Yelp Launches Food Delivery Services With Yelp Platform

(RTTNews) - Online review and information company Yelp Inc. (YELP) said Tuesday that it is launching a new feature that will let consumers place orders and receive items directly from the Yelp website without having to leave the site to complete the delivery process. The service is being launched by Yelp with partner companies. Shares of Yelp gained more than 6 percent following the announcement.

Yelp Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Stoppelman said in a blog post on the company's website that the new service, Yelp platform, will be rolled out category by category, beginning on Tuesday with food delivery and pickup. The service will initially launch in San Francisco, with Yelp's partnerships with food-delivery companies Eat24 and Delivery.com.

Stoppelman said that starting now, people can order food directly from a select number of restaurants supported by Delivery.com and Eat24. Eventually, consumers will be able to order whatever meal they want for delivery or pickup at thousands of local restaurants across the U.S., directly from the Yelp listings of those businesses.

Yelp will be in charge of checkout and payment processes with the orders. In the coming months, the company plans to add categories like spas, yoga studios, salons and dentist appointments starting with Booker, Intuit's Demandforce and MindBody.

Stoppelman said, "These services will be available on any screen that you use Yelp today, whether you're on iOS, mobile web or desktop (and coming soon for Android)."

YELP closed Tuesday's trading at $37.24, up $2.33 or 6.67 percent on a volume of 2.36 million shares.