Small businesses have turned to Yelp to get feedback from enthusiastic customers. They may soon turn to the site to generate sales as well. A new feature from Yelp, Yelp Platform, will allow small business owners to make sales directly from the customer review site.
The company announced roll out of its Yelp Platform recently. In a post on the official Yelp Web Log, Founder Jeremy Stoppelman explained:
Yelp connects people with great local businesses, giving users plenty of information to make spending decisions and allowing them to share those experiences online. What about those times when you discover a great business and want to book it directly on Yelp? Well, great news: today we’re introducing Yelp Platform, a new way to transact on Yelp.
Yelp users were once limited to posting reviews, photos, and other information about a restaurant or some other type of service-based business. Now they’ll be able to take that a step further and actually place orders.
Yelp is currently working with select restaurants across the country beginning with food delivery and pickup services. Check out pages for two restaurants already using the new Yelp delivery and pickup pages: Harry’s Italian Pizza Bar in New York City and Layaly Mediterranean Grill in San Francisco.
The company is also working with delivery.com and Eat24 on the roll out of the new ordering and delivery features.
To use Yelp’s new pages simply select “Enter your deliver address†and then do so. Or select “Pickup†if you plan to visit the restaurant yourself to fetch your food. Then hit “Start Order†and use the simple order page to make your selection The new Yelp feature offers the perfect combination of word of mouth and e-commerce. Browse reviews of each business by fellow customers then order from the business of your choice all on the same page.
Eventually Stoppelman says customers will be able to order delivery from thousands of restaurants in the U.S. The company next plans to introduce other categories of business like dentist offices, yoga studios, spas and salons, he added.
Image: Wikipedia and Yelp Official Blog
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