Comments on: The Online Store Around the Corner

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 04:10:21 +0000

You’re right. Trust plays a role on both sides. The answer to your problem is to have the customer pay in advance. Of course, if customers don’t trust the reservation, they won’t pay.

And so goes the cycle.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:56:54 +0000

along the trust/value issue from the restaurant’s POV, how do they know you’re going to show up and pay for the appetizer you’ve ordered online? That trust probably has to be built over time as conventions develop.

By: Adam

Adam — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 20:38:47 +0000

Agreed that restaurants don’t see the value. As I said, they have yet to be forced the way Amazon made book retailers come online.

I like that Syrah connects to OpenTable. I think that’s a great offline-online connection example. Findability is an issue with K&L, who doesn’t have a website. But if you know about OpenTable, you can find them, and several other nearby restaurants.

Trust is going to be a problem with these systems as they start to be used. If I place a reservation at a restaurant for an hour from now, will they really get it? Similarly, I didn’t much trust the Borders stock results, and was even a bit unsure of the Powell’s one.

By: Mike Duffy

Mike Duffy — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:10:03 +0000

What about OpenTable.com? Two nice restaurants nearby (K&L Bistro and Syrah Bistro) have OpenTable pages which seem to be accurate regarding hours and allow me to make a reservation for the same evening.

Syrah has its own Web site, but K&L does not.

The question is why don’t restaurants do this, and the answer is that the resulting value vs. the expense is not a clear tradeoff to them (for whatever reason).

What would you say to these restaurants?