January 04 2023
Online Food Delivery Solution
Restaurant businesses are greatly influenced by the internet and technological improvements. With the majority of people spending a significant portion of their day online, restaurants have a great business opportunity. In fact, restaurant online ordering systems are becoming increasingly popular among customers.
Restaurant operators are always looking for ways to let consumers make orders online and have their food delivered quickly. Indeed, as more restaurants adopt this business model, online ordering and delivery systems are gradually becoming the standard.
The readiness of the online market is encouraging the development of online food ordering systems for restaurants. Online food ordering systems, in particular, are eventually becoming the standard among food outlets.
By 2030, the online meal ordering business will touch $365 billion globally. If you are a restaurant and much of your business comes from food delivery portals, then it is time you had your own online food ordering system. There are other more compelling reasons why you must have your own food delivery software.
Table of Contents
Why is the Restaurants Online Ordering System Important?
The food ordering system as a whole is rapidly evolving. You need an online presence as a restaurant owner because it exposes your restaurant to individuals who might otherwise be unaware of you and your business.
A complete sales channel is provided for the restaurant by an online food ordering system. This implies the restaurant can utilize it to increase profitability and better organize the restaurant. It also helps restaurateurs to save money on labour and the space required to service these guests. When used correctly, the technology can help a restaurant outperform its competitors by bringing them closer to its customers.
An restaurant online ordering system is a great substitute for third-party food marketplaces. A food marketplace is a centralized platform where people may order food from different restaurants and food outlets. When a customer accesses the platform, they look at the restaurants and cuisines that are available.
Customers would benefit from this since they will be able to order meals from various restaurants in one spot rather than having to download multiple applications for each one. The marketplace, on the other hand, increases the restaurant’s expenses by imposing commissions and other fees.
Restaurants must now keep up with the recent growth of apps. Indeed, recent trends indicate that a food ordering system will soon become necessary to operate a successful restaurant. Without such systems, a restaurant will struggle to compete.
However, there is another advantage that directly affects you: clients are frequently presented with the tempting menus of competing restaurants on various third-party food platforms. This means that if a consumer looks at your profile but then decides to look at what other restaurants have to offer and discovers something different, you’re the one who loses money. This also comes into play when huge companies purchase sponsored advertisem*nts to promote their discounted meals. As a result, by implementing your own restaurant ordering system, you can improve customer retention.
You can reduce the expense of commissions associated with food marketplaces and financial intermediaries by using an online food ordering system. The system is effective in obtaining new consumers and winning loyalty from existing ones due to its convenience of use and efficiency in food delivery.
Given that 70% of customers prefer to order food straight from a restaurant, integrating the restaurant’s online ordering system will almost certainly increase customer traffic. When correctly linked to a restaurant’s point-of-sale system, online ordering streamlines the order-taking procedure. Allowing clients to make orders quickly and the order reaching the restaurant in seconds reduces human-related errors and increased delivery time.
Advantages of Restaurant Online Ordering System:
1- Reduce your Operating Costs
Every time you bag an order through a food delivery aggregator, you are left poorer by a few dollars. Those lost dollars, if accumulated over time, could have helped you launch a few initiatives to grow your business.
2- Stay ahead of your Competition
You can connect with your customers in real time and steal a march over your nearest competitors. Research shows that market leaders stay ahead because they deploy new technologies and are always ready to experiment. Followers, on the other hand, take a long time to make up their minds and therefore remain behind.
3- Collect Orders in a Simple Way
How often does it happen that your customers are unable to place their orders because of busy phone lines? Your employees might be doing some other stuff while your phones are ringing and perhaps it is a great idea to make the entire food ordering system easier. Let your customers come to your platform easily, choose what they want, and make payments. Research shows that mismanaged food ordering systems irritate customers and some of them may even go away to your competitors.
4- Profile your Customers
Another importance of having an online food ordering system for restaurants is this; you can profile your customer. You can create a virtual picture of her in terms of education, income levels, geography, age, etc. Based on this profile, you can then do a thousand things with your products like launches, offers, promotions, extensions, etc.
