With the pace that today’s life is moving forward, it is self-explanatory of why there is an increase in demand for the food delivery business. Simply said, this on-demand service of delivering food at your doorstep is highly convenient for many people.
As it is visible, food delivery systems have taken away the long waiting periods at hotels to have your favourite cuisines to either be served or for taking away as parcels. Food delivery systems mainly work on the motto of delivering food to the customer within a shorter period to preserve the freshness of the cooked food. Hence, this also saves in time spent on the road and you can easily relax and enjoy the course at the comfort of your home.
As more and more restaurants are unveiling their food delivery systems, the food delivery business is wooing more and more customers every day. If you have a restaurant and want to increase sales, launching a food delivery system is the best option to go for nowadays. Else, if you are in the notion of beginning a new restaurant, one must service feature that you must include in your food business is the food delivery business.
There was a time when the only food delivery systems were taken up by the fast-food centres like the pizzerias such as Pizza Hut, Dominos and Papa John’s, and eateries such as Mc Donalds, Burger King, KFC, etc. They had their delivery boys taking out orders via telephone to the addresses. With the online of technology and smart device, online order and delivery have taken over the orders placed via telephone calls.
The customer now can easily, surf through the menu and items available in the hotel or hotels in case you own a food delivery business such as Swiggy or Zomato. But as enormous and profit gaining it sounds, online food delivery businesses also has its fair share of difficulties to pass to succeed among the competitors in the field such as Swiggy, Uber Eats, GrubHub and Zomato. Let us look into 10 issues to consider while setting up your online food delivery business.
1. Conversion of New Customers
There is still a shade between the people you know and have used the online food delivery systems and the ones who have not used it. Market Research comes in a lot of handy in such situations. Learning the market well and selectin the right cuisine and rewarding systems will bring in better sales.
As per many of the recent studies is proven that the younger working-class generation is the ones who are most susceptible to use and re-use the online food order and delivery platforms. This sector is the age group that is more likely to have the most disposable income and are willing to try out new things which can be utilized in driving the sales for food delivery businesses. Hence, proper channels of publicising the platform both online and offline will, in turn, generate income for the food delivery business.
promoting the business via both online and offline channels can be useful. Using reward Programs such as discounts, special coupon offers, combo offers and cashback offers can also attract more customers to use the online platform for food order and delivery.
2. Customer Experience is the Key
This is the point where you have to work upon, to give the best quality experience for the customers. The one point that as a business owner you must keep in mind is that people when opting for a food delivery system will expect the same restaurant standard-level meals. Hence, this step is the most crucial part of the food order and delivery business which is a sum of many factors including the device friendliness of the platform, food quality, quantity and taste, pricing and timely delivery.
The success of every business is the customer retention and addition of new customers. This can only be achieved with constant up-gradation, market research, analysis of the performance of the application along with the quality services offered by the restaurants.
3. Ensuring Fast Delivery
Customers would want the restaurant standard-level meals to be delivered to them as well. Hence, this will require the food to stay fresh and awake by the time it reaches its destination. This point calls in for the need for fast and speedy delivery systems wherein the food gets delivered with a defined short-time period.
Hence, employing safe drivers and drivers familiar with the region of service will be highly beneficial. This has led many business owners to give the business to a third-party delivery service to speed up the delivery process.
4. Geographical Location-based Issues
Restaurants can face issues in delivering to certain geographical regions. Due to such scenarios restaurant owners makes use of third party delivery systems to ease up the process of delivery. Make sure that such location-related issues do not affect your business adversely instead opt for options for takeaways along with deliveries so that customers can take along the products on their way back home. Try employing more delivery persons to cover up and reach out to the customers at the slowing time.
5. Commence the Service at the Right Time
Look for the right time to launch your business to get the maximum attention from the public. Here also, one can use the Market Research as referred to in the previous topics. Learn about the fancies of the customer and then place the product online. This will help in getting to know the right time to launch your food delivery business.
Utilizing social media platforms before and after launching your food delivery application along wit special offers and discounts will help in attracting more customers to use the online food delivery platform. Bringing up a new unique selling point for your business is important to stand out in the crowd and compete with the big ones in the industry.
6. Begin with a Small Team
Yes, you heard that right! Always make sure to begin the business online with a smaller bunch of well-performing hotels or restaurants in town to make sure the project has gained good attention and also receive good returns promising better business shortly. Start with a small group of three to five restaurants and gradually increase them twofold, threefold or much more as per the growth of the business. This can be decided based on the business analysis that must be given attention during the initial stages to understand the reach and how the public has welcomed the new venture.
7. Use the Aggregator Model For a Startup
If your business is a startup, using the aggregator model and bring in your many first customers. In such a system, there is a third party to manage customers and local restaurants. Once the user signup for the application, he/ she can view the complete menu of the dishes served at the selected restaurant, review, ratings and prices. In such a system, you can lessen the expenditure as the deliveries will be done by this third party system that can greatly cut down costs on your business.
8. Manage the Logistics
Managing logistics is imperative as it is one of the deciding factors on how well the business is to perform. Implementing real-time tracking systems that can provide updates on the package and delivery.
There are a wide variety of food order and delivery tracking systems available online that has many inbuilt features such as:
- Live order and delivery tracking for customers.
- Optimized routing for drivers as per the assigned orders.
- Provision to generate order and payment reports and vouchers.
9. Cope up with the Excessive Deliveries to Happen for Special Days
At times, during weekends, special days and offer days there can be an increase in the number of customers buying online. Therefore, employing better driver force for timely deliveries and to cope up with the larger number of takeaways and deliveries orders is important. Pre-planning such special occasions is crucial to be punctual on the order deliveries. Offering drivers with rewards and extra bonuses on completing targets can inculcate an efficient workforce for your business.
10. Integration with Latest Technologies and Trends
Regular updates on the application with additional features for better customer experience will be a bonus factor in aiding better sales for your online food business. Including payment options such as Cash on Delivery option, Internet banking, Payment via Cards and Mobile wallets can ease the buying experience of the customers. Using memory systems for addresses, locations, payment methods will help customers to checkout faster for the next order.
Integrating your online food ordering and delivery application with social media will also help in generating better sales with it becoming an easier platform for advertising and reaching out to a large audience. Applying coupon codes, discounts and extra goodies will all help in driving more traffic and gaining better reviews among customers. Reviving the website and application with a user-friendly design and features along with the above-mentioned points will better the shopping experience which will also help in customer to return to the application the next time.
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