CONNOR HOFFMAN
Staff Writer
Ever wish that there were no long lines at Tim Horton’s or the Williams Center? With Tapingo, a new foodordering app, lines may soon be a thing of the past.
Tapingo is an app that allows its users to order their meal ahead of time so that it is ready for them by the time that they get there. Tapingo has just been rolled out this semester on the Fredonia campus.
Tapingo is not exclusive to the Fredonia campus. According to Tapingo they have partnerships with colleges such as New York University, The University of Arizona and The University of Miami.
Tapingo is not a completely new idea and the Faculty Student Association (FSA) has been trying to have an online food ordering service for some time.
“For the last couple years, I wanted to bring online ordering. I wasn’t sure how we were to do it because I didn’t want to pay for an outside contractor,” said FSA executive director Darin Schulz.
At first, FSA wanted to try and develop their own online ordering app, but encountered problems with this.
“When we started the process, we wanted to bring it online. So we were going to embark on trying to design it inhouse. But then there were a lot of obstacles we faced,”explained Schulz.
Schulz went on to further explain what led FSA away from developing their own app.
“We could have easily done it if we had only accepted Fred Funds, meal plans and points. We could have done it ourselves, but that’s not what I was trying to go for. I wanted to capture the cash paying customer as well,” said Schulz.
Schulz explained that one major obstacle dealing with the Payment Card Industry (PCI), which protects the app users’ credit card information.
He mentioned it’s much more difficult to secure the PCI with an app, rather than online, and explained that after realizing this, he started to look for third party apps that wanted to partner with Fredonia.
The way the Tapingo app works is first, the user links up their credit card or Fred card information. Then, the user chooses the place he or she is going to eat, orders their meal, and goes to the Tapingo pickup spot.
Another thing that Schulz mentioned was that since Tapingo is a third party app, there will be a fee, but at the current moment, this fee has not been determined by Tapingo.
According to Schulz, FSA is currently working to integrate another key aspect of the Tapingo app: a food delivery system.
“The biggest thing is we’re hoping to roll out delivery. That’s our hope. We can’t guarantee it, but we’re hoping that if Tapingo is really a success after we get six months behind us, there may be a potential for that,” said Schulz. He mentioned how since it was delivery of the food that there would be an additional charge for the delivery.
He feels that the app, in its short time on campus, has been relatively well received.
“I think [the feedback has been] extraordinarily positive,” said Schulz. “I occasionally look at Yik Yak — it’s not necessarily accurate always, but it’s a pretty unfiltered feedback mechanism. As I walk around campus, I ask them how it went and they all have been positive.”
“I haven’t heard anything [negative] but I want to hear it. I want to hear if there’s frustrations [or] if there’s problems, because you know the best way to solve a problem is to let me know,” said Schulz.
One thing he found surprising is that in four days, there have been already 500 people registered to use the app.
Schulz feels that Tapingo is just another step in FSA’s quest to bring better customer service to the Fredonia students.
“FSA is always striving to improve the customer experience, so to improve the customer experience and to increase customers—that’s our number one priority,” said Schulz.