5- Connect with your Customer in Real-time
Most of your customers carry mobile phones at all times. You can catch them any time of the day with your food ordering system. If you have an app, encourage your buyers to install it on their devices. Through this app, remind your customers that you are there for them at all times.
6- Manage your Menu and Delivery Zones
There may be times when you run out of stock for certain products or ingredients. Through your online food delivery system, you can mask those products on your menu. This way, you will be able to manage your customers better and without causing any dissonance.
Similarly, your system can tell your customers about your geographic and pin code delivery areas. Using this software, you can price your products accordingly.
7- Benefits from Online Payments
Currently, more than 55% of all customers pay online. Your online food delivery software will help all those customers who don’t carry cash. Don’t penalize this set of people, make it easy for them to buy your products. Work with efficient payment gateways so that the order management system works smoothly.
8- Better Control, Better Report
One obvious benefit of a food ordering system is that you can get several kinds of reports. Find out which product line generates more sales and which one fared poorly. You can also map your sales seasons and then plan your next marketing programs. Find out your profitable products and find out ways and means to sell more and better. Above all, keep all your reports in one central place.
Launching an online food ordering system is super easy. With just a few clicks, you can install your customized platform and avail all the above benefits, and thrive in the marketplace.
What Features Should a Good Restaurant Website Have?
In today’s world, people have so many options for where to eat that they don’t want to make a bad decision. They usually use the internet to look for a restaurant that is unfamiliar to them. This is your opportunity to persuade them that dining at your restaurant will be a fantastic experience. If your website fails to meet their expectations in any manner, they will look elsewhere. To avoid this, ensure that your online food ordering website includes the following elements:
1. Excellent photography
According to a recent survey, the top reason people choose a restaurant is not the cuisine – it’s the decor. As a result, not only should your website feature gorgeous photographs of cuisine, but also of the ambience. Don’t compromise on high-quality photographs. Most of your customers, especially the newer generation, are capturing and uploading pictures of your cuisine on social media. It’s simply a great opportunity to show people how good your cuisine and place look.
2. Display your menu
If potential consumers are drawn in by attractive web photographs of your restaurant and food, they’ll most likely check out your menu next. It’s disappointing how many restaurants make your search for a menu or, worse, don’t have one listed. You don’t want to give a potential buyer a reason to leave your site and go somewhere else to look for something. Make sure your menu has an easy-to-find link in your web design. When a customer clicks on the link, the menu should be easily available and kept up to date.
3. Online ordering
You’ll lose consumers if your website doesn’t let them order food from their phone or computer. Users should be able to navigate from your menu to place an order in a matter of a few seconds. Customers may order food for delivery or pick it up directly from their phones or laptops when you integrate an online food ordering system into your website. It doesn’t get much more simple than that.
4. Contact Information and Directions
Make it simple for people to locate your place. Your website should include all important information, such as your restaurant’s address, phone number, parking information, whether you offer valet service and other details that make it easy for guests to find you. Customers seeking directions will appreciate having a Google Map of your location integrated into their browser, and it will save your staff from actually providing directions over the phone.
5. Social Media Presence
According to Statista, the youth of today has a population of 78 million individuals, making it a significant buying group. When you consider that 93% of millennials use social media, it’s evident that your website should enable them and others to engage with you on all social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. Make sure to link your social media profiles to your website and to mention the URL of your website on all of your social media pages.
6. User-friendliness
It is your job to make visitors feel welcome and happy at your restaurant and with your food. You are unlikely to have any experience designing websites. By employing professional firms restaurants can be given easy-to-use templates to help them develop a web presence that stands out. They also link you up with the above-mentioned prominent factor (Google Maps, for example) to connect your restaurant to potential and existing clients on several levels.
People have a plethora of restaurant options. A well-designed, attractive website will persuade customers that dining at your restaurant is a risk worth taking.
