Tracking deliveries of all kinds is on everyone's radar
— -- Dawn Pabst hates the wait for a pizza delivery. So after she orders a pepperoni pizza from the Domino's website, she never waits.
She tracks.
The Air Force technician from Las Vegas tracks the second-by-second status of her pizza via colorful, thermometer-like gauges at Dominos.com. She's one of millions of customers who monitor everything from order accuracy to the moment their pizza is prepped, baked, boxed or sent for delivery. Pabst says she even tracks the name of the person who bakes her pizza.
"I've never been known to be the most patient person in the world," says Pabst, who has used Domino's Pizza Tracker six times over the past four months. "It's nice to be able to call back and say, 'So-and-so made my pizza, and it's all messed up.' "
America is becoming a nation of track-a-holics. We want to go online and track the whereabouts of everything we order — or do. It's sometimes because we need to know, but often it's simply because we want to know.
Marketers are keenly hip to this growing consumer demand. In the early days of online package tracking, UPS had just 100,000 online tracking requests in December 1995. By last December, that number was 27.3 million requests a day.
And they know that the marketers that track best, win.
"Data is money," says Patricia Martin, author of Renaissance Generation: The Rise of the Cultural Consumer and What It Means to Your Business. "The more information you have, the more interesting you are."
That's why Domino's rolled out Pizza Tracker last year. It's why UPS and FedEx will send constant updates to consumers who want to know the whereabouts of their packages. Website FlightAware lets folks track the status of virtually any domestic flight. The Chicago Transit Authority Bus Tracker online system lets commuters track the whereabouts of their buses. New York City has Stimulus Tracker, which lets folks track where its stimulus funds are being spent. There's even a website that helps parents track — from a distance — their infant's sleeping, eating and, yes, pooping patterns.
In the end, this national obsession with tracking may be about consumers wanting some sense — real or perceived — of control. "I'd much rather know if I'm secure in my job," says Barry Glassner, sociology professor at University of Southern California. "But if I can't know that, at least I can know the status of my pizza."
The relentless consumer need to track is really about how valuable our time has become, says Grant McCracken, a cultural anthropologist. But, he warns, 24/7 tracking "fits us with a harness that some may resent. Someone is obliged to feed us perfect information and delivery time, and we're obliged to do the same."
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