Pizza Hut Has Come A Long Way Since 1994
The first digital order was a large pepperoni, mushroom, and extra cheese pizza from Pizza Hut in 1994. Because this was the first online order, I thought it would be fitting to look at the history of the Pizza Hut website. The Pizza Hut website has made changes to reflect the business changes such as rewards programs, expanded menus, and the acquisition of another company.
Originally, the website was very simple in 1994. The first archived view of the website is from December 19, 1996, and this is a very simple webpage with only one image and three areas to interact with on the site. The menu was listed on the website and personal information had to be inputted before being prompted to order the pizza online.
By December 11, 1997, the website had more images, more pages, and more information. This change indicates that the use of the internet is more accessible and with more web pages, it requires a more aesthetically pleasing and informative page. In addition, they launched a book reading program for young children called BOOK IT!. If children read for a certain amount of hours, they received coupons and vouchers for pizza, so the company was increasing in popularity with this program.
As Pizza Hut began to increase their community outreach events, they changed their website by March 3, 2000 to indicate additional pages to showcase their community involvement. In July 23, 2004, Pizza Hut’s website drastically changed again once the VIP program was launched. Pizza Hut allowed for users to register with the website so that they can order pizza easier by saving their popular pizza orders and common locations. Once Pizza Hut acquired WingStreet and started allowed selling chicken wings in addition to their pizza, the website changed to add a WingStreet tab to see the new wings menu. This was a huge change for the company, and resulted in a big change to the website.
The Pizza Hut website has changed so much, and it is indicative that the site that allowed for the first digital order has grown rapidly since that large pizza to suit the growing and changing business.
