Growth of the takeaway food industry

The pandemic has aided in the rise of the takeaway food industry. As the Covid19 virus is highly transmissible, consumers are warier of dining out at crowded restaurants.

Even as Singapore eases restrictions, the popularity of ordering food for takeaway prevail due to its convenience.

How should restaurants adapt to the new trend?

Restaurants usually prioritize dine-in operations as it is the main income source. However, with the right digital solutions, you will be able to diversify your revenue streams, adding ordering channels to your restaurant without a huge increasing your overhead.

Read on to find out.

1. Online ordering

The best way to generate revenue is to meet your customers where they are buying. In order to do so, your restaurant has to have omnichannel ordering. One of the best ways to achieve that is through online ordering, where many consumers order takeaway food.

Food Delivery Platforms

These are popular platforms like GrabFood, FoodPanda and Deliveroo. Many restaurants have taken to such platforms to start selling online. These platforms are great tools to reach more consumers as you tap on their vast customer base and food delivery is handled through them, making it a good option to quickly reach out to online consumers.

However, there are downsides to using these platforms. First being that you unable to collect your customer’s data to create your own customer base. Thus, unable to create a loyal customer following.

Second and one of the most talked about would be the high commission rates that these platforms draw from each of your orders. In order to maintain profits, many F&B merchants had to raise their prices, but this could discourage customers from ordering.

Online Food Ordering Systems

The difference between online food ordering systems and food delivery platforms is that online ordering systems are often web based and you would have to acquire your own customers. Also, food delivery and collection has to be handled by the restaurant.

However, with proper marketing and order management, your online ordering system can outperform food delivery platforms in terms of customer retention rate and profitability.

An online ordering system allows your customers to focus on your brand and offer. This prevents them from hopping to your competitors on the same platform.

By using an online ordering system, you are able to build your restaurant's fanbase for better customer retention to generate more revenue for your restaurant in the long run, without high commission rates charged per order by food delivery platforms.

Which to use?

To achieve the best results, having a strong online presence is important for your restaurant. Hence, using only one of these solutions is inadequate. By using both food delivery platforms and online food ordering systems hand in hand, will help you increase your restaurant’s online presence and meet your customers where they are shopping.

2. Self-ordering kiosk

How does a full service restaurant that prioritizes dine-in adopt self-ordering kiosks?

When customers head to restaurants to takeaway, your restaurant has to divert extra manpower to get orders from these customers. If takeaway order volumes are high, you will have to divert even more manpower from your dine-in operations to handle high volumes of takeaway orders. This negatively affects your efficiency and you may even have to expand your restaurant’s floor space to accommodate more cashier terminals.

By adopting self-ordering kiosks, you are able to open up more takeaway ordering counters without the need to allocate manpower to take orders manually. As self-ordering kiosks take up less space than cashier terminals, you will not have to increase your restaurant’s floor space, hence, saving on rental costs. 

On top of that, self-ordering kiosks allow you to preset add on suggestions to promote new dishes, promotions or popular add ons to your takeaway customers.

When the self-ordering kiosks are not in use, they can be used to display attractive images of your best-sellers and promotions that will help to attract walk-in customers.

3. Most importantly, have a POS system that centralizes your operations

A POS system is more often than not, the centre of your restaurant operations. Hence, getting a POS that is able to centralize the management of your orders from multiple channels is essential. 

While it is possible to operate contactless ordering solutions such as QR ordering and self-ordering kiosks separate from your POS system, this may not be productive for kitchen staff as they have to refer to different order management devices or print outs that comes in from different ordering channels. This may cause inaccurate or slow order preparation.

In order to have a smooth and efficient operation, your ordering platforms (front of house operations) and food preparation (back of house operations) have to be seamlessly integrated through a POS system. That means, your POS system of choice has to have the capability to integrate with your self-ordering and kitchen order management systems.

Interested in knowing more about MEGAPOS cloud POS system that integrates with contactless ordering solutions (QR ordering system and self-ordering kiosks)? Schedule a free demo below.