Taco Bell Beefs Up Sales With Mobile Ordering

Taco Bell’s new mobile app is cooking, posting sales at 20 percent higher than in-store orders.

The company, a division of Yum! Brands, relied heavily on social media to promote the app’s launch. Among the application’s features are the enabling of users to customize their orders, pay via smartphone and pick up orders at Taco Bell restaurants. According to Mobile Commerce Daily, the brand’s high digital orders can be attributed in part to consumers’ preferences of purchasing additional ingredients through the app, such as sour cream and nacho cheese, which cost at least $0.30 per add-on.

Taco Bell executives believe that one aspect of the app’s success is due to the fact that it showcases the entire menu via a user-friendly interface, including side dishes and lesser-known items as well as add-ons, such as onions, cheese and sauces. The app also provides suggestions derived from meals consumers are creating, a tactic which is helping to reduce mobile shopping cart abandonment.

Observed Thad Peterson, a senior analyst at Aite Group: “Mobile ordering provides a few benefits. First, there is a lot of room to display variations and alternatives and the app is well designed to present them. Second, the app can remember preferences so ordering a favorite is easy and fast. Lastly, the app gives the customer something that they don’t generally have when in the store: time.”

Personalization capabilities play a large role in the mobile ordering app, with Taco Bell having reported that 70 percent of its consumers already customize their orders. Users can also pay within the app with a credit, debit or gift card, and can select pick-up location to be at the drive-thru window or in store.