Food portals claim that they will help you to get new customers, but they actually do everything in their power to steal your customers away from you. Then they charge you 13%–30% to receive an order from your old customers. It’s madness, and you should not stand for it.
This is how food portals steal your customers.
Google Ads
When your customers search on Google for your takeaway, food portals will try to intercept your customers and try to make them their customers by bidding on your brand name in Google Ads. This means that you will have to pay up to 30% for the order, you will lose control of the relationship, and you might even lose the order completely because your customer might be pulled away to a competitor by an enticing discount on the portal. Don’t let this happen to you!
SEO
Similar to Google Ads, food portals will intercept your customer’s orders with superior SEO. Food portals will leverage their size to fill up the first page on Google search. This is bad because your customers will be pulled away to the food portal, rather than ordering from you directly.
Google Business Profiles
Food portals and aggregators will claim your Google Business Profile. You should never allow them to do this. Why? Well, if they claim your Google Business Profile it means that when people click “order” it will bring them to the food portal rather than to your own website. Once again, you will have lost your customer.
Landing Pages
Food portals will create landing pages or “micro-websites” for your business and tell you that this is a good thing — it is not. These pages trick your customers into thinking they are ordering from you directly, when in fact they are going to be sent to the food portal, where you are just one of hundreds of restaurants.
Window Stickers
Have you ever walked into Primark or H&M and seen an Amazon sticker on the window? Me neither. There is a good reason for that. These retailers would never send you to Amazon to order their clothes online because that would make zero sense. So why would you send your customers to these food portals? You should NEVER have a sticker on your window that isn’t promoting your own brand. The food portals claim that they bring your restaurant customers, so why would you advertise their brand and thereby send your customers to their website? Don’t be fooled.
Branded Drivers
Do your drivers promote your brand or the brand of a food portal? Put yourself in the shoes of your customer. They order from your website, then the food is delivered by a driver wearing the food portal’s branding. Maybe your customer will start to order through the portal instead from now on — be very careful what message you are sending your customers.
Branded Bags
Is your food being delivered in a bag with food portal branding? If the answer is yes, then you are certainly losing customers. Sometimes food portals will give you bags “free of charge”. Why would they do this? The reason, of course, is so they can take your customers from you.
Why are food portals bad for your takeaway business?
- They steal your customers.
- They charge you high fees to receive orders.
- They promote your competitors to your customers.
- They do not allow you to market directly to your customers.
- They hide valuable data from you so you can’t easily contact your customers
- They hide valuable data from you so you can’t easily see trends and react and evolve accordingly
What should I do about it?
Leave food portals and increase your takeaway's profit.
You should promote your own ordering platform to all your customers, including your portal customers, and then you should leave all food portals in your dust. Yes, that’s right, you need to leave all food portals if you want to become free and in control of your destiny.
Here is a case study of 5 stores that have left their local food portal, and they have been hugely successful since making the leap.
What are the key benefits of focusing on your own branded ordering website and app?
- You will be building your brand.
- Your logo will be on your customer’s phones, and they will see it several times each day, keeping your brand top of mind.
- You will be able to market directly to your customers with push notifications, SMS and emails, thus increasing order frequency and loyalty.
- Your customer loyalty will sky-‐rocket.
- You will not have to pay exorbitant portal fees.
- You will not be lumped in with all your competitors on the portal and you won’t be pressured into paying for premium placement.
- You will be controlling what your customers see and hear about your business.
- You will have access to all customer and sales data which is really valuable.
- You will have total flexibility and, as the takeaway owner, have final say whether an ordering is to be accepted or not.
- You will win online!
