If you run your own restaurant, pizzeria, snack bar, café or ice-cream parlour, it can be profitable and increase turnover if you offer a delivery or collection service for food and drinks.
Even against the background of state-imposed restaurant closures, as happened in the Covid19/Corona pandemic, it may be possible to maintain a low turnover by offering such a delivery service.
However, most of the gastronomy sector do not have a specially set up shop system on their website. Such a shop system is also not absolutely necessary if you only want to offer certain dishes, food and drinks for sale outside of the restaurant. From a practical point of view, a relatively simple order form is sufficient.
Since the payment by the customer is usually made at the front door or on site when the ordered food is handed over, no complex payment systems are necessary. After all, such an order can also be processed by telephone.
Advantage Order form for out-of-home sales (take away)
Compared to the telephone, an online form for out-of-home sales naturally offers the advantage that the processing can be somewhat temporally decoupled. The orders triggered via the order form flutter in by e-mail, and you can process them one after the other without being interrupted by telephone calls. By this way, it is also possible to better recognize the synergies during the preparation of the food, as by ordering the rum steak, three persons have just ordered it, it is possible to prepare them at the same time in the big pan. Or you can optimize your route when you deliver the food, because you can see which people live close to each other.
The main advantage of using an order form for delivery services is that the data is available in digital form, which makes it easier to manage. The data could also be stored in a database. Or the driver can quickly check the delivery address on his smartphone while he is on the road.
Alternative to Lieferando or Delivery Hero
A huge advantage of having your own order form for the gastronomic offer is that you are not dependent on service providers such as Lieferando, Lieferheld and Delivery Hero. As known, these service providers charge a considerable surcharge for the mediation of a food order that considerably affects the margin. Of course, the spread of these service providers on the smartphones of the customers possibly leads to a better findability. Here one must weigh up and find out the economic optimum or best offer one’s customers both.
Create online form for delivery service
Such an online form is placed with a corresponding link on the respective gastronomic website. Well present for the user; also in the smartphone view; because most of them are likely to order food by smartphone nowadays.
Details on the order form
Product description
Here you name the offered dishes with a small description and preferably with an appealing picture. Information about the quantity and size of the portions should not be missing as well as the price, of course. It is also advisable to include information on additives and preservatives as a footnote.
The customer can then select the respective menu by indicating the quantity in the order form.
Customer data
The order form should have the following customer information so that the food order can be delivered in a targeted manner:
- Name (preferably also the name on the bell plate)
- Delivery address
- E-mail address (for example to send a confirmation e-mail)
- Callback number (telephone number for any queries; if necessary also as mandatory information to avoid fake orders by callback)
- Optional invoice address (for larger deliveries or when company orders are expected)
Examples Order forms for food deliveries
The following pictures show exemplary order forms which can be used for a delivery service. These were created with the program DA-Order Form. Just click on the picture to get to the respective order form.
