Why you should eliminate food delivery marketplaces from your restaurant's online ordering channels

Claire Sweeney
Author Claire Sweeney
Blog
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Most consumers have no idea that restaurants and takeaways miss out on a massive chunk of money when they choose to order through an online marketplace instead of the business’ own website or mobile app.

We asked people who order restaurant or takeaway food online at least once a month if they knew that restaurants are charged up to 30% commission per order by online food delivery marketplaces such as Deliveroo and JustEat. The results, based on a survey of people in Ireland, show that 77% of people have no clue that the restaurant has to fork out up to 30% in fees for each of these orders.

They’re not happy about it either. More than 4 in 5 of Irish consumers think these fees are unfair.

Last year alone, online food delivery marketplaces took an estimated €75 million in fees from Irish restaurants and takeaways.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, thousands of closed restaurants across Ireland pivoted from dine-in businesses to re-open as takeaway and delivery food businesses. Over 60% of the Irish population ordered food from restaurants and takeaways during lockdown.

Over half of all people (53%) who ordered meals from an online food delivery marketplace during Covid did so believing they would be supporting a local restaurant and were unaware that up to 30% of the value per order went to the marketplace app they ordered from, and not the restaurant itself.

This number is even higher when you look at weekly consumers of takeaway food, with 72% of people who ordered food online more than once a week during lockdown believing they were supporting their local takeaways and restaurants.

Customers want to support their local restaurants and takeaway and will order directly.

The vast majority (89%) of the people we asked in our research said that knowing about the fees restaurants face, they would order directly from the restaurant as opposed to using an online marketplace. In fact, 92% of people who order from an online marketplace more than once a week would order directly from restaurants now that they know about the high marketplace fees.

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If you make your customers aware of the hefty fees charged by marketplaces, there’s a very good chance they’ll order directly from your own website or mobile app to actually support their local business and make sure they receive the maximum amount of their hard-earned revenue.

Better still, make the decision to get off the online marketplaces completely so your customers will always order directly from your own website or mobile app.

Flipdish customer Ricki Capocci is the owner of9th Lough, a popular family-owned takeaway in Dublin, Ireland. He and his team have made the shift away from working with aggregators to working solely with Flipdish and owning their own online presence.

“I started working with the online marketplaces about ten years ago; but the longer I worked with them, the more expensive and difficult to deal with they became. I stopped working with them completely about three years ago and made the switch to having my own website and app that could take orders, powered by Flipdish,” Capocci said.

“Since then, my bottom line has increased, and so has my customer base and loyalty. Online ordering delivers about 70% of my turnover now, why would I share that with an aggregator?”

The vast majority (89%) of the people we asked in our research said that knowing about the fees restaurants face, they would order directly from the restaurant as opposed to using an online marketplace. In fact, 92% of people who order from an online marketplace more than once a week would order directly from restaurants now that they know about the high marketplace fees.

With a branded website, app or self-service kiosk, powered by Flipdish’s technology, you can directly accept digital orders without having to list on marketplaces, at a lower cost and with more control over the customer experience.

Having control of your digital ordering channels also puts you in charge of your customer data - allowing you to directly target return customers with marketing promotions and loyalty programmes.


Get started with online ordering, powered by Flipdish, today

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