Online ordering has been around in the restaurant industry for quite some time – in fact, the first online food ordered was placed in 1994! However, in recent years and especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, online ordering has gone from a desirable convenience to an absolute must for restaurant survival. In addition to helping businesses stay afloat, online ordering offers many advantages to customers. In today’s blog post, we’ll dive into three advantages of online food ordering for customers today and beyond.
Click here to view an infographic exploring the rise of the online ordering trend.
1. A Seamless Process
If you have ever used an online food ordering application, one of the most obvious benefits from a customer standpoint is the seamless process that the applications can offer. Online food ordering allows customers to place an order at virtually any time, from anywhere, saving the time and resources typically spent on travelling to pick up a meal.
Other seamless advantages of online food ordering for customers is the ability to easily reorder custom and favorite orders, the elimination of potentially waiting in a long line at the restaurant, and improved order accuracy.
Offering these convenient advantages to your customers can help boost your relationship with them and ultimately lead to greater ordering frequency. And luckily, getting online can be easy when you choose the right cloud point of sale (POS) technology. With the right tools, creating a digital presence for your restaurant can be a quick process with little to no interruption to your current business operations.
2. Minimal Contact
While a few months ago, minimizing human contact during restaurant transactions was merely a preference, the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated that preference into a priority.
During COVID-19, minimal contact helps protect customers, employees, and the public at large from the spread of the virus. But even as that spread slows, customers may continue to enjoy the minimal contact that online ordering can offer as it can accommodate busy schedules and allows customers to safely send any kind of meal to friends, loved ones, and colleagues. Having food simply dropped at your doorstep will likely still be desired during customers’ busy days and sending a favorite meal to a special person – no matter where they are located – is a gift that will continue to be enjoyed.
3. Extra Perks and Options
Who doesn’t want more bang for their buck, or more options to order their meal? Online food ordering can provide all of this and more.
For starters, many online ordering applications and services offer enticing promotions to not only keep your current customers happy but help you to acquire new patrons. Whether your online ordering is hosted on your own website or through a third-party service, offering alluring promotions can help you drum up more sales and of course satisfy customers.
For customers, online ordering also opens their doors to nearly limitless dining options and allows them to browse restaurants and cuisines they may not have been familiar with previously. In a similar vein, customers may discover new dishes and menu options by browsing a digital menu complete with appealing, high quality food photos. Eating is fun and can be an adventure, and online ordering can be a part of your customers’ food-loving journey.
Free Online Ordering Resources
Social distancing has deeply affected our customers in the restaurant industry. That’s why Star Micronics is offering free online ordering resources for VARs and ISVs helping restaurants navigate the implementation of online ordering.
The Tech that Restaurants Need to Get Online
If you’re looking to take advantage of all of the benefits that online food ordering can offer to both your business and your customers, Star Micronics’ CloudPRNT may be the right technology for you!
CloudPRNT is an innovative solution enabling users to print to Star printers directly through a cloud service. CloudPRNT works with the online ordering service to store and create print jobs and communicate status with the printer. Cloud ordering services post orders using a JSON format while the Star CloudPRNT printer pulls these orders on a defined interval.
Star’s CloudPRNT technology provides benefits to restaurants by eliminating the need for an extra tablet to send an online order to the printer. Instead, the ordering service is able to communicate directly to the printer. The store owner or service providers do not need to maintain an SSL certificate for the CloudPRNT printers since the printer communicates with the server as a client.
By offering online purchasing options, restaurants are able to grow their business to expand to a larger market. Using CloudPRNT, online ordering systems have a new and easier solution to offer businesses, allowing them to seamlessly integrate online purchasing into their stores.
CloudPRNT is available on the below Star printers:
Learn more about how CloudPRNT works in the below video:
 At Star Micronics, our hearts go out to anyone impacted by COVID-19, either directly or indirectly, especially to those who are sick, to whom we extend our heartfelt wishes for a full recovery. To learn more about what we are doing as an organization to reduce the global impact of COVID-19, in terms of health and business, please click here.
To browse all of our blog posts covering tips for small businesses during COVID-19, please visit our #StarForSmallBiz blog collection.
Free Resources During COVID-19 & Beyond
Now more than ever, safety is a priority in retail and hospitality environments. Star Micronics is proud to offer a line of solutions and resources for businesses during this challenging time, designed to keep consumers and employees safe, as well as mitigate business impact caused by COVID-19.
