Restaurant POS system / Online ordering
Getting started
How to start taking online orders
Starting online ordering is usually described as a software decision. It is mostly not. The software takes an afternoon; the decisions that determine whether it works are about which customers each channel is for, what your kitchen can actually produce twice, and how far you are willing to drive. Get those right and almost any competent ordering page will do. Get them wrong and the best one will still lose you money.
★The question is not which storefront. It is where the order lands.
The short answer
How do I start online ordering for my restaurant?
Decide what each channel is for before you sign up for anything. A marketplace is a discovery channel — you are renting reach and paying a commission for customers who did not know you. Your own ordering page is a retention channel — cheaper per order, but it only works for people who already know your name. Most restaurants should run both and judge them differently. Then do the unglamorous parts: cut the menu to what survives a bag, set a delivery radius you will actually drive on a Friday night, and make sure online orders land in the same place as counter orders so nobody is watching two screens during a rush.
Most online ordering launches fail at the counter, not on the website.
The orders start arriving on a tablet nobody is looking at. The menu still lists the dish that turns to soup in ten minutes. The delivery radius was set by whoever was in the room, so a driver is now forty minutes away during the rush. None of that is a website problem, and none of it appears in a demo — but it is what decides whether you keep taking online orders after month two.
Where to start
Three things, in this order.
Decide what each channel is for
Marketplace: reach, new customers, a commission you are paying for introductions. Your own page: repeat customers, no third-party cut, and their details stay yours. Judge each on the job you gave it, not on order volume alone.
Build a menu that travels
Take everything off that arrives worse than it left. A shorter online menu is faster to produce during a rush and it protects the impression the customer forms of your food when they eat it twenty minutes later.
Make it land where the counter orders land
Orders from your PatronWorks storefront arrive in the same order list and the same kitchen display as the counter, so there is one queue and nobody is monitoring a second screen during service.
In detail
How this actually works.
Direct and marketplace are not a choice you have to make
They do different jobs. A marketplace introduces you to people who have never heard of you and charges you for the introduction, which is a reasonable trade the first time and a poor one the fifth. Your own ordering page cannot introduce you to anybody — but it is where the same customer should end up once they know your name.
- Marketplace = acquisition. Measure it on new customers, not on total orders
- Your own page = repeat. Measure it on how many order twice
- The goal is to move a customer from the first to the second over time
The radius decision is an operations decision
Delivery range set optimistically is the most reliable way to lose money on online ordering. Pick a radius you would happily drive at eight o'clock on a Friday, with one driver, with the kitchen behind. You can widen it later; refunding a cold order is harder.
- Set a delivery radius per store, enforced when the order is placed
- Orders outside it are refused up front, not accepted and then cancelled
- Pickup only is a legitimate way to start — it removes the hardest variable entirely
Your first hundred online orders come from people who already know you
A new ordering page has no audience on day one. The launch is not a marketing campaign, it is telling the customers you already serve — on the receipt, on a card at the counter, on the door, and to your email list. That is why it matters whether you have a list at all.
- Tell the people already walking in — receipts, counter, window, socials
- Email your existing customers; the list from your register is one you own
- A coupon code for a first online order makes the launch countable
What you own when the year is over
This is the part that compounds. Orders taken on your own storefront leave you with a customer record you can contact again — which is what makes loyalty, gift cards and email marketing possible at all. Orders taken elsewhere leave you with revenue and a stranger.
- Customer details from your own storefront stay yours
- A website builder is included with the ordering add-on
- Pickup and delivery configured per store, with a driver app for the run itself
- Loyalty, gift cards and coupons work across the counter and online
Do it properly
Questions worth asking before you pick a platform
These apply to any ordering platform, ours included. Every one of them is answered elsewhere on this page.
Where does the order appear when it arrives?
If the answer is "on its own tablet", you have created a second queue during your busiest hour. Ask to see an online order land during a live counter rush, not in a clean demo.
Whose customer is it afterwards?
Ask whether you get the customer's details and whether you may contact them again. It is the difference between building an asset and renting one.
What is the fee per order, and is there a flat alternative?
Percentages scale with your success. At a certain volume a flat monthly fee is simply cheaper — work out where that crossover sits for you.
Can I stop taking orders in thirty seconds when the kitchen is drowning?
Every restaurant has the night where it must close the channel. Find out how before you need it, not during.
Start with pickup. Add delivery when the pickup orders are boring.
Pickup removes drivers, radius, cold food and the hardest half of the operational problem, while still teaching you what your online menu should be and which of your customers will use it. When pickup runs without anybody thinking about it, delivery is a much smaller step.
Good to know.
- Where orders arrive
- The same order list and kitchen display as the counter
- Commission
- No third-party marketplace commission on your own storefront
- Fees
- Per-order option or flat monthly option — see pricing
- Delivery
- Per-store radius, enforced at order time, with a driver app
- Website
- Website builder included with the ordering add-on
- Customer details
- Yours, and usable by loyalty, coupons and email marketing
Questions, answered.
Should I use a delivery marketplace or my own ordering page?
Usually both, for different reasons. A marketplace is worth its commission when it brings you someone who had never heard of you. Your own page is where that person should be ordering by their third visit, because it costs you less and leaves you with the relationship. Treat the marketplace as advertising you pay for per result, and measure it on new customers rather than total orders.
How long does it take to start taking online orders?
The setup itself is an afternoon — menu, hours, pickup or delivery, and a radius if you deliver. The decisions in this guide take longer and matter more. Most restaurants are technically live long before their online menu is actually right.
Do online orders show up on the kitchen display?
Yes. Orders from your PatronWorks storefront arrive in the same order list and kitchen display as counter orders, so the kitchen works one queue instead of watching a second screen.
What should I take off the menu for delivery?
Anything whose texture is the point. Fried items that steam in a closed box, dishes that separate, anything assembled to be eaten immediately. The test is whether it is still the dish twenty minutes later — a customer's opinion of your food is formed at their table, not at your pass.
Do I need a website before I can take online orders?
No. A website builder is included with the PatronWorks online-ordering add-on, so the ordering page can be your web presence. If you already have a site, the ordering page can simply be linked from it.
How do I get people to use my own ordering page instead of the marketplace?
Ask them, in the places you already have their attention: on the receipt, at the counter, on the door, in the bag, and by email to the customers already in your register. Direct ordering is nearly always cheaper for you and no worse for them, but nobody switches to a link they have never seen.
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