If you are running a restaurant business, one thing you need to buck up is perfect food delivery to your esteemed customers. The reason is due to the fast-paced life; customers want everything fast along with reliability.
If you’re going to improve and expand your restaurant business, the first thing you need to improve is customer service. And the most important thing to retain existing customers is food delivery service.
The system of online food delivery has spread towards the restaurant industry. People all over the world have started taking advantage of this service which is combined with new technology.
During COVID-19, this trend has increased in two ways: one by necessity and the other due to demand. This is the reason almost every restaurant has jumped into the food delivery business. Moreover, to make this service more reliable and fast, restaurants take the help of third-party food delivery services.
However, if you look at the global food delivery service market, it has reached $106.1 billion in the year 2021 and is expected to reach around $223.7 billion by the end of 2027. So, whether your restaurant business is small or big, adding a food delivery service to your business offers significant benefits in terms of sales, profitability, and reach.
From the above numbers, it is clear that takeout and food delivery services are here to stay and, no doubt, will take almost every restaurant to new heights. Now here the question is how restaurant delivery businesses help restaurants.
So, to get this answer, let’s deep dive into those points by which restaurants will get the full benefit from this service: –
1. Helps in reaching more customers
If you are looking forward to starting your food delivery service as a restaurant owner, then this service will help you to reach more customers. The reason is most people these days prefer online food delivery due to their busy schedules.
If their favourite restaurant offers a delivery system for restaurants, it will be a win-win situation.
Moreover, in this situation, the restaurant can target singles, families with small kids, office workers, millennials, etc. and offer them food online. But here, when you talk about the above audience, maybe they are not aware of your restaurant brand. If you start delivering food online, they will come to know about your restaurant, and your sales and customers will increase.
Furthermore, with the time when the delivery system expands, you can contact third-party platforms to make your restaurant’s online presence active which will also make your restaurant base strong.
2. Helps in boosting online visibility
Every restaurant needs to market its business, starting with the help of various marketing tools. One such effective tool that makes the restaurant’s online visibility strong is third-party platforms. For example, if you are partnering with app2food, you will get the advantage of the widespread reach of the platform, which will automatically boost the online visibility of the restaurant, and your brand will have its own reputation.
The new and existing customers who want to taste your food will download the app, browse the menu and place orders for doorstep food delivery. Apart from that, such apps also have exclusive restaurant marketing tools like promotions that will help customize your target audience and offer many benefits to reach more people.
Here restaurants can offer promotions in the form of zero delivery charges, discounts on orders above fixed price, and many more, but they need to be attractive.
3. The profit will increase.
This is one of the apparent benefits of a restaurant delivery service. That means, with the help of doorstep food delivery, you have a chance to serve more customers than your restaurant tables which will automatically increase the profit.
According to one report, online food delivery is often more profitable than traditional restaurant sales. But to increase sales and profit, you must streamline delivery service by integrating delivery channels into your restaurant POS.
Remember that to integrate this service, you don’t need to hire additional staff; everything is automatic. That means, just by streamlining the delivery channel, you can quickly start selling food online without much extra cost.
Additionally, you don’t need to rent any new venue, furniture, kitchen equipment, or tools to increase revenue. Upon that, food costs will also remain the same. But just investing your hard-earned money in restaurant POS integration software will help you to enjoy some other returns that will grow your restaurant business.
4. Helps to stay on top of restaurant industry trends
Nowadays, almost every restaurant is adopting online food delivery services more than before, and the reason for this increasing trend is to satisfy customers’ needs and expectations.
Apart from that, online food delivery also helps the restaurant to expand its base and become reputed among the locals as well as the wider audience network.
This is how restaurant delivery businesses help restaurants.
The biggest driver of this industry trend is millennials, which is 71% of this group using online food delivery services. Keeping this in mind, this trend will offer a positive impact on the restaurant industry by expanding the food businesses.
5. Making relationship strong
If you partner your restaurant with a third-party platform to increase sales, it will help you to enable strong relationships with the new and wide customer base. The reason is by expanding the services in the form of online delivery, restaurants will offer food delivery services to customers even at odd hours.
Apart from that, the customers will get their favourite food within no time at their doorstep with just one click. The restaurants can fulfill the demand of their customers when they are busy and have no-time to dine-in. They can efficiently serve wide geographical areas, strengthening their relationship with their customers.
