.ftd.com/](https://www.ftd.com/)

~~~
kalleboo
For over 100 years apparently
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interflora](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interflora)

------
Reedx
Heh, they have an ad if you search for Sliceline.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=Sliceline](https://www.google.com/search?q=Sliceline)

"The Slice App taking over, the real Pied Piper of Pizza!"

------
petetnt
In Finland a site called PizzaOnline is doing the same and many (most?) whom
offer delivery is on it (I'd assume) with 400 000 registered users at least
(with a population of 5,5 million). Insanely popular.

------
ibdf
My goodness it's getting harder and harder to get to the news.
[https://ibb.co/idSye7](https://ibb.co/idSye7)

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DrScump
FYI, here are the permissions the Slice app requires on Android:

"This app has access to:

Identity: find accounts on the device, add or remove accounts

Contacts: ( _are you kidding me?!?!_ )

Location: precise location (GPS and network-based)

Photos/Media/Files: read the contents of your USB storage, modify or delete
the contents of your USB storage

Storage: read the contents of your USB storage, modify or delete the contents
of your USB storage

Camera: take pictures and videos

Wi-Fi connection information: view Wi-Fi connections

Other:

\- receive data from Internet

\- view network connections

\- create accounts and set passwords

\- full network access

\- use accounts on the device

\- control vibration

\- prevent device from sleeping"

So, what they don't make on taking a slice of providers, they can make on
selling marketing/demographic data.

------
whateveracct
I use Slice all the time to order from A Pizza Mart in Seattle.

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pramodzion
Sliceline !

------
ahallock
Dominos put more money into their ordering system bells and whistles than the
actual food, if you can call it food. I couldn't even finish a slice it was so
bad.

~~~
Fifer82
Absolutely the same here and I am Scottish. I will eat pretty much anything,
but even with a beer in Me, I can't handle Dominos.

Fake cheese, Fake chicken, Fake mushrooms (I was amazed at fake mushrooms) all
put together onto a tasteless base.

Gives me the boke.

~~~
praneshp
> Fake cheese, Fake chicken, Fake mushrooms

What is fake chicken? Do you want a live, breathing chicken?

~~~
Fifer82
The youngest chicken possible, pumped full of saline and water so that when
cooked and you cut it with a knife, the cross section looks like playdoh. It
has no texture. There is no "grain" to the meat.

A chicken breast today (not fed on chemical feed) is £8-£10 each from a decent
butcher or a farm.

You can get chicken breast from a cheap supermarket 10 for £2.99.

These aren't the same thing.

~~~
praneshp
Those aren't the same thing, but that's not fake chicken either.

Chicken fed on chemical feed is not "fake" chicken either. I can understand it
doesn't live up to your expectations though.

