How to Start an Online Store
Why an Online Store Helps Business
During the pandemic, restaurants searched high and low for new sales channels to tide them over. With dine-in services closed or restricted, customers turned en masse toward online ordering instead. Having an online store is more popular with demographics who can’t easily walk to your restaurant. The delivery radius for your restaurant expands your potential audience beyond walk-ins.
Online stores are also more convenient for guests. They can add items to their cart day or night, and then simply press send when the restaurant opens. For the sake of you and your business, it’s time your restaurant got its own online store.
What is eCommerce?
eCommerce is the process of buying and selling items online. However, the initial understanding of that definition has expanded to mean online and physical interactions working together. This is in line with the changing needs of modern consumers.
For example, now they can pick up items in-store if it’s more convenient. Some digital alternatives have even applied to dine-in customers, so restaurants have considered going completely online. With QR codes, guests can scan and pull up a menu with their phones, right from their seats. Digital solutions like this rose because of COVID-19, especially as social distance made contact-free measures necessary. The more people grow comfortable with your online store, the less they want to give up the ease and efficiency of eCommerce.
Despite this, your online store isn’t competing with in-person services. They complement each other. Together, these channels provide the profit needed to get through this restaurant recovery period.
Photo courtesy of eatOS
Making a Successful Online Store
Given its importance, why not make your online store as strong as possible? Connect it to an advanced Point of Sale system to get secure payment options, faster deposits, inventory management capabilities, and real-time syncing. This maximizes the potential of all your revenue streams.
Aside from a smart POS, increase the effectiveness of your online store by…
optimizing your menu for mobile, especially given how on-the-go orders encompass so much of final sales.
paring down your target audience to those who spend the most time with you. eatOS Point of Sale comes with detailed sales reports that tell you who spends the most and when. That lets you build marketing campaigns geared toward their interests.
identifying what items, promotions and branding will make your eCommerce succeed.
building a website that aligns with your brand. Expand your brand recognition and potential audience by tightening your restaurant’s outward presentation.
As with all aspects of running a business, you get out what you put in. Dedicate yourself to your online store as much as you did with delivery and dine-in. That means promoting across your socials, offering discounts to draw in customers, and learning your store inside and out.
The Power of Modern Tech
Strong restaurants lean on state-of-the-art Point of Sale systems. Get the most out of your online store when you can see your sales data in real-time and analyze comparative reports for better business decisions. The pandemic has made people comfortable with digital platforms and contactless dining experiences. Thus your online store will remain profitable into the future, and it’s worth investing in now if you haven’t yet.
eatOS offers an all-in-one cloud-based eco-system exclusively for restaurants. From Point of Sale to Contactless Ordering, Pay & Order at Table, Kitchen Display System, Customer Facing Display, Online Ordering APP / Website and Workforce Management there is everything to help a restaurant succeed no matter the size. Click Here to Schedule a demo to learn more about how your restaurant can make a smooth transition into the world of restaurant technology made simple.
