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online ordering, ditch seamlessweb?

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angelo200

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We’ve been using Seamlessweb for over a year now but are now getting our own e-commerce site with Brygid.

We are wondering now if we should get rid of our Seamlessweb as we plan to promote heavily our own site. The only benefit I see to keeping Seamlessweb is it can bring in new customers (people who are accustomed to using it), but they charge a hefty 10% for each order and dealing with the faxes is a little bit of a nuisance. We haven’t been promoting our seamlessweb ordering much because had always planned to get our own site.

I would like some opinions. Thanks.
 
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10% of each order? Wow. Fax? No thanks.

We are paying about $100 per month which is about 4 orders for us. We get that many online orders most days now 7 months into the project. The orders come directly into our POS and appear on the makelike and the label prints out. If I had to have employees key in the order from a fax and had the phone line tied up for the faxes to come in, I would not bother.

I do not think that the orders we get online are new business for the most part. The reason to do it is convenience; it is easier for the crew to not answer the phone!

Fax is on its very last legs. A system that depends on them will not be around in two years.
 
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We did 283 OLO in the month of February & OLO accounted for 12% of sales.

Our monthly bill is around $240 and OLO’s bring in $70K per year.

It is integrated with our POS and i wouldn’t do it any other way.

Most companies charge a small percentage or a set $ amount for unlimited orders.

Hope this helps .
 
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Yeah, I’d drop them for 10% of the order. Big Holler (who I’m not thrilled with) is a flat $70/mo.
 
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Yes, We are getting our own site with Brygid Technologies with a much better deal. I was just wondering if others have also used Seamlessweb, Grub Hub, Delivery.com additionally as a way to get new business. These sites, for those that don’t know, present local restaurants of all cuisines with their menus so people who have an account with the site can easily order through them. The downside is the orders come to the store through a fax and they charge 10%.
 
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I’m not familiar with those sites in particular but I’ve seen some sites that have your competitors banner ad showing while your customer is browsing your menu. There’s no chance in he!! I would do business with a company that is actively trying to drive customers away from me.
 
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Did anyone else get the e-mail solicitation from Taradel this morning touting their online order system? The price was very good, $99 to set it up, $39 a month, and only .50 cents for each order placed after I think 25 a month at no charge. If I remember though they did not offer seamless integration in your POS, the order delivery would be by fax, email, or text. I think that may be their weakness…but you have to agree the pricing is attractive at any rate.
 
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Seamless Web, whom is owned by Marriot charges more than 10%, check the fees associated with their service. Using your own marketing strategy will blow away the competition.
 
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Seriously, if it does not integrate with your POS forget about it; you are passing up one of the most important benefits of the whole idea!

Why would you use a system that still requires your crew to enter orders from faxes (dinosaurs that will be gone soon), text or email? Who the heck has time to check emails during the rush?

What you want is a system where the online order appears on your makeline screen just like the other orders with NO added work from your crew.
 
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bodegahwy:
Why would use a system that stil requires your crew enter orders from faxes
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Because the average ticket on online order that come in via fax are substantially higher than phone orders.
 
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But I agree with Bodega. there is no good reason why an online ordering firms’ software can’t be coded to work with whatever POS system a store has running. It’d be a matter of making a secure internet handshake thingie…yeah, I’m not a techie and don’t even play one on TV. But seriously, if ONE company can do it, ALL companies can do it. Till one comes along at the right price, that works seamlessly with my Point of Success, we’ll be old school and use the phone.
 
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Full disclosure - I work for an online ordering company

What I’ve found is that difficulties with POS integration are generally due to unwillingness on the part of certain POS companies. Many of the better online ordering companies are completely willing to put in the work to integrate the two softwares but many times get railroaded by an uncooperative POS company. They’re not all like that, just some.

Regardless, online ordering is the wave of the future - not just a convenience factor. With the right system, you DO win new customers, they order more frequently, and they order more per order. Obviously, operations are important, but online ordering is for much, much more than just operations, if it’s done right. One of our clients is doing Domino’s level online ordering performance after just being with us for a month. They had so many different POS’s across their brand, POS integration is going to take a long time… but they’re happy to get the orders via ticket printer and enter them by hand because they are increasing their sales so heavily.
 
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A few observations:
  1. I would continue to recommend only considering solutions that work directly with your POS so you do not have to entere the orders. (Pizza source, re-read my post before yours. You missed the point)
  2. I find no evidence to support claims of larger orders online. A good phone person blows away any online system… but at a price. Online orders for us (several thousand $$ per month now) are about on par with phone for average order size… Better than the employees with below average order value but well below our top three employees. There is no substitute for a phone person that is actually fun to talk to and effectivly sells combos and sides.
  3. There is a customer out there that like tech and online appeals to them. We have now got some very regular online customers and many of them are new customers that found us through facebook and from there our online link.
 
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bodegahwy:
  1. I find no evidence to support claims of larger orders online. A good phone person blows away any online system… but at a price. Online orders for us (several thousand $$ per month now) are about on par with phone for average order size… Better than the employees with below average order value but well below our top three employees. There is no substitute for a phone person that is actually fun to talk to and effectively sells combos and sides.
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I agree. A personal touch can make quite a difference, but finding people with the right personality for sales, that will work for pizza store wages, isn’t terribly easy. Across the board, online ordering produces higher ticket prices - IF the system is fast, intuitive, and the software has been specifically designed toward suggestive selling without seeming forceful.

http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/rese … 15521.html

Ecommerce software is an interesting world. What seems like minor differences between systems can exponentially impact performance and revenue.
 
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There are several things that play into ticket averages. When we measure ours we use settings in the POS to eliminate orders under $10 (slice orders for the most part since you can not get a pizza from us under $10) and orders over $150 as those tend to be calls that go to the manager for a deal or are for organizations like schools, hospital, clubs etc and tend to throw the averages off.

When you take those out of the mix you get a better comparison as slice orders can not go through the online system and large orders are simply not going to.

Based on a 60 day period I used just now for comparison, online was about 5% below our overall average. (If I throw the little orders from lunch slice business, sodas etc back in the mix it is about 5% above the average)

But… our top phone person (my daughter) has an average ticket that is 40% above the store average and the next two ordertakers are both about 25% above the average…
 
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