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Online Ordering for Restaurants: Benefits, Do's, Dont's

A woman searching how to increase online orders with FineDine.
Idil Aras
Idil Aras
November 9, 2022

The fact that technology develops at a fast pace is undeniable. In every aspect of our lives, enhancements of technology help us live better lives. Doing stuff online and within the comfort of our homes is one of those examples. Every urbanized person must have ordered food online at least once. It’s obvious that being able to order food online is a convenience for us—but how about restaurants? Actually, the answer is an instant YES. Let’s talk about the reasons behind the benefits of online ordering for restaurants.

More Profits, Higher ROI with Online Ordering

First of all, the online ordering option can bring the restaurant a higher profit and a higher return on investment. It is obvious that preparing the infrastructure for online ordering might need quite a bit of money to invest, but it’s still so much cheaper and reasonable compared to the expenses of the conventional dine-in ordering method. There are many expenses to opt out of when delivering food to customers who order their food online. Plastic/cardboard utensils instead of porcelain, no need for cleaning the utensils, no need to clean the establishment, no need for waiters/janitors to work, and so much more. The only extra expense that comes with online ordering is the delivery, but it's still so much cheaper if done correctly. So when all of these are combined, a clear fact says that there is a bigger return on investment if it’s done for online ordering.

The fact that online ordering benefits the customer also benefits the establishment. Online ordering is relatively easy since there is no need to go to the restaurant itself; customers can feel the urge to order food more often, which helps the restaurant in the long run.

Better Order Management and Collection of Customer Data

Engaged in online ordering, a man in an apron talks on a cell phone while attentively viewing a laptop screen.

Online ordering also helps the restaurant manage its orders easily and more effectively. Calculating the restaurant’s cash flow is much easier via the online ordering method. Apart from the ease of management, online ordering helps restaurants collect their customers’ data much more easily. Collecting data from the customers who came to the restaurant to order their food is relatively hard. However, the demographics, locations, diets, and much more data from customers can be easily gathered via online ordering. Changes and improvements the restaurant undergoes, according to the data, can help the establishment earn more money and succeed.

Reach More Customers

The ease of ordering online, as we talked about before, can lead customers to order food when they feel the urge to. Getting up, getting ready, driving to the restaurant, and interacting with the staff can sometimes get so overwhelming for the customers, especially those with tight schedules or social anxiety. Online ordering solves all these problems. Customers can skip all these steps and order their food in the comfort of their homes. That way, restaurants can widen their customer profile. Since literally everyone has access to the internet and technological devices, online ordering methods can be used by more people than in the past years (especially with the ongoing pandemic, people learned how to do different things online, at their homes), which makes investing money in online ordering services much more logical.

Set Up Your Online Ordering Infrastructure With FineDine

Restaurant owners might ask which service to use when it comes to online ordering. When it comes to that, FineDine is a great option. FineDine helps restaurants, cafes, bakeries, hotels, and many other establishments with their ordering program. There are many ways FineDine can help your establishment. It has delivery and pick-up options, dine-in QR menus, tablet menus, and much more. When it comes to delivery and pick-up options, there is no commission, which lifts a huge weight from the owners’ shoulders. There are different payment amounts for establishments with different monthly customers, which ensures that there is a reasonable amount of money paid for the service received, so there won’t be an unbalanced payment.

FineDine provides great customization for your establishment’s online ordering page. You can change colors and fonts, add your logo, and reflect your branding with one click. FineDine weekly keeps track of what your establishment’s customers do to help you with menu engineering. Which will also help you to manage your customer data much more easily and neater, as we talked about before. FineDine also helps you to keep up with the customer’s likes and dislikes. AI-powered technology identifies the most preferred order combinations of items. FineDine also makes everything so simple that you can grab a coffee while your guests are paying their checks through their mobile phones. You can also customize your FineDine experience by adding the add-ons you prefer. You can get POS integration so that you can connect POS for faster order taking or kitchen printer integrations so that FineDine can manage your back-of-house operations.

Expanding your establishment’s horizons by investing in an online ordering service seems much more logical now, right?