Flipdish customers urge public to order direct to support local

Conor Ward
Author Conor Ward
Blog
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Flipdish customers are urging the public to support their local hospitality businesses during these difficult and uncertain times for the sector.

As the challenge of coronavirus continues through the winter months, along with the increasing strength of aggregator platforms, it’s crucial for independent restaurants, takeaways, bars and cafés to generate strong and sustainable volumes of direct orders.


Campaign to support local

In response to the challenges restaurant operators are facing, we recently launched our ‘Support Local, Order Direct’ campaign, to help promote direct food ordering from their websites or mobile apps.

Businesses retain far more of the revenue from direct orders. By contrast, up to 30% of an order value is taken in commission when an order is placed on marketplaces such as Just Eat, Deliveroo, Uber Eats and others. And the reality is that consumers often don’t know that ordering directly from a restaurant’s website or app is the best way to support local.

Flipdish customers urge public to order direct to support local


Margins are notoriously tight in the hospitality sector and revenue has been hit hard this year. For restaurant operators, listing on an aggregator platform may seem like a good solution, when in fact it can be the opposite and instead damage the long-term sustainability of their business.

Apart from draining money away from the business immediately in high fees, it weakens a restaurant’s brand and interrupts the direct relationship with customers.

So, with the stakes so high right now, we’ve rolled out this campaign to spread the message that ordering directly is the best way to help support local.


Flipdish customers backing the cause

Our customers are really getting behind the campaign, urging the public to support their local favourites by ordering directly from them.

The award-winning Yamamori in Dublin, Ireland, is a family-owned Japanese cuisine restaurant, popular with locals and renowned for its amazing sushi. Like many others, the business has been impacted by the events of 2020 as strict lockdown measures curtailed their dine-in trade.

General Manager, Graham Ryan, is encouraging people to order directly to support local restaurants.

“COVID has been really tough. There’s so many people employed in this business, but as a business we’ve adapted. We’re doing takeaway, we’re doing delivery. The benefits to us as a local business, if you’re ordering through our website and it’s not being done by a third party, is that the commissions are very low,” said Graham.

“We need all the support that we can get from the local community. This one small change can make a huge difference.”


Watch Graham talk about the benefits of ordering direct:


Takeaway chain, Pizza Dog, also uses Flipdish to power its website and mobile app for delivery and collection.

Founder and General Manager, Sandeep Sood, is also a proponent of the Support Local, Order Direct campaign.

“COVID has affected everybody, especially in small towns where people have lost their jobs. It’s very important for us as a business that we have to make sure we are supporting the local community. Right now, we can support our staff to keep them in their jobs, so we have to work together as a team,” said Sandeep.

People don’t know about the hidden cost that food delivery platforms are charging. Nobody realises how much they are costing each and every business. They are taking pretty much all our profit margins straight away,” he added.


Watch Sandeep explain how hidden aggregator costs are hurting local businesses:


Spread the message with our free content

As part of our ‘Support Local, Order Direct’ campaign, we’ve created a marketing pack with content assets you can share freely on your own social media channels.

Simply download the images, then copy and paste to your own social media accounts. You’ll find all of the content options in our Support Local Social Media pack.

Use the #SupportLocalOrderDirect hashtag in your posts and tag @Flipdish. This will help to build momentum for the campaign, spread the word, and hopefully make a real difference to local businesses and communities.


Get more direct orders with a Flipdish-powered website and app

Interested? Get in touch for a quote today

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