Domino’s Pizza is so strapped for delivery workers that it’s willing to pay customers to pick up the pizzas themselves. The Ann Arbor, Michigan-based chain will offer a $3 “tip” to anyone who places an order online and then picks up the pizza. Customers will receive the money in the form a credit that they can apply to future orders. The promotion, which runs through May 22, is designed to ease the stress on Dominos’ short-staffed army of employees who are likely to see their workloads increase as Super Bowl weekend approaches. Last quarter, Domino’s posted its first quarterly sales decline in more than a decade. The company blamed the ongoing labor shortage, which forced it to cut operating hours and expand delivery times at some of its locations. Though pizza sales soared during the pandemic, the end of the lockdowns sent Americans back into restaurants. Domino’s, like virtually all businesses in many sectors of the economy, has also had to raise prices due to “unprecedented increases” in the cost of food and other key ingredients, according to CEO Richard Allison. To address the labor shortage, Allison said last fall that the company would maximize the number of deliveries a driver could make per shift. “I don’t see why drivers should ever have to get out of their cars. Why can’t we keep them turning to the store back to the customer and maximizing deliveries per driver per hour,” Allison said on a call with analysts. Shares of Domino’s Pizza rose by more than 3% in trading on Wall Street on Monday. The company is due to reveal its next earnings report on March 1.
