Selling food through delivery has several advantages that make your business more efficient, boost your brand’s visibility, and increase profits.
The benefits of offering food delivery
Increased reach and visibility
Delivery can help you reach more potential customers outside of your regular clientele. By expanding your restaurant online, you’ll be able to grow your brand awareness, reaching new audiences and demographics that may not have interacted with your brick-and-mortar restaurant before.
Third-party delivery aggregators like Uber Eats, Deliveroo, or DoorDash can amplify this reach even further without little effort on your part. These platforms are used by billions of regular users worldwide. Your restaurant can take advantage of that widespread reach to boost visibility without investing in costly online marketing ads.
Signing up with multiple delivery services will improve the odds of reaching as many potential customers in as many different markets as possible.
More business opportunities
By offering delivery, you’ll be able to serve a broader range of customers, selling meals even if you don’t have any tables available in-house. Your online restaurant is not limited by its sitting capacity – the sky’s the limit!
Additionally, delivery allows you to turn off-peak hours into profitable hours, helping you drive more profits and be cost-effective.
Finally, creating virtual brands is one of the most significant business opportunities for online food delivery. Many delivery restaurants segment their brand into multiple virtual brands online to expand their reach. Creating new virtual brands is a low-risk, low-cost way to experiment and optimize your menu.
Increased profits
Many restaurants get started with delivery because it is an additional revenue stream. But delivery doesn’t just help restaurateurs drive more sales; it also helps them boost profitability.
Running an efficient delivery operation typically doesn’t require renting a new location or hiring more staff. Instead, you can use your existing employees and equipment to fulfill orders, especially if you partner with a third-party service. And if delivery ever becomes the bulk of your business, you could even downsize your physical location.
In other words, delivery doesn’t increase your overhead or labor costs but brings you additional returns. Meanwhile, customers are willing to pay a premium for the convenience of restaurant-quality food delivered straight to their doorstep.
Is food delivery worth it?
Delivery is worth it if you want to reach and serve significantly more customers, increase visibility, and boost profit.
By offering delivery, you’ll be able to process more orders and expand your business without investing in a new restaurant location. Besides, growing your brand online also increases the chances of new customers visiting your brick-and-mortar restaurant. And one of the best reasons to deliver meals likely is because it means you’ll be meeting consumer demand.
As mentioned, restaurants that want to sell meals online don’t have to make significant upfront investments if they decide to use delivery aggregators to reduce expenses.
On the flip side, these third-party services charge a commission for each order placed through their platform. Therefore, optimizing your delivery operation is essential to offset these commission fees and be cost-effective. By leveraging the right technology, you can save time, money, and labor to capitalize on your delivery opportunities.
How to get started with delivery?
Setting up new online sales channels and finding your footing in the delivery marketplace can be overwhelming. Luckily, we’ve got you covered with our step-by-step guide!
Select your audience
The first thing you need to do is define your target audience. For example, which cuisines will you offer, and how does this fulfill consumers’ needs? Next, determine your unique selling points and conduct thorough market research to understand your market better.
Of course, if you have an existing brick-and-mortar restaurant, you can use your regular customer base as a starting and reference point. However, selling food online will expose you to new customers you haven’t targeted before.
Create your menu
Your menu can make or break your entire delivery operation. So it’s important to know that your menu for delivery should not just be a copy of your in-house menu. That’s because each item available for online ordering should be delivery-proof, simple to execute, low-cost, and high-margin.
Additionally, profitable delivery menus are short, divided into multiple categories, and appealing thanks to clear descriptions and high-quality food photos.
Prep your logistics
Another crucial part of your delivery operation is your ability to efficiently process all the additional online orders you will receive. Investigate potential bottlenecks and resolve them before they become an issue.
You can do several things: develop an efficient system for incoming orders, from order acceptance and food prep to packaging and dispatch. Automate your delivery flow wherever possible. This will help you sustainably scale your business while using your time and resources effectively.
Market your delivery operation
Building a solid marketing strategy is essential to go far in food delivery. While you can benefit from free marketing by working with third-party delivery partners, having your own action plan is equally important.
Invest in social media marketing to create a buzz surrounding your brand and food. Use the power of popular online communities like Instagram to make the most out of your pictures, consumer stories, and positive reviews to generate word-of-mouth marketing.
In conclusion, the global online food delivery market is projected to hit $154.3 billion by 2023. Food delivery can significantly benefit your business by increasing reach and visibility, creating more business opportunities, and boosting profits. By expanding your restaurant online and partnering with third-party delivery aggregators, you can reach new audiences and demographics without investing in costly online marketing ads. Also, delivery allows you to turn off-peak hours into profitable hours and create virtual brands to expand your reach.
However, optimizing your delivery operation and offsetting commission fees is crucial to be cost-effective. The right approach can make food delivery a valuable addition to your business.
Check out the checklist for launching a successful delivery business for more details.
