A viable alternative to online ordering portals!

Many takeaway and restaurant businesses are looking for an alternative to the large online ordering porttals that charge huge commissions but they are faced with a minefield of services that claim to offer a complete solution for just a few pounds a week.

The big online ordering portals have a well-oiled machine at their disposal and no one in the industry can fault their growth and ability to get new and existing businesses orders, but they also make sure they get paid extremely well for the privilege.

With fees for the ordering portals ranging from 15% to 35% of the total order value, businesses are giving away a fair chunk of their money and probably well over 50% of their profits!

When you browse the net looking for a viable alternative you get bombarded by dozens of businesses claiming to provide the perfect solution for just £10 to £15 a week with ‘everything’ included, but it appears ‘everything’ isn’t always what it seems.  You can easily end up paying 5, or even 10 times, the stated ticket price.

One of the favourite quotes we see on a regular basis is ‘Card Payments Included’ but never any reference to what exactly is included.  Does this include the costs of the card payments? Or does it just include the ability to pay by card?  In all cases we have found it doesn’t include the costs, and usually these costs are over inflated, as much as 3.4% plus 65p per order, and they take 2 or 3 weeks to pay the funds into your account.

For a solution to be a true ‘alternative’ it needs to deliver on the promise of working for you and your customers, providing your business with a real and noticeable financial saving.  We regularly have new customers come to us that have tried many of the other services that fail miserably.  The biggest complaint is user adoption. Customers don’t find the App easy to use or it is too different from what they are used to, so they continue to use the online ordering portals. 

Another common issue we get told about is stability, as an industry we know the weekend is the busiest time, and your own system must be able to stand up to the high demand of a Friday and Saturday night.  The cheap systems do not use quality equipment, they break or are too slow and are based on old technology, which, when under load, is prone to fall over and stop working.

App4 is a proven solution that has been operating for the last 5 years with hundreds of business across the UK and Northern Ireland already saving £1000’s in commissions and online ordering fees every month.  Our system is based on the latest cloud technology that expands and speeds up based on load, to make sure it’s always as fast and reliable as it can be.

We charge a flat fee, that includes the hardware, App and website and also a marketing pack.  You will need to pay card fees, direct to a card provider yoru choose, and they will pay your direct every 2-3 days.