Popular review site Yelp is changing course a little bit and will be giving food-delivery giants Grubhub and Seamless a bit of extra competition.
Yelp is now offering customers the ability to order food delivery or takeout directly on Yelp, either on desktop or through its mobile apps, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman writes on the company's blog.
The Yelp Platform will roll out category by category. The first category is for food delivery and pickup.
Stoppelman said the new service will let people place orders for food without having to leave Yelp to complete the delivery process. Yelp will be in charge of checkout and payment processes with the orders.
"The idea is that there are all these consumers shopping on the site, and Yelp Platform allows them to take that next step -- to transact," Stoppelman told VentureBeat. "The Yelp experience is all about going to local businesses. As you switch between different services, you as the consumer will have a one-stop shop."
Google, Facebook, Foursquare, and a bevy of smaller startups are taking on Yelp with their own search features, but Stoppelman said that he is not concerned. Google and Facebook aren't focused exclusively on local businesses, which gives Yelp an advantage, and smaller companies don't have what he says is the same breadth and depth of content.
The service will initially launch in San Francisco, with partnerships with food-delivery companies Eat24 and Delivery.com.
Yelp hopes that soon its platform will be a one-stop shop where users can browse through reviews and make an appointment without ever leaving a browser tab (or mobile app).
