@CTIA: Snapfinger expands reach on mobile take-out

With more than 4 billion transactions made each year on take-out food, it’s easy to see how there could be room for some new thinking on how those orders are placed. Therein lies the deck Snapfinger is playing as it expands its online take-out ordering program to mobile.
The company announced the launch of its app on Google Inc.’s Android OS today along with a pair of new large chain restaurant partnerships. On average, the company makes 50 cents to $1 per transaction it manages. While mobile still only represents less than 2% of its total business, the company’s chairman and CEO Jim Garrett told RCR Wireless News he’s convinced mobile will comprise upwards of 90% of its business in five years
The company has dialed in agreements with a series of major chains, offering service in more than 1,600 cities across the country, and is now putting people on the ground at the local level to expand into locally-owned boutique restaurants. Garrett compared it to building a shopping mall where the owner focuses initially on getting anchor tenants then fills in with the smaller and mom-and-pop operations.
Snapfinger has also been white-labeling branded applications for some of its biggest customers like Subway, Outback Steakhouse and others. Having already launched an iPhone app (and then WebOS), the company has now submitted around a dozen apps to Apple so far with more restaurant-branded apps awaiting approval.
According to Snapfinger, restaurants typically enjoy a 25-30% increase in sales alone just by having the application setup to ask the customer if they’d like to add a desert, appetizer or drink, for example at the end of the ordering process. In the coming months, the company plans to improve the payment method and make the ordering process even simpler.
Matt Kapko can be reached at [email protected].