This is not a drill: You can now order food on Facebook, according to an announcement from the social network released on Oct. 19. That's right — Facebook is launching new food delivery options that cut out the middleman of an additional delivery app or outside service. How will it work, exactly? It's not quite the same as, say, the Domino's delivery bot, which works specifically through Facebook Messenger; rather, you'll be able to place your order directly from individual restaurants' Facebook pages. Cool, right?
In fact, the whole process sounds incredibly simple: First, you go to the Facebook page of your restaurant of choice. Then, if the restaurant participates in Facebook's delivery program, you can select "Start Order," at which point you'll be presented with their menu. As Facebook explains in their press release, you will see the restaurant's menu if they have one posted through Delivery.com or Slice.com. This last bit is important; not every single restaurant is automatically enrolled in the delivery-through-Facebook option. Your choices will vary based on the restaurants around who have specifically decided to participate in the program.
This brings us to an interesting question: With so many delivery options, what is unique about Facebook's offering? And hey, are people ordering delivery en mass anyway?
The short answer is that yes, people love delivery. It's convenient, offers you more variety than what might be in your kitchen, and requires minimal clean-up. Studies show that millennials in particular spend more money going out to eat than any other generation. While dining in and eating out aren't truly the same thing, I think the desire to do both stems from the same place: a lack of resources or desire to cook meals at home.
Because while cooking is a great way to save money and can be super fun, it can also be super overwhelming. Cooking can also have some upfront costs that feel intimidating or isolating if you're truly starting fresh in a new living area and need to invest in pots, pans, spices, pantry staples, and so on and so forth. That said, cooking at home is usually more cost effective in the long term than going out all the time, so whether you choose to hit up the delivery circuit and how often also depends on what your budget is. Either way, you do you.
In terms of what makes Facebook's delivery option unique, I personally think it could be a great way to discover small restaurants and local places that you might otherwise not hear about. Sure, we all know that big-name chains have apps and easy-to-use websites, so naturally we're going to reach for those first when we want a fresh meal; Facebook, however, makes it easy to find places that might be more unique to your neck of the woods.
As Rheanna O'Neil Bellom at Delish points out, consumers have a ton of options to order food, so we'll have to keep an eye on Facebook's delivery option to see how it pans out. Eat well!
