Almost ready to go live with on-line ordering. Maybe another couple of days of tweaks and then we link up the system to our POS and have some friends give it a try.
Those of you that have done this, how did you launch it? Did you do on-line only specials? Where do most people find you?
Other thoughts?
You can use the facebook markup language to add a tab to your Facebook page that links directly to your online ordering. As active as you are with facebook, I would think launching that way would generate some quick traffic for you.
I added Prism online ordering in December so here’s a few notes:
Prism version 7.2 has a setting that allows you to activate an “alarm” to notify you audibly that an online order has come in. If you are using this version I would recommend getting a speaker and activating this right from the start. Yesterday I was in my store on a slow dayshift and we didn’t notice an online order for nearly three minutes. It’s never a problem when it’s busy because we are constantly posting labels and looking at the makeline monitor then.
Make sure your system is set to print your credit card receipts the same for online orders and regular orders. We print our credit card receipts right when the order is taken. Our first online order paying by credit card came through and no receipt prints. It was set up to print online order receipts when the driver logged the run out.
Set up some “specials” in your online ordering. A very large percentage on my online orders order one of the 5 specials that are set up on my online ordering. Of course these specials are very small discount offers.If they want a better deal they’ll have to find a coupon with a code on it.
You’ll be surprised at orders coming in the first day you go live with it. People will find it, even before you promote it. But don’t expect it to suddenly account for 20% of sales. After 7 months, mine is up to a consistent 6-7%.
Thanks for the ideas. The audible alarm would be key for us. It can be very quiet in the store between 2PM and 4PM. I could imagine an order going un-noticed for a LOT longer than 3 minutes! Should be live about a week from tomorrow I think.
Welcome to the 20th century(!) :twisted:
We went with on line ordering from day 1 (5 years ago) and uptake was good from outset.
I currently do around 40% on line sales (by sale revenue each week). I’ve posted this before but here’s a summary:
I’ve quite a few meal deals online but none are particularly aggressive and even then I’ve found plenty of people still order at full price!
Biggest issue with online is when you get slammed - people who order online don’t get to find out its going to be 45-60 mins and of course the instore crew is too busy to call them. I get more complaints about lates from online orders rather than phone orders as we can tell them the ave delivery time.
Good luck.
Wiz
Sit back and enjoy it.
Its the best thing.
My only drawback is when people order, they sneak in stuff under the special instructions for each item.
For example: 25 Wings. Special Instructions: Add extra blue cheese. (There is an option for extra, but they avoid the charge). Sometimes we don’t catch it.
We eliminated the special instructions.
No “extra thin crust”, no “custom cutting”, no “light sauce”, no “well done” on the internet.
We do ‘free’ stuff on internet orders, but not ‘extra’ w/o a charge…you can really cater to the on-line customer thru the spec instruction box…but sometimes they tend to wright a full-blown story & it gets cut off from time 2 time…