Online Food Ordering Applications for Restaurants

Food take-outs is a growing trend in today’s lifestyle. Well, who has the time to actually “Dine Out” on a routine day? And even if you are in a mood, the traffic maze on the streets make sure that your interests never turn into a plan.

Be it the Singletons, or the Honeymooners, Full Nesters or Empty Nesters, take-outs go well with them across customer category and households. Given the trend, it is natural to see the steady rise in the Online Food Aggregators, Online Food Ordering Web Applications, mobile applications, and other food tech innovations.  A Morgan Stanley report indicates the food takeout share in India to rise to 25% in 2020.

What is an Online Food Ordering Web Application?

An Online Food Ordering Web Application will assist restaurants or Take-away businesses in managing order taking and delivery. Customers can directly log on to the restaurant’s website and place orders.

It is usually a simple application, where the customers can scan the menu, choose what they want to take, finalize order, make payments easily and track orders in real time and receive orders.

Advantages of an Online Food Ordering Web Application for the Restaurant:

While a food ordering application greatly benefits a customer, it offers some distinct benefits to the Restaurants too. Like;

• Higher Reach

A Web application will allow the Business to reach out to a larger population than be geographically confined.

• Increasing the Efficiency

Receiving and Delivering Orders is the most important function in the food Industry and the performance here can have a lasting impression on the customers. A Web application streamlines the process and makes it easy to control and manage, ensuring almost zero lapses.

• Brand Building

A dedicated webpage is a very important Branding ground for a restaurant. Restaurants can craft creative and unique brand messages, can flaunt sumptuous images of their food, write engaging blogs, host customer opinions and praises and so much more. The options are endless.

• Competitive Edge

With every restaurant being on an aggregator, there needs to be a distinct communication space to express how one is different from the competitors. With special offer announcements, ad campaigns, attractive banner ads, the restaurant gets multiple options to promote and grow.

• Customer Relationship Building

Web Applications leads to some important customer data that can be used to track the loyal and patronizing customers, purchasing patterns, food carts and other demographics. Such information can assist in building and growing loyalty programs that can best reward existing customers and value new customers.

Benefits of an Application over an Online Food Aggregator:

A marketplace model like an Online Food Aggregator, is accepted to be a convenient medium to the customer, but not much to a restaurant. Brands tend to tie up because it is more like a trend, than for the value it brings to the business.

Restaurants end up paying gruesome commissions ranging from 15-20% of the bill amount. These aggregators cannot even claim to offer brand exposure, for it is largely a crowded visibility. The only way to stand apart in such clutters is through distinct promotion offers, which could only add up to the costs.

With these marketplaces, there is also not much room for customization. There is space and design constraints for any brand based communications. Also, it is not that there is a steady and guaranteed flow of business.

IT specialists like Celexsa Technologies offer cutting edge online food ordering web applications that have a range of benefits to offer to restaurants. These applications can host multiple restaurant branches, multiple employees managing the systems, support accessibility controls, can offer multiple menus, special offers and announcements, customer engagement activities and foster CRM actions.