The year 2020 hasn’t been good for hotels, restaurants, clubs, and other hospitality services. The adverse effects of COVID-19 are still apparent in the restaurant industry, as fewer tables are filling up to maintain social distancing. With dine-in services on the back burner, an increasing number of restaurants are moving toward the digital platform. By developing an online ordering system, restaurants, cafes, and bakeries can easily reach their customers and offer services online. Besides, it’s a proven branding methodology that strengthens your online presence.
We, at Oodles ERP, help you develop a custom online ordering system for your restaurant, bar, or food joint. Our development team specializes in building web and mobile applications for restaurants that facilitate seamless order processing across devices. Using open-source tools, frameworks, and SDKs, we deliver tailored ERP solutions for restaurants and other businesses in the F&B sector.
Reasons For Turning To The Online Platform
In 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak left the global economy reeling, causing many hospitality businesses to suspend operations. Although vaccination programs are helping, full-scale recovery is still gradual. Hotels, restaurants, and other hospitality services have felt the brunt of the pandemic, making digital adoption essential.
Several restaurant chains worldwide are mitigating the impact of COVID-19 by offering online food delivery. In 2021, adopting an omnichannel approach became even more crucial. Developing an online ordering system has become a vital step for restaurants to sustain operations in the new normal.
How Shopify Helps Develop an Online Ordering System
Shopify is a cloud-based platform that enables businesses to set up online stores and reach their target audience. It also provides an online ordering system that lets you take your restaurant online with minimal complexity. Below are key features of Shopify’s solution:
Theme Selection
You can choose from multiple themes to quickly set up your online restaurant, list menu items, and offer a full menu online. Shopify also allows uploading personalized templates to customize your restaurant’s branding.
Food Images
Uploading high-quality images of your food items is crucial for attracting customers. Shopify’s online ordering system allows you to organize menu images effectively and style them into meals or combos to boost engagement and orders.
Product Labels
Shopify’s online ordering system lets you add appropriate product labels, making it easy for your patrons to distinguish between various food items. ModeMagic is a Shopify app that lets you add labels to various food items in your menu without having to customize the listings or food images. These tags let you patrons distinguish between different food items in terms of veg, non-veg, gluten-free, etc.
Mobile App
In addition to developing a restaurant website, Shopify lets you create a custom mobile app for iOS and Android platforms. Since a majority of customers use their smartphones for food ordering, developing a mobile app has become increasingly crucial. Having a mobile presence enables restaurants to attract patrons, increase brand awareness, and boost the customer retention rate.
Easy Checkout
Customers these days like to have a multitude of payment options to choose from. Therefore, Shopify provides easy integration with a wide range of payment modes including Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, WePay, and more. Providing multiple payment options facilitates a seamless checkout procedure with minimal platform-specific constraints.
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Shopify Add-ons For Restaurant and Food Businesses
Given below are some useful Shopify add-ons that can help you improve your food delivery services and enhance customer experiences.
Store Pickup + Delivery
It is an extremely useful in-store pickup and local delivery solution for Shopify that is developed by Zapiet. The app lets you optimize your online restaurant in a way that makes it easy for your customers to choose the delivery options.
In addition to providing home delivery, the app lets you offer the takeaway feature as well. It means customers can place an order remotely and then come to your restaurant to pick it up.
Tidio Live Chat
There has to be a reliable communication medium for your patrons to interact with the restaurant staff. Tidio Live Chat provides easy one-on-one interactions between customers and the restaurant’s customer support executives. In doing so, customers can check their order status, modify the previous order, report delays, or provide specific instructions for a hassle-free delivery.
Flits
A crucial step to delivering personalized customer experiences is to provide your existing customers their order history with an option to repeat the order. Flits is one such app that lets you add the ‘reorder’ button for your customers to repeat their orders right-off-the-bat.
Instead of browning the entire menu, customers can see what they had previously ordered and reorder the items with minimal hassle. It also provides a quick and easy checkout process and improves customer satisfaction.
Shopify POS
Shopify POS provides a unified software interface that enables restaurant owners to simultaneously manage their online orders as well as dine-in services.
You get a centralized dashboard with a smart grid view to track order status, manage order history, and maintain financial records with easy accessibility. Above all, it facilitates smooth checkout and aids in faster order processing.
How We Help You Develop an Online Food Delivery App Using Shopify?
We are a seasoned ERP software development company having a proven track record in eCommerce app development and online store creation. Our team specializes in using Shopify tools to develop an online food delivery app to address diverse restaurant needs. Our Shopify-based online ordering solutions enable restaurant owners to amplify their profits by generating new revenue streams. We have successfully built several online stores for businesses from different industries. For more information, please visit erpsolutions.oodles.io or drop us a line at [email protected].
