Domino's satisfies hunger for 'e-pizzas'

Domino's Pizza has upgraded its website to cope with the public's hunger for ordering pizza online.

Nearly one in six pizza orders are now made via the web - and Domino's expects this figure to rise to between 30 and 40 per cent in the near future.

Jane Kimberlin, IT director of Domino's, told silicon.com: "Potentially we can see this [internet ordering] growing more and more. It's growing daily as we watch it."

Domino's chose communications company Affiniti to help it increase its website capacity to make sure it could handle the 4,000 to 5,000 orders the site receives daily.

Kimberlin said that just before Christmas the website needed an urgent upgrade to cope with a surge in the number of people ordering online - and Affiniti pulled out all the stops to make this happen within two weeks.

Domino's plans to get even more tech-savvy. A mobile text-based order service is in the pipeline and it will be using Second Life to reach more pizza-hungry punters.

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Kimberlin said Second Life is where Domino's customers are and therefore that's where the pizza company needs to be too.

Online sales helped boost profits at Domino's in 2006. Ecommerce sales rose by 43.8 per cent to £20.1m, accounting for 13 per cent of overall sales.