Tips for setting up online orders on your restaurant / cafe’ website
COVID19 has brought on a new reality and businesses need to find new ways to operate in order to survive.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, not the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
-Charles Darwin
One issue that many restaurants and cafes are facing is setting up an online ordering system.
There are many sites and apps that restaurants can use for deliveries or the alternative is implementing on company website by adding an ordering system.
If your website is already on Squarespace, Wordpress for example you can add commerce to your site. Otherwise you can set up a Shopify store for deliveries only (if it is for large volume) or use alternative methods such as online order forms.
Here are some tips and things to consider before you start:
Delivery Zones
As a local restaurant you might want to restrict delivery to your local area. In some cases you will still deliver a bit further to your area but for a small fee.
How will you deliver?
Make sure you have a dedicated team member that will handle deliveries. If you do not have one you can set up delivery times for each day or only a few times a week as you can leave the shopfront.
Payment methods:
If you want to take payments in advance online, you will need to concert to an online payment provider to be able to accept online payments. Stripe of PayPal are very popular options. Note to check their fees in advance so you can incorporate in your pricing.
Upload on website:
You can set up your site in a few ways:
Normal menu – PDF and ask to ring and order pay on delivery
Upload menu items to a ‘cart’ system each as an individual item where customers can add to cart and pay
Order Form – upload products to a form where customers tick required items. Some form providers also incorporate online payments.
Policies:
Have your order / delivery policy in place and make them visible when ordering. Don’t forget to include a Privacy Policy as you are collecting information from clients.
Communication:
Make sure you communicate clearly to your customers how you deliver and all about safety/ hygiene practices to keep your customers safe.
Also add links to your new delivery / ordering system from your home page, promotional popup and announcement bar.
A few examples for websites that we recently launched to include online orders:
https://www.rustikcatering.com.au/ is a local food store based on Bayside Melbourne (takeaway) - adding online orders meant they can now take orders and deliver twice a week to the local area. This was develop on Squarespace.
https://www.bsfs.com.au/ is a food service provider for catering / restaurants. They wanted to open up food orders to the local public (in Sydney north Shore) so we developed a separate Shopify store linked to the main site : https://shop.bsfs.com.au/
