Google now lets users in the U.S. order food from six companies—Seamless, Grubhub, Eat24, Delivery.com, BeyondMenu, and MyPizza.com—directly from search results.
If someone searches for a restaurant that offers delivery through one of those providers, an option for “place an order” will show up in its Google information. Users are then shown links to delivery services and complete the order directly on their sites.
Food-delivery startups attracted $600 million in venture capital funding last year, up from $25 million in 2012, but most consumers still place orders by calling restaurants directly. Partnering with Google will certainly help companies get more visibility. The tech giant, meanwhile, gets the benefit of tapping into data from the burgeoning industry.
Since startups like Seamless and Grubhub consolidate menus from many different restaurants, people end up searching for information for nearby venues on those sites when they are figuring out what to eat.
By offering an ordering option, Google redirects those users to its main search site, and is therefore able to see not only what kind of food and restaurants they are interested in, but also which delivery services they prefer—information that may come in handy as the tech giant builds its other verticals, including e-commerce.