Advantages of using an online food ordering system

Its an undeniable fact that the world is going gaga over the concept of online food ordering so if you are a restaurant owner and you have not yet adopted the new trend, its high time you think about it.

Online Food Ordering System

To build an online food ordering system, you need to have a dedicated food listing website through which you can accept food orders. Whether you have a small restaurant business or an established one, having a prominent online presence is essential for its growth and exposure.

Similarly, if you are into the food business, no matter how popular it is in your locality if you do not have a striking online identity then you are surely missing out on something.

In this article, you will find out the top 5 advantages of having an online food ordering system. Before discussing the advantages, let us introduce you to the concept of an online food ordering system.

What is an online food ordering?

An online food system refers to software that lets food business owners receive and manage food orders seamlessly through their websites. Your customers can browse through food items from your digital menu, place orders for their preferred ones, and make payments online effortlessly.

Online Food Ordering

WordPress offers some amazing food order management plugins that can take your restaurant business to another level.

One of such powerful and feature-rich plugins is WP Food Manager which provides the perfect solution for your food business and lets you display your restaurant menu and manage food orders online.

How does the online food ordering system work?

In an online food ordering system, customers can access a digital restaurant menu from which they select the food items they want and place orders for the same by making payments online. Similarly, once an order is placed, the restaurant owners receive it, accept payments, prepare the food items and deliver it to the customers’ doorstep. This is how the entire system works.

Online Food Ordering System Work Chart

To adopt the idea of online food ordering into your food business, you need to have a food business website. We recommend a WordPress website because WordPress offers a lot of plugin options that you can use to convert your website into an online food ordering platform.

You can rely on WP Food Manager to build an online restaurant menu and food ordering system on your WordPress site.

The best part about the plugin is that it offers WooCommerce integration that lets you handle transactions on your website securely.

For customers online food ordering is beneficial in many ways:

  • They can order food from the comfort of their homes. 
  • It is a convenient option for them as they don’t need to travel or stand in queues to order food during peak hours. 
  • Cost saving. 
  • Door-step delivery.

Similarly, it offers multiple advantages to business owners as well. Find out the top 5 advantages of having an online food ordering system for your restaurant business.

What is the main objective of ordering food online?

The main objective of creating an online food ordering system is to automate the process of managing food orders online. It not only makes it convenient for restaurant owners to accept and track their food orders but also gives customers the facility to order food from the comfort of their homes.

Top 5 advantages of having an online food ordering system

1. Fast, easy, and convenient food ordering

Under the traditional method, people need to either visit the restaurant to place an order or call the restaurant for the same. Visiting the restaurant is undoubtedly a time-consuming process whereas waiting for someone to receive the call is risky because during peak hours calls may get missed or ignored.

The perfect solution to this problem is adopting the online ordering concept. This simplifies the system of placing, accepting and processing food orders for both customers and restaurant owners.

It helps your customers:

  • Get the time to browse through your menu comfortably. 
  • Order food from home without hassle. 
  • Get the food delivered to their doorstep once prepared. 
  • Make payments online.

Similarly, it helps restaurant owners:

  • Accept orders online. 
  • Manage customers easily during rush hours. 
  • Track orders. 
  • Accept payments effortlessly.

In a nutshell, you, as a restaurant owner can manage the restaurant operations like a boss using an online ordering system.

2. Greater audience reach

Whether you have a small restaurant or a big one, the seating capacity is limited. For example, if your restaurant’s seating capacity is around 50 then you can only serve 50 people at a time.

However, if you add the online ordering facility to your business, you will be able to handle more customers at a time including the online and offline ones.

In simple words, your restaurant will get wider exposure and a better audience reach. The best part is that you do not even have to bear any additional cost to hire more people to take care of your customers.

3. Easy revenue tracking

One of the biggest advantages of online food ordering is the automatic revenue tracking facility. You can not only keep your eyes on the number of orders that you have received but also the amount you have earned.