6. Helps invaluable insights
Apart from all the above benefits of food delivery services, partnering with restaurant delivery services will also help restaurants with crucial insights and long customer data. To understand this in a better way, let’s take an example.
Assume you are the manager of any restaurant, and for high productivity, you have the option to track all the sales and find out purchasing trends for every month. This type of information will help the restaurant staff to schedule their food delivery services in a better way which will offer high revenue, productivity along with reputation.
7. Your services will be cost-effective.
If you are taking the help of food delivery businesses, your food delivery service will be highly cost-effective. The reason is quite an explicit partnering with an app like app2food; you don’t have to worry about any of the logistics related to food delivery.
As a restaurant, your only work is to deliver food on time to the dasher, and after that, all the responsibility goes to the third-party platform, starting from insulated hot bags, delivery vehicles, etc. In other words, you can say that with the minimum effort, your brand is getting a name in the region, and you are getting a high profit.
Moreover, if your restaurant already has additional staff, go-to containers, etc., there will also be savings in upfront cost to get into this service.
8. Offers convenience that people demand or expect
If the restaurants want their existing customers to not go away and to get new customers as well, they have to cater to every customer’s expectations. Here the customer’s convenience means the restaurant will be able to deliver timely food to the people without delay.
According to the National Restaurant Association, more than 60% of millennials want every restaurant they order from to make their online food delivery convenient according to their expectations.
Moreover, another study published by Nation’s Restaurant News in the USA states that when they asked customers how they chose the restaurant for online food delivery, around 77% of them said based on speed and variety of food they offer.
If you want your restaurant to become reputed and profitable, getting the help of delivery services would be a wise decision.
9. The restaurant has more business opportunities.
Food delivery is one of the best and perfect opportunities for restaurants, even if they don’t have space available to make people sit and have their food. If you own a physical restaurant, it will be limited to a number of people who can sit and dine in, but online food delivery can easily hack the system.
Apart from that, offering food online is also an excellent way to sell food any time of the week, even during off-peak hours. A report states that in the year 2019, a large number of people ordered breakfast, snacks, and many other things which shows that restaurants are getting more business opportunities to expand their base.
So, now that you know there are many reasons that inspire you to go for a food delivery system for a restaurant business, there is no point in asking how restaurant delivery businesses help restaurants.
The food delivery trends
According to New Yorker, online food delivery has made up around 7% of restaurant sales alone in the USA. With the passing of time, these numbers have increased as more and more people are ordering food online. However, when COVID-19 came, the orders jumped again.
Considering COVID-19, Axios states that most Americans ordered food online, which went from 19% in February to 22% in April. That means third-party app dashers were more busy than ever due to increased sales.
- Online food orders have grown 300% faster than dine-in food orders since 2014.
- Online food deliveries account for 40% of the restaurant sales compared to their dine-in space.
- In the past five years, the revenue of the food delivery market has increased by 204%.
- China is the largest market for food delivery, with a market size of $27.3 billion in 2021. Meituan and Ele.me control about 90% of all food delivery in the country.
- The entire food delivery app industry is expected to reach a $320 billion market size by 2029.
- Uber Eats is the most popular food delivery app, and Delivery Hero has the most collective users.
- In the US, DoorDash is the most popular food delivery app, with over 50% market share.
- $29,845 is the average yearly salary of a food delivery driver in the US (Indeed)
- Restaurants that don’t offer online food have lost around 70% of their existing customers.
- Due to the increasing trend of online food delivery over the next ten years, sales will increase by approximately 20%.
- In online food delivery, millennials and Gen Z are the most satisfied customers.
- In another report, it is found that about 63% of the individuals prefer online delivery of food over dine-out.
- Since 2014, digital online food orders have been growing three times compared to past years.
Keeping in mind the trend of online food delivery, the state of full-service restaurants states that before the pandemic, the average sales of almost every restaurant have increased from 11% to 20% on average. Moreover, there is one point which needs light; not every restaurant has the same online system.
That means some of the restaurants have their own delivery boys to take orders, and some are taking the help of third-party apps.
The restaurants that have their own delivery system are making less profit as they have to manage everything in the form of logistics. But those restaurants who are using partners to take orders are making high profits.
