Posted on August 11th, 2008 by Atul
Online ordering is critical and nothing can over state the importance, particularly if you are interested in catering to the coming generations. Over the last 12-18 months, we have observed a growing number of restaurant operators who find themselves in a sticky situation. Many “Restaurant Operators do not OWN their URL”. This is a disaster and operators need to understand the importance of it, if they are remotely interested in safeguarding their brand and/or existence on the web. Read more »
Filed under: Atul Shevade, Authors, Online Ordering, Web Strategy | No Comments »
Posted on June 8th, 2008 by david
OK! you now realize that it is imperative that you take online orders at your website. However, the fact - as of now - is that many customers are using Portals to place their online orders. The customers probably like having a choice of restaurants and the Portal brand is very strong. Before conceding that “Portals are a necessary evil”, look carefully … YOU might even be helping the Portals unknowingly by advertising for them to YOUR customers!
Here is an example:
Occasionally, I love to walk the streets of New York and pop into restaurants that are taking online orders or intend to take online orders. In New York (I love New York!) some of the restaurants allow Seamless Web to put bright red stickers on the restaurant doors stating “Order online at Seamlessweb.com”. In Chicago, I have seen delivery.com give restaurants free plastic bags for their food for delivery or pickup. On the side of the bag it says “Order online at Delivery.com”.
I was amazed that restaurant owners do not seem to recognize the serious consequences of these seemingly benign gestures. I guess the restaurant owners fail to think beyond free bags and colorful stickers! Let me ask you (the restaurant operator) a simple question: Will you allow an employee in YOUR restaurant to wear a T-Shirt with your competitor’s logo on it that says “Go try my competition”? Well the bags and stickers effectively say that!! Orders from portals are costing you money and - more importantly - customers!
Read more »
Filed under: Authors, David Litchman, Online Ordering, Portals | 2 Comments »
Posted on April 14th, 2008 by jsiff
There are few things restaurateurs find more satisfying than watching their tables fill up with familiar faces. Repeat customers, the kind that keep coming back for birthdays, anniversaries, or just to grab a quick bite on a Friday night, are crucial for the success of any restaurant. According to global management experts Bain & Co., repeat customers spend 67% more than do new customers. Thus, it is not only personally satisfying to see familiar faces return to your restaurant, but financially rewarding as well.
But how do you turn a new customer into a repeat one? While ensuring that your customers receive the highest level of service and the best food possible are crucial elements to encouraging repeat business, there are strategies that can help you to proactively build relationships with customers Read more »
Filed under: Authors, Jay Siff, Online Ordering, Web Strategy | No Comments »
Posted on March 7th, 2008 by Atul
Recently an online portal pitched something similar to the following offer:
“Give 20% discount to online orders coming from our portal and we’ll promote your restaurant to 70,000+ of our customers”.
As a restaurant owner, you:
a) Sign-up (what’s there to lose?)
b) Ignore the promotion because you already get PLENTY of orders from the portal
c) Ignore the promotion because you get VERY FEW orders from the portal
d) Wonder what the right thing is?
My Thoughts:
The hidden message is obviously attractive. The 70,000 customers is a big and attractive number that screams for attention - and gets it! If I can manage to add 2% of the 70,000 customers, (assuming that none of them are my existing customers) it adds to 1,400 NEW customers. At $15 an average ticket (after discount, say) that is $21,000 in revenue that I did not have!!! So option (a) above is not unreasonable!
But wait, my first suggestion is to ask some basic questions:
Read more »
Filed under: Atul Shevade, Authors, Online Ordering, Portals, Web Strategy | 3 Comments »
Posted on March 1st, 2008 by david
There are many portals who offer restaurants the opportunity to use their ordering platform at the restaurant’s website at a low cost. Simply stated, this is a great way for the portal to get customers familiar with their user interface and most importantly gives them the ability to add customers to the portal database.
Let me explain how this works.
- Your customers goes to your website to place an order.
- They place their order using the portal online engine that was provided for you to use at a low cost.
- The customer now is familiar with the portal’s user interface and has created a user id and password.
- The portal now has all the data of that customer.
- The portal sends out marketing messages to your customer to order next time from the portals website.
- Your customer orders next time from the portal. If they order from your restaurant, you will pay a higher processing rate. Even worse, the customer becomes aware of all these other choices and decides to order from a competitor. YOU HAVE NOW LOST A SALE.
There are many online processors who do not run portals and safeguard your customer information as yours. However, if you chose to use a portals online engine, beware that while the cost may be low the hidden costs are very high.
Filed under: Portals | No Comments »
Posted on February 12th, 2008 by david
Portals are aggressively marketing themselves and generating online orders to restaurants … For every order that comes from the portals, the restaurants (i.e. you!) pay a hefty fee (%10 - 15% of the order amount). Of course the justification for the high fee is simple: “Its the portal customer, who would not have ordered from (your) restaurant if it were not for the portal!”. After a while, you recognize that it is smarter to take orders from your website and promote your own website to all customers, especially to customers coming from portals.
So, you get your website and get the “Order Online” button on your website … and hope that online orders will start pouring in from your website. Attractive as it may be, often things don’t move this way. There is one last (important) step missing for your online business to take off ( before you book that ticket to Tahiti). You have to MOVE YOUR CUSTOMERS ON-LINE i.e. market your website to your customers!
Here are a few simple steps Read more »
Filed under: Portals | 1 Comment »
Posted on February 6th, 2008 by david
Portals are popping up all over the country. Seamless Web has a stranglehold in New York and has made inroads in other major metropolitan areas. Grubhub has made inroads in Chicago and others like Campusfood.com and Delivery.com have changed the way consumers order food for pickup and delivery from traditional restaurants.
Online ordering is here to stay, however before you rush in to sign up with portals, understand Read more »
Filed under: Authors, David Litchman, Portals | No Comments »
Posted on February 6th, 2008 by david
Portals are designed to facilitate choice for the end users. They offer a multitude of restaurants from which a user can order.
Although a novel concept, I think portals are good for products that have little differentiation … like an airline ticket. Do you care whether you go from place ‘A’ to place ‘B’ on United or American? A typical traveler prefers a cheap Read more »
Filed under: Authors, David Litchman, Portals | 4 Comments »