As the impact of the coronavirus is felt by more and more businesses around the world, restaurants will be particularly affected by the crisis. The need for social distancing has meant that many have already had to close their dining rooms, with many more expected to do so in the coming weeks and months. However, at the time this post was written, many national, regional and local governments are still allowing restaurants to continue operating in a take-away or delivery capacity.
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In this post, we’ll cover the steps to set up your restaurant customers’ websites for online ordering success including understanding the differences in online ordering systems, the various ways you can integrate them into a website, and how to help your restaurant customers mitigate the damage from COVID-19.
While we are writing this from Duda’s perspective, these best practices can be applied to web design platforms and CMSs writ large such as WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, and so on.
There are lots of online ordering systems and delivery solutions designed specifically for restaurants, and if a customer is already locked in with one there’s no reason to ‘reinvent the wheel’ on account of the coronavirus. However, if you have restaurant customers that are just setting up online ordering for the first time, it is worth understanding at least the big differences in the approaches of these platforms and services.
We’re all familiar with the big players in this category. Postmates, GrubHub, Doordash, Uber Eats, Just Eat and Takeaway.com, along with more niche players like Slice and Caviar, are collectively used by hundreds of thousands of restaurants around the world to take orders and deliver food to customers.
A couple benefits of these platforms:
Though these online ordering and delivery solutions are convenient for both restaurateurs and their customers alike, they do take a portion of revenue from each sale by the restaurant owner. However some of them, such as Uber Eats, have started to waive delivery fees for independent restaurants across the U.S. and Canada due to the ongoing crisis. Similarly, GrubHub announced it is temporarily suspending collection of up to $100 million in commission payments from impacted independent restaurants nationwide.
Solutions like ChowNow and GloriaFood offer commission-free online ordering systems and some services such as Toast also include the hardware for a POS specifically designed for restaurants. For detailed information on these and other online ordering systems, we recommend this SmallBizTrends article that goes into 10 of these solutions in detail.
These solutions do not include a delivery service, so this may be something you want to discuss with your restaurant customers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
eCommerce solutions may not be the first thing you think of when trying to set up an online ordering system for your clients, but the option is there. For example, Duda is deeply integrated with Ecwid’s eCommerce platform and they provide a great example of a site that has been set up for online ordering over at https://tacoshopsandiego.ecwid.com/.
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Duda partners can essentially take four different routes to integrate an online ordering system into a restaurant website.
This is the simplest option for adding online ordering to your store. To add a CTA with a deep link to a profile in an app or another 3rd-party online service, simply drag it into the desired place on the site from the Widgets menu and add your link.
Duda's HTML widget offers another option for integrating online ordering into your customer's site. All you need to do is simply drag the HTML widget where you want it on the site and drop in the code. Many online ordering systems readily offer HTML code options for different style buttons and integrations, like these from Toast.
A more advanced and custom option would be to create a custom widget using Duda’s unique widget builder. This powerful tool allows you to create beautiful custom widgets for your customers that integrate your website seamlessly with your chosen 3rd-party solution.
To learn more, check out Launch Your Store at Duda University.
The widget builder is powerful and requires some knowledge of HTML/CSS/JavaScript in order to use it. If you aren’t comfortable working in these languages, Duda offers a Pro Fulfillment Channel, which is made up of a hand-picked group of Duda partners that you can contract to help you create the widgets you want for your clients.
If your customers are already working with an existing eCommerce solution, you may be able to leverage it during the COVID-19 pandemic to set up an online ordering system.
Above, we cited
Ecwid’s example of an online store
set up to cater to the needs of a restaurant and its guests. As we pointed out, Duda partners can use the same tools to create online ordering systems for their customers right now.
Ecwid enables you to:
Every digital marketer knows the everyday challenges of trying to have your desired message breakthrough, but this is even more challenging when consumers everywhere are flooded with information about a global pandemic. A strong social media presence, a regular drumbeat of content (e.g. blog posts, videos, social posts with updates, etc.) and accurate, current information on a website will be needed to keep customers engaged and primed to fill dining rooms when the crisis subsides.
Here are a few guides and resources we think are helpful for digital agencies and solutions providers that need to help restaurant customers communicate effectively to their guests during the COVID-19 outbreak.
The COVID-19 pandemic is a life-altering event for everyone and Duda is dedicated to helping our partners and web professionals everywhere boost their customers’ businesses during this challenging time. Times are tough, but we’ll get through this together.
