We decided to try Insomnia Cookies this weekend. The idea is that they are a service that will deliver fresh baked cookies to your door after you order them online. The company has 6 locations in large "college towns" including Champaign-Urbana.
We placed an order at about 9 pm for 6 cookies. It came to $5.40 after tax. The web site indicated that the cookies would be delivered about 45 minutes after a confirmation email was received. The confirmation email showed up about 3 minutes later. All appeared well so far.
At about 10:15, with still no delivery, we decided to call the toll free number on the site. When you call the number, you get sent to a dispatch center somewhere...I have no idea where. The guy that answered the phone had no clue what was going on and told us to wait 10-15 minutes.
We called again at 11 when we still had no cookies. The guy in the call center still had on idea what was going on. He tried calling the store and said he'd call back.
At 11:20, the cookies finally showed up, cold. About 5 minutes later the manager of the store called us to see if we had received the cookies.
The cookies actually were good...I had a chocolate chunk, a sugar cookie and a peanut butter cookie. The wait was ridiculous though. I could have baked my own cookies in 2 hours and 20 minutes. I'd be willing to wait 45 minutes, but not 2:20 for 5 cookies. It took these people 2 hours and 20 minutes to deliver 6 cookies less than a mile.
I'm not sure how Insomnia Cookies is going to stay in business. 5 dollars is about the max anyone would pay for this, and they will have to have people order a TON of cookies in order to keep a float. The more orders, the more employees. It just doesn't make much sense.