Mobile Ordering

“Delivery Portals” Target Tourists

Pizzeria owner Bob Martini has accepted mobile orders via his website menu for years. But since tourists visiting the Reno, NV, casinos across the street won’t know to seek his website, he also subscribes to two popular online “restaurant delivery portals.”

His strategy? Out-of-towners who use those websites to find restaurants back home will do so in Reno too. Because these orders represent “net-extra” tourist business he can’t otherwise reach, Bob doesn’t mind paying the commission charged by the portal website.

Bob Martini, Owner Pizza Reno Reno, NV

Adding Menu Pics Boosts Sales

As a business tool, smartphone cameras allow restaurateurs or their employees to take strikingly attractive photos of their own food and effortlessly share them with customers via Facebook, Instagram, and other social media.

Especially when customers are hungry, adding mouthwatering food photos to a restaurant’s mobile ordering app helps stimulate their appetite, the size of their order, and your bottom line!

Steve Rouse, Editor La Trattoria

Mobile Ordering

At Windy City Pizza, in San Mateo, CA, owner Bob Yates has been accepting mobile orders for a year and a half. Today, he receives 10 to 15 mobile orders on a busy night. In Bob’s case, he wanted a mobile ordering app that would tie directly into his point-of-sale system (computerized cash register).

Bob relies on his POS system to keep track of incoming orders and what his specific customers order over time, as well as important financial details, sales trends, ingredient inventories, profitability by menu item, etc. After contacting his POS provider for recommendations, Bob chose an app company whose product was already compatible with his POS system.

Dan chose both a customized smartphone app and a separate customized “Order Online Now” page linked to his restaurant’s website. Because Bob delivers business lunches to nearby companies, he wanted to give mobile customers the ability to pre-order future food deliveries for a specific day and time up to a week in advance. Prior to mobile ordering, local businesses could make this type of arrangement only by telephoning during “normal business hours.”

But through his app, Bob’s mobile customers can now view his available delivery hours, pre-schedule and pay for their detailed order, and know that it will reliably arrive when and where they need it. Better yet, they can place that order whenever it is most convenient for them, 24 hours a day.

Getting started cost Bob about $1,000 to have his menu and app customized. Bob then pays a flat monthly fee of roughly $50, no matter how many orders he gets. However, Bob views that monthly expense as just another “cost of doing business” which has allowed him to add new, younger “millennial” patrons, as well as busy, older professionals, accustomed to mobile ordering.

As a bonus, Bob finds that his mobile orders are bigger on average than those received by telephone, perhaps because customers can take their time perusing his online menu instead of having to order a few favorite items from memory over the phone.

Bob says, “Big pizza chains spent millions figuring out this technology and now many customers prefer ordering that way. Capitalize on the chains’ huge investment by making it work for your business too!” Bravo!