So, if you are not taking the help of a restaurant delivery business, then you are missing a growing revenue stream.
Things to consider before deciding whether to offer food delivery service or not
The online food delivery that has fuelled in the pandemic time is no doubt here to stay. With time, the food delivery business is growing as a multi-billion-dollar empire. The report of Statista Digital Market Outlook states that by the year 2024, around 177.2 million people will come into the segment of restaurant-to-consumer food delivery.
But the popularity of online food delivery is towards third-party companies that have made home food delivery successful. Now here, the question is if an online food delivery service isn’t a one-size-fits-all restaurant, then how will they decide whether to go for this service or not?
So, for better understanding, let’s deep dive into some of the points by which all your doubts will be clear: –
Know the budget and research the delivery process
The pricing of delivering meals range from low to high. So, before you choose any third-party apps for delivery, ensure to set your budget in which you are comfortable. Apart from that, also check the delivery schedule of the providers.
The reason is various companies have different schedules, and some deliver to common areas, selected cities, only daytime options, and many others. So, research thoroughly and then take the final decision.
Quality of service
This is one of the essential aspects of starting a food delivery service. That means you have spent thousands of dollars to build your food brand. So, you have to ensure that the food which will reach the customers will be in the same condition as they get while dining in the restaurant.
For example, most of the dishes taste the best when they are hot and crispy, but if the temperature of that dish goes down, you will not get that same taste.
So, while starting online food delivery to the customers, you have to ensure that the service providers have proper logistics for the convenience of the customers. Otherwise, your brand reputation and quality will go down, automatically affecting the sales chart.
Think about the customers
Before starting the food delivery service at the restaurant, talk to the existing customers to check whether they will use it or not. For example, ask them, after starting an online food delivery service would they dine in less and order more?
Besides that, consider whether new customers will reach you via a third-party site. According to one report, Millennials top the list of ordering food online compared to older generations.
But one of the other reports of Axios study states that the parents are adopting takeout post-pandemic, and its percentage is around 4%.
Exposure to liabilities
If you are planning to run an in-house delivery system, your restaurant business has to face new liabilities that you may not have previously encountered. So you must ensure that all your employees are highly trained in making food, and the third-party company you are hiring must be reputed to take your brand to new heights.
The time of delivery
Before you set up your food delivery system, make sure to know the food delivery company that is a third-party app. Keep note of how they deliver food and whether they will deliver food on time to the customers.
By getting these answers, you will know whether they fit your restaurant’s food delivery service network.
Be prepared with all the things.
Starting a meal delivery means you must keep every ingredient in the kitchen in advance as you don’t know which food orders can come. According to the dishes you offer for delivery, keep all the ingredients in the restaurant kitchen along with the cooking utensils so there will be no delay in the order.
Using third-party delivery service
As a restaurant owner, deciding to deliver food yourself or using a third-party delivery service is tricky. The reason is both services have their pros and cons. However, opting for a third-party service will be less work for you as you don’t have to worry about logistics.
But on the other hand, many third-party services share profit or commission on every delivery. However, some platforms don’t charge a commission on every delivery. Instead, they only charge some monthly fees from the restaurants.
According to a recent report, around 77% of USA restaurants have tie-ups with third-party platforms to deliver their food to their customers. Keeping this in mind, it is also found that the average spending of Americans has increased a lot post-pandemic, and they spend 15% of their income on ordering food online compared to dine-in.
Moreover, if you talk about logistics and dashers here, third-party platforms have this responsibility so that the order can be delivered on time. But on the other hand, if any of the orders goes wrong or are delayed due to various reasons, the customers will blame the restaurant.
So, if you don’t want this to happen, ensure to have an updated POS system in your restaurant that will update the customers if any of the issues occur. Here, selecting and using a third-party platform for your restaurant food delivery is a very crucial decision. And it will largely impact your sales and profits.
The bottom line
The option of third-party partnership is one of the best and wise decisions for the restaurants through which they can ensure every customer is getting what they are expecting. Apart from that, when customers are happy with the restaurant’s food, the business will get high revenue and expand its base.
So, if you are planning to opt for a delivery system and looking forward to contacting the best restaurant business delivery partner, consider App2food, which is doing a commendable job in this field. The platform is making the work of restaurants easy so that they can focus on their food and make every customer happy with on-time deliveries and a better, personalized experience.