Welcome back to the official Online Orders Now blog space! During the summer months, we’ve taken the opportunity to put our experience working with a wide variety of restaurants to good use for our readers (and ideally, our future clients). We’ve addressed marketing techniques — both digital and the old-fashioned way — along with many other topics for helping your restaurant improve efficiencies, increase ROI, and think about new avenues for opening up new revenue streams.

Of course, we have a proverbial horse in this race. But, please, don’t mistake our investment for bias. While no one understands their restaurant as well as you, the ostensible owner, we offer a unique perspective on the industry and windows of opportunity worth considering. Today’s post will briefly touch on the industry at large, along with why adding online ordering software makes so much sense, before we highlight a few of the reasons we turn our customers into long-term clients.

A Window Of Opportunity

Many of the prospective clients who reach out to us find themselves so busy running the day-to-day of their restaurant, that they are by and large unaware of what is happening in the restaurant industry. That’s where we come in.

The delivery sector of the restaurant industry is in a fascinating, pivotal state. Big fish like Olive Garden and a host of big-time pizza chains might have their own, in-house online ordering systems, whereas a host of restaurants elect to go the route of paying a third-party delivery aggregator to essentially do all the leg work for them.

Unfortunately, these third party companies charge an arm and a leg, with commissions being as high as 35 cents on the dollar of every order total. And while we understand that such prices are influenced by supply and demand in terms of what small restaurants and chains are willing to pay, we want restaurant owners to understand that there is perhaps a better alternative.

Online Orders Now represents such an alternative. We take care of designing your website, making sure it’s optimized to be found on search engines while looking great on smartphones, tablets, and desktops. We’ll make sure your customers can find you when they are looking for, and are presented with a dynamic, easy-to-use shopping experience for their to-go order. Whether they are picking up for takeout or you have a delivery service, our restaurant online ordering system seamlessly integrates with your POS system. So if you are worrying about the stress of implementing a brand new system along with training up your entire staff on how to use this software — don’t! Everything we do is designed to make your life easier, while saving you both time and money. Seriously.

But back to the window of opportunity (sorry, we can get a little bit carried away when we start talking about all the bells and whistles you get with our food ordering system…). Here’s the crux of the matter — there is no third-party delivery app that the general public uses yet. There are a few heavy hitters at this point, but there is also wiggle room for restaurants looking to carve out their own digital niche in their region. You get the best of both worlds when choosing Online Orders Now because you don’t pay any commission fee per order like you would with other providers or third-party aggregates. Plus, you get a host of features that meet consumers where they are looking (online) with a sleek, sophisticated website that showcases your delicious menu items. It’s a sensitive time for the industry because we don’t believe it will necessarily stay this way forever.

Hence, we strongly encourage restaurant owners to consider the fact that now might be the ideal time to invest in a online ordering solution. If you do so, go with the provider that offers unlimited transactions, no commission fees, low, flat monthly rates, and a host of other features we are thrilled to tell you about!

Little-Known Features

We have spent a good amount of time describing the primary features and benefits of our restaurant online ordering system in recent posts. You can even find a few of them on the handy little graphic just above! That’s why we are going to take the rest of today’s blog to talk about just a few of the benefits that Online Orders Now provides — features that we don’t always get the chance to shed some light on!

• Mobile Web App – In addition to the aforementioned custom website, we’ll design you a mobile web app that your regular customers can use. It will showcase your restaurant theme, menu, and a host of other bells and whistles!
• Catering Menus – If you are interested in starting a little side-hustle catering service, we’ve got the tools you need to help make that idea a profitable reality. To be perfectly blunt, catering presents its own set of challenges that we are sure most of our readers are familiar with to some extent, but we can take care of a specialized menu for you. This catering menu will be designed for high-volume orders and advanced ordering setting that allow customers to specify exactly what they need, and when they need it. You can even set up a unique catering delivery area if you would like to alter it from your restaurant’s delivery settings!
• Dynamic Printable Menu – Unless they already have a favorite dish they order every single time, most of your customers will want to browse your menu before placing an order. Our restaurant menu app allows consumers who want a physical copy of your menu to print one out. And sure, most of our competitors will let you add a PDF of a menu that can be printed out, but ours is dynamic in the sense that our menu is up-to-date with all changes you’ve recently made to your menu, be it related to pricing or otherwise. Our DPM is a great feature which many of your customers will appreciate!

Get Started

Like we mentioned above, there’s no time like the present to get started. You may have been considering adding a new revenue stream to your restaurant’s offerings already. But the industry is at a unique point where more and more consumers are using food delivery service — yet a “Facebook” or “Amazon” type of industry titan has yet to emerge. There’s opportunity for mid to small market players to establish a loyal customer base in the meantime. When you can do exactly that with an online ordering system provider like ours, it’s time to do so. Get started by reach out to us at Online Orders Now today!