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Expert Insight | What to look for in a Good Click and Collect platform

Oliver Rowbory, co-founder at Goodtill, explores why implementing click and collect ordering during the pandemic can continue to yield benefits in the future.

When the pandemic first hit, the first set of businesses to feel the impact were those in the travel and hospitality industry. Airbnb even decided on cutting back on all advertisements for the year to save $800 million for the business.

At the same time, restaurateurs and cafes are looking for new channels to increase income.

Even if lockdown didn’t keep them closed, the rules certainly made it more challenging for people to continue eating food from their favourite restaurants. Most of these restaurants and eateries are still having to pay a good chunk of their expenses.

Pivoting for Success

The best businesses did not get here by being rigid. They have changed and pivoted with the times, latching onto opportunities and riding the waves efficiently. Otherwise, Samsung might have just remained a grocery store while Netflix would still be renting out physical DVDs.

As a restaurant operator, it is now apparent that you cannot hope to keep doing things the same way while expecting new results.

People might not be able to leave their homes, but they still want and need food from you.

More people are working from home and will still need a steady supply of a light breakfast and lunch. In-house dates, dinners and small gatherings will also need meals to enjoy and get a break from cooking. Some data has even shown that people are eating more takeaway food than they were previously.

That will explain the success of food delivery services such as Uber Eats since the lockdown started. There is still a high demand for customers being able to drive and collect food from their favourite places, and a good click and collect system online makes this seamless for both yourself and the customer.

Where ‘Click and Collect’ shines

Click and collect is a tried and tested model that has worked for multiple brands before. Thus, you would not be reinventing the wheel – instead, adapting it to make life easier for your customers.

The first point of call with click and collect is how it eliminates the need for customers to have an app and account for a specific service – they can simply browse the menus on your website and quickly order what they’d like to pick up, at a time that suits them. 

Here, the consumer-first model comes to play. Your customers can now pick which branch they want to pick up their orders from, making things seamless for both parties.

A good click and collect platform also allows you to manage your dynamic menu, handle your orders, run effective promotions, offer coupons, and integrate with platforms such as Deliveroo and Uber Eats and so much more.

In short, you can now do all you used to do as physical business – only online and better. You can easily have services like GoodEats by Goodtill integrated directly onto your website without changing much at all. Other features to look out for include rapid implementation and easy integration with your existing systems.

As an added advantage, pivoting this way is a sure-fire method to garner more customers. When the lockdown is over, you can expect to have foot traffic from new converts trooping through your doors. You should be able to use the table service app to manage in-person transactions and table ordering while having built a solid online model in the same process.

We know that it’s going to take a long time for things to return to normal, and it’s expected that people may well stick with the habit of getting restaurant food in their home even after the lockdown is lifted.