Want online to-go orders at your restaurant? Avoid GrubHub and UberEats.
If you’re trying to get your restaurant set up to take online orders quickly, it’s tempting to partner with an order aggregator such as GrubHub, UberEats, and Seamless Web. Unfortunately, this often ends up being an expensive and frustrating mistake.
Doing The Math: Percentage-Based Online Ordering Fees Aren’t Worth It
Aggregator apps offer an alluring promise: they’re “free” to use (assuming you pay the startup fees and service fees, of course).
Startup fees can vary widely. At the time of this post, UberEats, for example, charges a $399 “activation fee” including software, a welcome kit, a tablet, and a professional photoshoot.
That may sound reasonable, but what if you don’t need all that? You may already have professional photos and a perfectly good tablet. Why pay such a premium for things you don’t need?
And the service fees are worse. You may find yourself paying 12-30% of your order total in fees (or higher, if you want your restaurant to show up at the top of their in-app search results).
Let’s assume your average takeout order total is $35 (if you don’t know that number, get yourself a system that organizes your order data ASAP). How long would it take for you to pay over $500 in fees?
- 12% service fee = 120 orders
- 30% service fee = 48 orders
If your online restaurant ordering system processes just a couple orders per day, you’re already paying hundreds of dollars in fees!
Your Restaurant’s Customer Data is Valuable – Keep it To Yourself
Not only do aggregators take huge portions of your revenue, they also completely control your customer data. When orders are placed through these apps, the aggregator collects more and more data.
This may seem harmless at first, but this data is worth far more than it seems. The bigger the customer list UberEats, GrumHub, Postmates, Seamless, and other apps have, the larger the pool of people they can promote to. And you know who they’re going to charge for the privilege of reaching these people? Your restaurant.
That’s right – you’ll be paying to reach the very customers you worked so hard to acquire.
If you build an online ordering platform you have full control over, you can instead use this data to grow your business (for free). It can be as simple as emailing a coupon to your most loyal customers, or as complex as using your customer list to build a lookalike audience for profitable Facebook ads.
Either way, that data is a huge asset. Don’t let the aggregators steal it and charge you for it!
Build Your Own Online Ordering System Instead
Aggregator apps seem convenient at first, but you’ll be better off in the long run by building your own to-go ordering platform.
With a platform like Web Restaurants, it’s even easier to set up your own system than to register with and get approved by an aggregator. In just 24 hours, we can create your mobile-friendly online ordering system and integrate it seamlessly with your existing website. And unlike the aggregators, we don’t withhold your customer data or charge ANY per-order commissions.
Learn more about our platform ->
Michael Fied
Web Restaurants
Owner & Co-Founder
Schedule a call with me here
