So the “2 for 1” offer has continued to be until today.
Canadian Pizzas also caters to local tastes here and is “very close” to the hearts of customers, Mr Abdullah said. Although it started off with Western-style menu options, the chain has become a lot more Singaporean now, he or she said.
“We don’t go for extravagant, international flavours and all that. (It is) very down to world. If you are a Malay, you want something for your tastebuds, we have some thing. For Indians, we have, for Chinese, we have (it). ”
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Canadian Pizza’s sales increased threefold on average throughout its outlets.
“We acquired so many orders we all didn’t have enough bikers to send (the pizzas). So who was sending for me? My pilot friends … There were like 20 vehicles waiting outside simply to deliver pizza, ” said Mr Abdullah, who was still the franchisee then.
“At times, (the) outlet was close for about four to five hours at one time because we couldn’t handle purchases. ”
While things have stabilised, what happened highlights Canadian Pizza’s place in the marketplace, he said.
“They know who also we are. It’s just that they are just tired… forgot (about us), or they discover us boring. ”
SERVICE, PROVIDE ISSUES
As more customers turn to third-party food delivery platforms, issues such as assistance standards have opened.
Half of Canadian Pizza’s delivery orders are through their website, while the partner are from third-party platforms.
“All this while we have been serving the pizza ourselves, my cyclists. So we have control of the riders. We now have control over customer service, high quality and delivery. But now we don’t, ” said Mr Abdullah.
“When a client makes these problems, it is diverted back to us and this affects our image plus reputation. ”
To entice customers to order straight, Mr Abdullah said he plans to provide more promotions designed for orders through the Canadian Pizza website.
Manpower and supply string concerns are difficulties he is also coping with in recent times.
“With all these things going on in the world, we have issues of getting the cheese, sauce… All of us used to get everything from a particular supplier, but now we now have about 20 providers, ” he stated.
To tackle the manpower crisis, Canadian Pizza is looking into automating associated with its production. For one, dough production with several outlets had been automated and Canadian Pizza plans to build a central kitchen area in November.