Take-and-bake pizza franchise Papa Murphy's said Monday it plans to spruce up its online ordering and precision marketing efforts with the help of Deloitte Digital.
The pizza chain said it plans to launch a redesigned website, including advanced online-ordering capabilities, in the first half of 2016. The work is set to be done by Deloitte Digital, a digital-consulting agency that is part of Deloitte Consulting.
Papa Murphy's, founded in 1981, has about 1,500 locations in 38 U.S. states, Canada and the United Arab Emirates, including franchised and corporate-owned locations. Customers stop by to pick up pizzas to be baked at home, as well as salads and other items. Currently, only 750 locations have online-ordering capabilities, President-CEO Ken Calwell said in a statement.
The changes should help make the Papa Murphy's website more user friendly and "enable the growth potential of precision marketing," Mr. Calwell said.
Sales at Papa Murphy's U.S. locations open at least a year rose 4.5% in the second quarter ended June 29, with a 4.9% rise at company-owned stores and a 4.5% increase at shops run by franchisees.
Overall, the take-and-bake pizza concept competes with a wide variety of restaurants selling cooked pies, along with grocers and stores such as Costco selling unbaked pizzas for shoppers to prepare at home. HomeMade Pizza Co., a much smaller take-and-bake pizza chain, abruptly shut down its 30-plus locations in late May 2014 and filed for bankruptcy protection in December.
Papa Murphy's spent $27.4 million on measured media in 2014, according to Kantar Media.
