With the situation in the UK affecting the Restaurant Industry severely, we wanted to brainstorm a strategy that harnesses our 20 years’ e-commerce experience to see if there was a way to help out the restaurants in our local area during this difficult time.

The Immediate Issue 

With social distancing a priority topic, and the government advising the population not to go to restaurants and bars, these businesses are struggling to book tables and continue to trade, meaning a direct downturn in Business.  Over the past week, we have seen that some restaurants are beginning to offer a takeaway service through phone and message interactions with their customers. There’s still an issue with making payments and having contact for collections. 

Our Solution 

If those existing and any other restaurants can adapt to become a temporary Takeaway business, we can help provide them with an online Takeaway system to help manage some of the troubling aspects for new Takeaway or Collection services. Payments can be taken securely via the app minimising the risk of fraud and in-person connection.   Our system has a host of features for example; Online payments, Delivery area restrictions, Easy Menu editing, Menu up-selling, Management app for Phone and Tablet to look after orders and communicate with the customer. Alert Calls for when orders have been placed but not accepted by the restaurant.

How It Works

We have a restaurant management portal that allows the restaurant team to login and manages the various aspects of the business. It’s extremely easy to use.  From here you can set your menu’s, delivery times and areas if you have any. You can also implement discount codes for select customer groups.  

This is then pushed to a website app that plugs into your websites using a simple line of code. All aspects will be branded and in-line with your current setup. We also plug the app into your Facebook page, allowing customers to make secure orders via this channel also. Finally, the app is linked to a generic food delivery app so your business can appear in listings in the local area.  

Alongside this, you will have a mobile or tablet app so you can manage your orders and communicate with your customers so they are up to speed with their order. 

Costs

We want to make this accessible to as many businesses as possible so we won’t be charging for any design or setup of your App and there’ll be no monthly fee for using the service. There only cost to you will be a £25 per month for Credit Card processing and you will need to have an existing merchant account for this aspect. This is a direct cost to us which we are passing on.

However, if you don’t, we can assist with setting one up quickly. 

Once the current economic climate has recovered, some more technical packages and bolt-ons can be added to the App should you want to continue to use it and grow this side of your restaurant business. For example, we can offer a completely branded app that is downloadable via App Store or Google Marketplace, this gives a full extension of your business with table bookings, pre-ordering, and easy to read menus. We can also integrate these apps into your existing EPOS system. However, we feel these are best left for the future. 

There are no limiting factors for using the solution we are currently offering without the add-ons. 

You might notice there are similar sites such as Just Eat, which take time to set up and the approval rate is slow. Further to this Just Eat, and similar companies take a percentage share (15%-20%) of the order values, which is going to further impact small businesses. 

Lets Talk 

If you think this could help your business and you would like a call or a preview/demonstration, please get in touch.

We are looking for feedback on our approach from local restaurants so please let us know if you have any questions or comments, to get set up or to refer a business you know!

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