When talking to an existing customer recently they said they were considering joining another 3rd party delivery platform as they wanted to get more orders.

In the short term this may be true, as there could be people using that platform that don’t know they exist, and may try them out over their usual, but what about the long-term effect?

What we see happen in many cases is that over time your customers just move lanes, as in they start ordering through the channels that market to them the most, so if platform one has a new promotion on, they use that until platform two then comes out with a better deal.

The best solution is to do the marketing yourself, to get customers to come direct to you! You retain the customer, they don’t need to change lanes, and you don’t chuck your profits away in commissions!

Many restaurants think you need to spend huge amounts because “that’s what the platforms do”, but really, doing the right marketing, in the right places, is extremely affordable and can offer 10x to 20x the return on spend!

Have you joined more platforms to increase orders? Have you seen a long-term increase in customers? Do you wish you had done things differently?

If you’re interested in maximizing direct orders and minimizing reliance on third-party platforms let us know in comments or drop us an email on moreorders@app4.co.uk