To Be or Not To Be ... On These 3rd Party Online Ordering Platforms

That's the next largest existential question plaguing the restaurant operators nowadays. The food delivery market is predicted to grow to $12.5 billion by 2019 and the amount of players in this area just seems to keep growing.

A few of the operators we work with have 20-25percent of the earnings being generated via 3rd party delivery services. And we expect this amount to grow as this industry continues to become more effective in their own logistics, thus bringing down the cost of food delivery.

Sources

https://www.connectpos.com/magento-2-enterprise-cloud-upgrade/

https://www.connectpos.com/9-tips-to-optimize-your-ecommerce-websites/

https://www.connectpos.com/why-should-you-migrate-to-magento-2/

We're literally in this area and even though we're incorporated with 22 online ordering platforms, we continue learning about new ones everyday! So many choices! So many platforms available. So, what should the operators do? If they choose one and stick with them? This will surely give them greater rates with this particular service provider as they appreciate exclusivity, but what about the revenue they will lose out by not being available on the other platforms?

On the other hand, if they proceed with the platforms, it's a double nightmare -- either from an operational standpoint of having to handle so many pills and from an accounting standpoint. It is going to surely help their earnings, but at what cost?

Before answering this, I would like to preface it by clarifying about our pricing structure, so it doesn't come across as self-serving. Checkmate incorporates all these online ordering platforms to the restaurant POS software for a flat monthly fee. We charge $69 per month, per location for as much as two services, and $89 for unlimited delivery solutions. Consequently, if a restaurant operator has chosen to take 3 or 30 of these, we don't acquire additional monthly revenue. We do charge a one-time flat fee of $69 per delivery agency to set this up, but that's only at cost to us.

Ok, back to the existential question. This is such a cliché but rings truer now more than ever. You've got to be present where your clients are and given the scale and size of those 3rd party online ordering platforms, the clients are now more faithful to those platforms than to any specific brand. Thus, our recommendation is if you are able to fix the operational and accounting platforms, and if you're not losing money on a per transaction basis, then you need to be present on all the platforms.

/pos-review-connectpos-vs-quickbooks-pos/

/best-pos-for-toys-hobbies-gifts-holiday-season/

But what we also strongly recommend is if a restaurant operator is present on each these 3rd party delivery services, they ought to also accept online orders on their own site. There are numerous services that offer this type of service for a very minimal price. This will enable your most loyal customers to purchase directly from your site, and result in relevant savings concerning commissions paid. So, the 3rd party online ordering platform ought to be complemented by having online ordering on your site, also.

But again, if we return to our evaluation of one vs. many, we realize the pitfalls of getting multiple solutions. It will become unmanageable from an operational and accounting perspective. The solution is if you're accepting multiple online ordering platforms, you should certainly have them incorporated into the heart of your operations. Having them incorporated to your POS Software simplifies your working, in addition to your accounting / reconciliation issues.

We can definitely help with this kind of integration but there's a lot the operators may also do to ensure this kind of integration actually works. Our principal task is translation of menus from the many 3rd party and online ordering platforms to the language and menu the POS understands. The menus form the key connection for a successful integration, so we work very closely with our customers to be certain their menu is translatable into the POS language, and they don't have the menu to get a Mexican restaurant when serving Thai food for their in-store guests!

What Checkmate does is a translation job, where we can imagine every different online ordering platforms as a distinct language. They all need to be translated to the language of the POS so there has to be some semblance of similarity and syntax / grammatical precision for us to have the ability to translate it. Some of the common mistakes we fix while incorporating are:

Structural inconsistency: Most frequent example is for a single place, on GrubHub, the design is -- Burrito as a thing, and the a variety of protein choices as modifiers. However, for the same place, on UberEats menu, all those Burritos would be set out as different objects, such as Chicken Burrito, Veggie Burrito, Pork Burrito, etc.. We can certainly translate from one or more one of these structures into the POS structure, but over time, it will become hard to handle for the operator.

Updated menus: One reason why handling these 3rd party orders are this kind of issue operationally is because orders are received for things that the restaurants do not even carry anymore. Then they need to call the customer at the center of the lunch rush, which essentially ruins their whole day. I understand it's a pain to keep all of the menus upgraded but it needs to be integrated into the Standard Operating Procedure for restaurants if they would like to allow smooth operations, particularly if it's already contributing to 20-25percent of your earnings.

Limited menu: Please don't offer whatever you've got in-store to the internet customers! Be selective and choose from things you know will do well, will travel well and the clients will appreciate even after it has traveled for a while. Also bear in mind that these clients are now mostly ordering food in their mobile so keep it easy.

See also

/run-your-store-during-holiday-sales/

/5-misunderstandings-on-pos-disadvantages/

/5-report-gauge-business-health/

Pricing: Solving for accounting problems isn't really that big of an issue. The principal part that has to be cared for is to be certain that the prices of items and modifiers from the 3rd party menus fit until the POS pricing. If another pricing is offered on 3rd party menus, operators must create a different menu at the POS where the 3rd party menus could be associated.

And finally, modifiers: The devil is in the details! Usually operators will find all their things right but it's true of the missing modifiers. That's where they ought to make certain that all their modifiers present in the 3rd party menus are found in their POS. Bear in mind, the purpose is to get everything print out right to the kitchen printer as though it was entered for a walk in client. Pay particular attention to required modifier groups, eg. In case you've set them up as a required modifier set on your POS, be certain that you set them up as a required modifier set on your 3rd party menus. You should also look closely at default modifiers as they make your operations very smooth.

To summarize: operators of all sizes -- from a thousand locations to the single place operators, are facing the exact same issue. If we take these 3rd party services and if yes, all or one? Our recommendation is yes you need to, and you need to accept all of these as long as you can have them incorporated into the heart of your operations. The idea is to be certain every single receipt prints out right in the kitchen printer at the same exact format as though it was entered directly by the in-store staff.

How we work together with the operators is we've recognized the operators always have the capacity from the kitchen to take more orders. They are in fact just bottlenecked at front of home by not having the capability to enter these orders manually at the POS. By eliminating that bottleneck and sending all of the orders straight to the kitchen, we have the ability to assist the restaurants grow their earnings without raising their operational costs to manage these solutions. Every ticket prints out at the exact same exact format and the orders go in using their distinctive Tender kind & Destination. This also enables the operators to run all of the reports like labour report, merchandise mix, hourly report, revenue by source and several others directly in Brink itself.

References

https://www.connectpos.com/tips-return-exchange-policy/

https://www.connectpos.com/pos-review-connectpos-vs-epos-now/

https://www.connectpos.com/pos-review-connectpos-vs-amberpos/