How to Increase Sales And Become More Efficient With Restaurant Online Ordering
People use their phones for everything today including restaurant online ordering.
Having a website is a necessity for most businesses these days including restaurants. There is also an emerging trend in the restaurant industry that is increasing sales and making restaurants more efficient: restaurant online ordering.
For restaurants, customers are visiting a website to learn more about what the establishment has to offer – including; you guessed it, the menu.
In the past, a restaurant website needed essential things like menu and location, but today, consumers expect even more.
According to one recent study, 69% of consumers have ordered food online with their mobile device. (tweet this)
If you own a restaurant, online ordering should be a central part of your website. Why? – Because it allows customers to order from the convenience of their location; and in today’s day and age, the general public is all about convenience.
With online ordering, you’re giving more customers more opportunity to order your food. They don’t need to call, which is handy if they’re somewhere, like an office, where they don’t want to call. You might also win sales because you have online ordering and your competition doesn’t.
Online ordering also makes most restaurants more efficient. You can use selection items in the process to ensure customers get what they want. They might make a mistake or two on occasion, but it’s better than trying to understand someone over a fuzzy phone connection or from someone that mumbles when they talk.
Here are the steps to implementing online ordering for your restaurant so you can increase sales and become more efficient.
Step 1 – Launch Online Ordering
Feeling hungry? Red Tractor’s customers can easily order a pizza on the restaurant’s website.
This is the obvious first step.
There are a few different solutions out there to choose from and we don’t want to sound biased (okay, maybe we do), but Restaurant Engine clients get a great online ordering solution from OpenDining.
Step 2 – Update Your Menu
It stands to reason that if you want to increase your sales through online ordering, your online menu should be a central component of your website. Your menu should be easy to locate, it should be easy to read, include thorough descriptions and it should include a complete listing of all of the items that you offer.
The more descriptive, thorough and easy to read your menu is, the easier it will be for your customers to see what you have to offer, which will certainly increase your sales and make the entire ordering process more efficient.
Step 3 – Allow for Modifications
Not everyone likes food as it comes. Your customers may want to 86 tomatoes from a sandwich, or they may want to change out a cheese. Make it easy for your customers to modify their orders from your website and you’ll make them super happy and boost your sales. (tweet this)
People like to have things their way, and allowing them to modify what they order online will do wonders for your online ordering and your success. It usually easier to see custom orders through an online form instead of writing everything down over the phone.
Step 4 – Add Delivery And/Or Pickup Services
If your restaurant has the ability to do so, offer delivery of menu items. Offering delivery makes the process of ordering food from your establishment even easier and stands to boost your sales even more. If you do choose to offer delivery, make it easy for your customers to input the address where they would like the food to be delivered – this will not only make ordering online easier for your customers, but it will make it easier for you.
Step 5 – Offer An Estimated Time
Your customers will need to know when to pick up the items they have ordered online or when their orders will be delivered. Once they place an order, offer an estimated time for pickup right on your website. This only adds to the convenience of online ordering and makes your customers even happier.
You can give a time range or if you’re really good an exact time, but a range is perfectly acceptable.
Conclusion
Allowing your customers to pay for their online purchases on your website will simplify the process even more. Your customers will appreciate being able to order and pay for their food right from their computer or portable device. All that is left for them to do is stop in and pick up their order.
What could be easier?
So many restaurants are using online ordering. Some establishments that have mastered the process of online ordering include Red Tractor Pizza, Bobby O’s BBQ and Chile Peppers Mexican Eatery.
Need help making the most of online ordering for your restaurant? Contact us for a free consultation today and we will help you decide the most effective ordering process for your website and you can start enjoying a definite increase in your sales.
Image: Alan Wolf
10 Most Important Questions To Ask in A Restaurant Survey 
8 Things You Can Do To Help Manage Food Costs 
5 Things Startup Restaurants Typically Overspend On 
5 Ways to Deliver Excellent Customer Service at Your Restaurant 
7 Surprisingly Common Problems That Restaurants Face
Restaurant sales are highly dependent upon two factors – the food quality and customer service. However, customer service is today’s time and age goes over and beyond serving the customers fresh food in the most sophisticated manner. If you are not giving them the facility to order their favorite dishes from the comfort of their home or office, as a business, you could be losing out on hundreds of orders, if not more, in a day. Online ordering is the future; the future where online ordering is going to be preferred over home cooking. it’s time to jump on the bandwagon with Restolabs, the most preferred online ordering system for restaurants. Get more information on https://restolabs.com/
Hello
The article was very helpful and evident easy to read, analyze and understand. I specially liked the content under “Offer An Estimated Time”.Presently, on an average online ordering is generating almost 70% orders of all restaurants. This statistics itself makes it rather imperative that restaurants integrate themselves with various online ordering platforms to satiate the taste buds of the hungry customers by delivering food right at their doorstep.
Thanks for sharing such a useful information.Marketing is one of the key aspects for any business.Websites are great place to find inspiring design and also to check out ways of displaying picture of designs.For such tasks in website & menu designing of a restaurant,visit http://bistroservices.com/
Contact vChoose (http://vchoosellc.com) at (724) 281-3070. Its a Pittsburgh PA based startup focused on online ordering and websites for restaurants. They are running a 1 month free trial.
Great ideas of increasing online sales for any business.Giving your customers delivery services
or other unique services which your competitors are lacking is a great idea.
hiiii
ahhhh..
in my opinion foodzep.com is the solution.
foodzep is free to submission of your restaurant.
Foodzep is the fast and easy way for online food ordering System.
Find local restaurants to order your favorite food online.
With this seamless and simple process now online food ordering is not difficult.
No Membership Fee
No Commission %
Get More Online Order Free
https://www.foodzep.com/restaurant/register/
Get your Restaurant business online for free
and have more order.
http://www.foodzep.com
Service available for 24 countries.
Question for you, how do handle limited supply items when it comes to online ordering? That has held me back implementing online ordering because I didn’t want a customer to order and pay for something and then it not be available?
With a good online ordering system, you should have access to the “back office” where you can make changes to the menu as you like, including deleting items that you have a limited supply of, as soon as it happens. Once you refill your inventory, you can add back the items to your online ordering menu. the sales rep who will sell the online ordering system to you, should be able to show you how to access and edit your menu. Good Luck
https://eato.co.in
The best will be asking the web development team to create the order online system with more options. Lets say , customer goes in, chooses the food items and checks out. But before going for the payment page, that order (with requested time and food items) is sent to restaurant and the restaurant checks the order and will either accept or reject the order. Once the order is confirmed from restaurant end, customer can proceed for the payment section and complete the checkout.
This will definitely make a straight forward communication between the restaurant and customer. And no loopholes…
If you wish please visit http://www.cnblink.com (they have powerful order online management system in reasonable price)
https://eato.co.in ..plz use this online ordering
in my opinion foodzep.com is the solution.
foodzep is free to submission of your restaurant.
Foodzep is the fast and easy way for online food ordering System.
Find local restaurants to order your favorite food online.
With this seamless and simple process now online food ordering is not difficult.
No Membership Fee
No Commission %
Get More Online Order Free
https://www.foodzep.com/restaurant/register/
Get your Restaurant business online for free
and have more order.
http://www.foodzep.com
Service available for 24 countries.
Canada
New Zealand
Nigeria
Singapore
United Kingdom
United States
Australia
Bahamas
Brazil
China
Cameroon
Fiji
Finland
France
Germany
Hong Kong
India
Italy
Malaysia
Poland
Japan
Philippines
Thailand
United Arab Emirates