Off-premise dining – Part 3 – Delivery Aggregators
Online ordering aggregator
A significant part of the off-premise dining experience is the ordering process. You either use an online ordering portal in your operation and/or you enroll with an online ordering aggregator. The aggregator might provide part of the ordering and delivery process, or it has a full-stack delivery portal.
Aggregators and their business practice are one of the hot topics of F&B business, especially in the UAE. Many restaurants are complaining about the high commissions of aggregators. And, how they push to run aggressive promotions of a 50% discount.
It should not forget that the aggregators are providing processes and practices that a restaurant might not have. Or, they cannot afford to put them in place due to the size of the restaurant service.
In summary, the aggregators provide the following primary services to restaurants:
- An online portal to collect an order from customers and redirect the order to the restaurant
- Promote the restaurants on the internet and perform a level of digital marketing
- Handle the payment process and collect the payment on behalf of the restaurants
- Collect and deliver the food from the restaurants to the customers
- Handle the entire delivery fleet and relieve the restaurants from that cumbersome practice
- Provides access to vaster customer-base
- Provides technical expertise to run the online order portal and related back-office tasks
We cannot ignore all these practices’ costs, and it costs. But, what does that mean to the restaurant? Do you need to put all your eggs in the aggregators’ basket? Of course not!
Based on the type of contract and service level, an aggregator might charge the restaurant between 5 to 30 percent of the bill value.
There are several issues with the aggregator’s practice:
- The restaurant does not receive the customer information from the aggregator. So, you are blind toward customer preferences and cannot plan your marketing practice
- The aggregators’ drivers are not the restaurant representative. So, you cannot build a relationship between the restaurant and the customer by the driver. There is minimal control over the customer experience.
- Due to the lack of customer relationships, there is a high chance of losing clients. Customer retention with an aggregator can provide below.
- The push of aggregators for heavy discounts can change customer behavior. Customers will always search for promotion and sacrifice the quality of food over a value.
- The delivery practice can be questionable. Maintaining the quality and temperature of the foods during the delivery can be a challenge.
- Due to the above issues, the client might not try a dine-in with the restaurant. She might face a low-quality off-premise experience.
You need to weigh the pros and cons of the aggregators’ practice with the same as having the in-house on-line ordering.
In summary, we can count the following benefits of the in-house online ordering system:
- Online Ordering is a new revenue stream for a restaurant.
- You have full control over the Online Ordering systems.
- You avoid the high commission of the aggregators and keep the profits
- You will have the full behavioral data of the customers, and you can use it for market segmentation and targeted marketing
Conclusion
Choosing an in-house on-line ordering solution, or signing with an aggregator is a business decision that only you can make. The current market environment showed the customers change behavior fast. Online ordering in retails and hospitality jumped drastically. F&B businesses have to have an in-house online ordering operation. This will help to cut costs, increase market reach, understand the customers better, and create a new revenue stream.
But, if you want to maximize your ordering and overcome the drop of dine-in guests, you need to reach the customers with whatever means possible. To maximize the number of orders, you need to take direct calls, have an online ordering system, use other ordering technologies, as well as signing with the aggregators.
You can plan and create different menus for each of the off-premise ordering. Different menu sets can help to address the cons of each ordering method.
And, the critical element to creating a successful customer experience in an off-premise experience, is training the staff.
