Many large chain eateries take good advantage of the promotional opportunities available online. But what if local restaurants could do this too?
Last January, Web development firm WSI set up Togony.com, (www.togony.com) a service that enables local restaurants to receive and fulfill take-out orders through the Web.
Megan Miles and Marie Congalosi are partners in the Glens Falls, NY firm. To recruit local restaurants, Miles says she has gone to meetings of area business people to network.
Togony.com is also looking into running an e-mail campaign to recruit more restaurants with lists supplied by Constant Contact, a Waltham, MA company that helps small businesses market through the Web, says Miles.
So far, WSI has signed up 22 local restaurants, which join Togony.com for an undisclosed fee, says Miles. Those eateries range from local pizza places to finer dining establishments
At present, Togony.com can serve customers living as far North as the resort community of Lake George, NY and as far south as Rotterdam. Expansion down to Albany, NY is planned in the near future.
For the local restaurants, Togony.com provides such promotional material as labels, tabletop accessories, paper banners and other collateral.
“We’d even design Web sites for them if they want,” Miles says.
She acknowledges that this concept has been tried before with less-than-spectacular results. Examples include the now-defunct Kozmo.com here in the states and Messsengerdodomu.cz in the Czech Republic.
“Probably the timing was not right,” she says of those operations.
Miles says she has researched the area and found that a lot of national chains now accept take-out orders through the Web.
“And we’re very sensitive to customer feedback both from patrons and restaurants,” she says
Besides running an online marketing company, Miles brings a background in restaurant sales to this latest venture. Going forward, she isn’t looking for the kind of breakneck speed expansion that doomed so many dot-com companies several years ago.
“Slow growth is good growth, she says.
Many large chain eateries take good advantage of the promotional opportunities available online. But what if local restaurants could do this too?
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