COVID-19 Impact Analysis Series Article Four: Delivery Orders and Breakfast

Author: Shubham Goyal (April 03, 2020)

Breakfast orders are in the decline

THIS COVID-19 impact Analysis Series designed by Punchh’s data team aims at sharing the real-time insight we have discovered when we study our consumer behavior data set. In our previous article, we provided our insight into the increase in the off-prem orders as % of total orders. In this fourth article, we have zoomed in on two categories within off-prem orders: delivery and takeout.

As of April 02, the governors of more than 40 states have imposed a stay-at-home directive, essentially putting 80% of Americans under lockdown. Under these circumstances, the off-prem orders as % of total orders have increased by 20% in a matter of three weeks. The graph below shows the shift in this trend.

Increase in % share of off-prem orders among total orders

(dine-in orders are those where customers consume the orders within the premises of the restaurant. off-prem orders are those where customers consume the orders elsewhere)

Among the off-prem orders, which are either “delivery” or “takeout”, we found that delivery orders as % of total off-prem orders have doubled over a period of 3 weeks, going from 6% to 15%. The graph below shows the trend.

Increase in delivery orders as % of off-prem orders

(takeout orders include to-go orders, drive-through, curbside pickups)

With this context in mind, we have further explored whether the way people are placing delivery orders in different parts of the day has shifted. For example, the morning orders may be going down because consumers would increase their tendency of preparing their own breakfast at home. Our analysis confirms our hypothesis.

(Sum of percentages for each period (horizontally) will add up to 100%)

The data shows that the share of delivery orders placed during breakfast has decreased the most (-6 %-point). This slack is picked up during lunch hours and further into the afternoon and dinner time. However, consumers have started to prepare their own late-night snack food, or consumer behavior might have been affected by the new store hours.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• The majority of the consumers are still coming to the stores to pick up their meals. They are consuming it elsewhere, most likely at home.
• The trend of having orders delivered is increasing. In specific, there is a significant shift from the delivery orders placed for breakfast to the delivery orders placed for lunch. Hence, brands should be cognisant of the fact that delivery traffic tends to concentrate during lunch and dinner times. They should plan their operations accordingly.

ABOUT THE DATA

The underlying data for this analysis is from 10K+ restaurant stores across the country covering 12 brands for the period of Feb 01 — Mar 31.