For example, if you get a total of 50 orders in a day, your online ordering system will show you the exact number of orders and also the details of each monetary transaction. Besides this, you can also calculate the profitability of your food business by comparing the price of your food items with the cost of preparing them.

4. Free and less costly marketing

By building an online identity of your food business, you make it available to your target audiences 24*7 as people can browse through your food menu and get the details of your restaurant anytime from anywhere.

This ultimately increases your restaurant exposure and that too without paying any media houses or creating expensive advertisements. The only thing that you need to achieve this is to create a user-friendly WordPress website for your restaurant.

Here are the ways you can utilize your online presence for marketing:

  • Making your website visually appealing to attract more people towards it. 
  • Using social media platforms to promote your brand, for example, building a Facebook page and linking your website with it. 
  • Creating compelling website content. 
  • Using SEO-friendly plugins that help your website rank higher on Google. 
  • Accepting online orders also breaks geographical boundaries as people who live far from your locality can also get the taste of your food by placing orders online. 
  • Building a prominent company profile on Google My Business so that people living near your restaurant can easily find you on Google.

The best part about all the above-mentioned methods is that you don’t need to spend much on them.

5. Better customer data management

The most important thing in every business is the relationship between the buyers and sellers. As a restaurant owner, it is crucial for you to know your customers. For example, you should know who is your regular customer, who is a first timer or who came to you following recommendations.

Online ordering makes it easy for you as your customer data remains saved on your system. In addition to that, you will also be able to figure out which items in your restaurant are the most popular ones or frequently ordered, you can also take feedback for your newly launched restaurant menu or the existing one.

6. Sales growth

Your “sales report” shows you the real picture of your business and when it comes to your restaurant’s sales, online ordering plays a major role. As it highly increases your audience reach, it also increases your sales.

It also allows you to take more orders than your restaurant’s seating capacity which again helps improve your restaurant sales.

Creating an online restaurant menu and highlighting or offering the popular food items of your restaurant at discounted prices also encourages more and more people to purchase food from you which ultimately results in an increase in your sales.

How to create an online ordering system?

To create an online ordering system, you will need a dedicated food business website and the right plugins. We recommend a WordPress website because WordPress offers multiple benefits that include the following:

  • Its a free platform. 
  • Open-source. 
  • Easy to install, beginner-friendly. 
  • Automatic and regular updates. 
  • SEO friendly. 
  • Offers a huge number of plugins to enhance the features of your website.

Wordpress

WordPress is one of the most popular CMSs in the world today that powers more than 43% of total websites available on the web.

Once you create your website it is time for you to choose the right plugins. Try WP Food Manager which is another wing of WP Event Manager.

WP Food Manager is a comprehensive food business management plugin that lets you create an attractive restaurant menu,  accept orders, manage payments and do much more.

The core plugin is free which means, you can display your restaurant menu with WP Food Manager for absolutely no cost. However, to add the online ordering facility to your website you need to purchase the Online order addon.

With the online order addon you can add the “add to cart” button to each item listed on your food menu. It is a WooCommerce-based plugin that keeps your transactions safe.

Besides the online order addon,  you can also add additional plugins to strengthen the base of your online food business like Google Maps, Restaurant menu etc. As it is a newly launched plugin, several addons are in its developing phase. Stay tuned for more such feature-rich addons.

Build your own online food ordering system now!

As mentioned earlier, WP Food Manager is a free plugin, so all you need to do is to install and activate the plugin on your WordPress site. To get the premium feature of online ordering, you need to purchase the online order addon.

Wp Foodmanager

After purchasing, you need to install it. Once it is done you are ready to work with it.

Note: To use any premium extensions of WP Food Manager, it is mandatory for you to install the core plugin WP Food Manager.

Wrapping up

We hope that the article will be helpful for you to understand why it is better to have an online ordering system. From the article, we can conclude that having an online food ordering system can be beneficial in many ways. It not only helps you make your online presence strong but also enhances your audience reach, improves your customer data management system, promotes your brand at less cost, and allows you to track your revenue and sales growth.

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