Restaurant delivery continues to grow, with 27% of all orders coming from online purchases. In the past month, 77% of people in the US have ordered food online, which means that eateries need to do one of two things:
- Use a third-party delivery service
- Bring delivery in-house, which will require additional hiring
If you're considering opening your own restaurant delivery services (in-house or third-party), now is the right time due to high demand. Restaurant owners can partner with local eateries that want to expand and offer patrons the option to order food delivery online but don't have the logistics systems in place to fulfill orders.
How?
Follow the steps below to begin offering your own restaurant food delivery services.
Carve Out a Niche
Who will you serve? You can serve everyone, but it's unrealistic for a new delivery service to be everywhere at once. Imagine if Uber expanded worldwide the moment they opened - people would never get the service they expected.
The best online food delivery services often:
- Start locally and cater to a small, manageable radius.
- Focus on certain types of eateries.
Online food delivery can include everything from pizza to coffee and more. Perhaps you're the coffee delivery company that delivers fresh coffee from your own establishment or you partner with local java houses to deliver for them.
Find a niche that you're passionate about, but before taking another step, be sure to research the market to better understand demand.
Conduct Market Research
Whether you'll be the third-party delivery service or plan to offer delivery in-house, you need to conduct market research. Your location will dictate demand. For example, if you're in a college town where 95% of people walk to their favorite restaurants, it may not make sense to enter the market due to lack of demand.
You might also find that your restaurant or those around your area are popular because of the atmosphere that they offer.
People may frequent these locations for the experience more than the food, which means that demand for delivery is less. One way to begin probing the market to learn more about demand and where your business may fit is to:
- Survey locals
- Ask what they would like in a delivery service
If you find that the majority of locals do not expect to use your service, it may be a red flag that the business is less than viable in the current landscape. You can hire a professional company to handle the research for you, but a hands-on approach will give you insights that you may otherwise miss with a third-party company.
Add Your Online Food Delivery Portal
If you want to move forward with your delivery services, it's time to add an online portal to allow orders. It's a major step forward, and you have plenty of off-the-shelf solutions that can assist you, such as:
Dozens of other solutions also exist if you find these ones lacking the functionality and features that you need in your ordering platform. Be sure that the platform integrates into your content management system and offers a seamless solution to connect your online orders to your existing backend.
Run tests on the system that you add to verify that it works properly before deciding to open it up to the public.
You'll also want to take the time to choose a payment processor. You can use a platform like PayPal or Square, but if you have an existing point of sale system, there's a good chance that the provider will offer you a good deal on processing rates.
Start Creating a Menu
Delivery menus must be created, and it's not uncommon for some of a restaurant's items to be missing from the menu.
Why?
Certain foods may be problematic to deliver, or the quality of the food may degrade in transport. Perhaps you offer a sizzling steak or ice cream dessert that will not transport well and shouldn't be on the delivery menu.
You'll want to work with the restaurants you serve or your chef to create the ultimate online delivery menu that is still profitable and allows you to maintain the highest quality experience.
On top of this, your menu should also have:
- Professional photos of all food items on the menu.
- Descriptions of each menu item.
- Customization options.
If you're running a third-party delivery service, restaurant owners may mark-up their prices to maintain strong profit margins. Adding in pricing to consider all of these factors is the final step in the process.
And if you want to cater to even a larger audience, don't forget to provide a place on the menu to customize the order. Perhaps a person wants a hamburger without tomatoes because they're allergic to them or they would rather have their burger medium rare instead of well done. Customization options keep people who order happy and can lead to repeat business, too.
Hire Employees
Hiring employees to handle delivery is the next step in the process. You'll need to hire locals who can accommodate your needs and determine what type of transportation they'll need. In larger cities, you may want your delivery team to be on foot or to use a bicycle.
If you live in a more rural area or plan to have a large delivery radius, employees may need to use their own vehicles for delivery.
You can also provide delivery vehicles, but this is far less common in the delivery business.
Market Your Business
Finally, you'll need to market your delivery business or promote the fact that you now offer delivery. If you own a restaurant, you can add the online ordering aspect of the business to your existing sales material.
For example, add "we deliver" to your menus and put a sign on your door to alert customers to your online ordering option.
If you have an online delivery service as a third party, you can:
- Market to local restaurant owners
- Ask all partners to promote the service
And if you're a restaurant owner who wants to cut out the middle man and offer in-house delivery services, you can follow the same steps above to reach your goal.