Home delivery orders go up in Ramazan

LAHORE: Home delivery orders have increased by 35 to 40 per cent this Ramazan, according to restaurants on MM Alam Road, Liberty and Lakshmi Chowk.

The trend, however, seems limited to Iftar offers since apart from one or two fast food eateries, none reported receiving a single order for their Sehri deals.

Nazi Saleem, a customer placing her home delivery order at a restaurant in Liberty, told The Express Tribune that she did not feel the need to go to restaurants because hot food was now delivered to her doorstep.

Another customer, Waseem Mir, who placed his Iftar order in the afternoon at a restaurant in Mini Market said that he preferred home delivery because he could avoid the nuisance of driving around trying to find a way out of traffic jams while getting things for Iftar.

Akramul Haq, the manager of a restaurant in Liberty said that they had been surprised by the positive response by the customers to the Iftar deals.

“A lot of restaurants that had no such offers last year came up with them this year because they could not afford to forgo their share of the exciting new market,” he said. “With restaurants expanding the area that they serve in, more people are availing our offers,” Sharjeel added, “Compared to last year, we have been receiving 30 per cent more orders.”

Sabahat Baig, a booking officer at a fast food chain on MM Alam Road said that home delivery orders had increased as compared to 2009.

“We have been receiving up to 40 orders daily. In 2009, we took around 25 orders a day,” he added. Rizwan Sami, the owner of a fast food eatery at MM Alam Road said that this Ramazan they had taken around 580 orders.

“Last year, during the first fortnight of Ramazan we got 400 orders,” he added.

Observing the customers’ preference for home deliveries rather than eating in, an international fast food chain situated on MM Alam Road has 20 delivery men on duty between 6 pm to 8 pm, according to its supervisor Sharjeel. Bilal Javed, who is a restaurant manager at Lakshmi Chowk said that vigorous advertisement through massive banners had helped keep the customers abreast about the new Ramazan deals. “Most of the orders are placed over the telephone,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 29^th, 2010.