DOMINO'S PIZZA CUSTOMER PURCHASING POWER
Pizza is, next to burgers, America's favorite food. Domino's 2000 sales of $1.157 billion (Retail Researcher, 2001, p. 1) through 6,977 owned and franchised stores in 64 international markets with 18 domestic distribution centers providing stores with over 150 products (www.dominos.com) makes it the largest seller of pizza in America, if not the world. Part of its success comes from the upscale computer software it uses to segment its customer base. "The information is retrieved from Qualitative Marketing Software to Domino's demographics database, allowing the pizza company to find out more about customers' characteristics" (qmsoft, 2001, p. 1). The company which sold over 300,000,000 pizzas in 1999 (dominos homepage, 2001, p. 1) now boasts that "we deliver over a million pizzas a day" (www.dominos.com, 2001, p. 1) uses its industry leadership and customer segmentation to learn more about the purchasing habits of its customers. For example, having found that Tuesday is the lowest sales day of the week, Domino's now aggressively markets a "Tuesday 2x" which means that the purchase of a $9.99 large pizza entitles the customer to a second pizza free. To learn more about its customer behavior, Domino's now has an online "Mystery Customer" form, which asks online subscribers to answer questions about their pizza eating habits, their favorite toppings, satisfaction with delivery time and product quality, and also asks for suggestions.
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