If there is one single factor which has revolutionised the food and beverage industry in recent years, it might be the simple question of speed:

• customers need to find you fast
• they need to see your menu just as quickly
• they might be ordering on the go themselves
• they want to wait as short as time as possible between deciding what to eat and then receiving it – at home or in your restaurant
• in short, they want to have all this information at their fingertips before submitting on order immediately online

Reasons for offering online ordering

Be sure that if the customer wants something, the market sooner or later is going to offer it:

• customers want the speed and convenience of online ordering, so plenty of suppliers are queuing up to make it available – you run the risk of being left behind, in an especially competitive market, if you fail to offer a service already being made available by your rivals
• customers in general have higher expectations about the speed with which they may order and have their order fulfilled – the younger generation, in particular, has that expectation in spades
• a younger generation represents your present and future market, so you may be well advised to deliver what it wants
• some dishes on your menu might be more suitable for fast online ordering than others
• if your customers are able to order online, they are more likely to revisit your site again in the future and – just as critically perhaps – may be more inclined to use the internet to leave comments and feedback on the fine service they have received from your establishment
• consider your customer base – not everyone looking to order online is doing so leisurely on the home PC, but many are already out and about, looking to order directly on their mobile phone
• if you want to really stay up with the field leaders by allowing your customers to order online from their smartphones, you probably need your own customised app – building such an app is probably much easier than it sounds, through use of the type of App Builder offered by AppInstitute
• once your app is on someone’s phone, of course, there is a considerably higher chance of their using it time and again in the future to place their order with you
• remember that online ordering is likely to be used both by customers who want their food delivered to them at home, those who want to come to you for a takeaway, and those who want to sit down inside your restaurant to enjoy a meal they have been able to pre-order
• that range of different customers might inspire changes and variations to your menu in order to ensure that all tastes and demands may be met

Finally when advertising your food online, don’t forget to make it stand out from your competitors. For example, if you sell hand made pies using a secret recipe, make a point of saying so to your customer base. Or, if you only use locally-sourced products, again, say so. These features can make your product stand head and shoulders above the rest.

Why make online ordering available to your customers? The simple answer might be that you cannot afford not to do so.