What Statistics Tell Us About Online Food Ordering Systems?
For many years, food delivery has been a part of the food and beverage service industry. In 2019, delivery accounted for 8% of all restaurant service sales in the United States. More firms, primarily restaurants, have been able to transport meals to their consumers as a result of the digitalization of the food and beverage industry than ever before. This is owing to the fact that many restaurants now provide online ordering through their own websites and apps.
Furthermore, the emergence of integrated online food ordering systems has allowed consumers to search for restaurants that deliver and order straight from these sites. In recent years, these have also evolved, with some platforms allowing clients to order from restaurants that do not have their own delivery service.
A modern restaurant must have an online food ordering and delivery system. It adds to increased client satisfaction and sales volume. Statistics show that the possibility remains large and appealing. Approximately 60% of clients order food online at least once a week, with another 31% ordering twice a week. When buying food online, roughly 34% of these customers spend at least $50. This figure shows how much money a restaurant can make by providing food online.
Statista estimates that:
- The Online Food Delivery market is expected to generate $339,257 million in revenue by 2022.
- Revenue is estimated to rise at an annual rate of 8.29 percent (CAGR 2022-2026), resulting in a market volume of US$466,472 million by 2026.
- Platform-to-Consumer Delivery is the market’s largest category, with an estimated market volume of US$215,955 million in 2022.
- In terms of worldwide revenue, China (US$158,137m in 2022) will generate the highest.
- In 2022, the average revenue per user (ARPU) for the Online Food Delivery market is expected to be $175.81.
- By 2026, the number of users in the Online Food Delivery category is estimated to reach 2,655.9 million.
- In 2022, the segment of Online Food Delivery will have a user penetration of 25.3%.
According to Statista, 760 million people used online food ordering systems for restaurant takeaway and delivery orders in 2020, up 20% from the previous year. Online ordering is rising 300 per cent faster than dine-in visitation, and for many businesses, it has become a lifeline.
Restaurants have turned to food ordering platforms to connect with new local customers looking for food, as takeout demand is at an all-time high. However, these might be extremely costly for your business. Customers are charged several fees by the ordering platforms, and commission rates are substantial. To avoid this, set up an online food ordering system that lets your customers place orders directly from your restaurant.
Why is having an in-house online food ordering system for restaurants so important? It not only saves you money but according to a survey, 70% of customers prefer to order directly from a restaurant.
Statista notes that over 1.6 billion individuals utilised some type of online meal delivery service in 2021. Users were practically evenly split across the board when it came to different types of online food delivery. 972 million people utilised Grubhub or Wolt to purchase food online, while a slightly larger number, roughly 992 million people, used restaurant customer service to get food online.
Becoming forward-thinking and rapidly adapting to this fast-changing market is an important part of being a great restaurateur. Consumers today expect simple and convenient ways to order food from your business. Fortunately, an online food ordering solution can help you with that.
Every day, the benefits of online food ordering systems for restaurants become more apparent. Diners today, particularly millennials, like to use technology to obtain restaurant services. Online reservations, online takeout, and online pick up are preferred over calling, and meeting their needs is important if you want to stay ahead of the competition.
Let’s look at why people order meals online and why it’s a feature you should offer your clients if you want to grow your business.
Conclusion
Allowing users to order food online through your website has numerous advantages. As a restaurant owner, this is essential since it increases the number of people who see your restaurant. It enhances your bottom line by broadening your target audience. Customers will appreciate it because it allows them to place orders quickly and easily anytime they want. They can also rest assured that when they place their orders, there will be no misunderstandings.
An online food ordering solution for restaurants can do wonders for you. The most important thing to remember is that there are no advantages to not setting up an online food ordering system. In fact, it may even work against you. Having your own restaurant online ordering system, on the other hand, allows you to engage directly with clients and do so much more.
Launching an online food ordering system is super-easy. With just a few clicks, you can install your customised platform and avail all the above benefits, and thrive in the marketplace.
