Evolution of Restaurant Delivery - Past, Present and the Future

What is going on with the Restaurant Delivery Industry?

Restaurants are learning in a hard way how to sell online.

Restaurant delivery is nothing new. Pizzarias have been doing it for the last 40 years. So, why is everyone talking about restaurant deliveries as if something is new here.

What is new is: Everyone has a computer with internet connection in their pocket now - that’s new. These Online Food Delivery Behemoths capitalized on this technology trend and  made food ordering insanely easy for regular people. And we all fell for it. 

When the first generation online ordering platforms started with GrubHub and Seamless in the US in 2008-09, it was about incremental businesses for restaurants. Online orders to increase revenue in a downturned economy. 

The second generation App based delivery companies starting with DoorDash, UberEats employed an army of gig workers for food delivery and made the service even better. 

Because of the convenience they offered, restaurants depended on them for all their online sales despite the 25-30% commission they charged. It still worked because overall online sales was still small relative to the dining-in sales. 

Now what we are seeing during this pandemic is like a time travel to 2030 in terms of e-commerce adoption. Everyone is ordering online and no one is coming to stores.  

We are now forced to act this way because of the virus - but it can be a normal way of life in 10-15 years with more sales from online. 

So - the hard question for restaurants: Does relying on 3rd parties still work for you? 

The answer is probably a big NO for the majority of the restaurants. 

You are serving ghost customers through these marketplaces and paying one third of your sales income as commission. What are you becoming? A wholesale supplier of prepared meals to these marketplace with no connection to end customers.

There is no way you can run a profitable retail restaurant business without owning your online sales now and in future. You have to. It is not your extra revenue that  once you thought - it is THE REVENUE!  You have to own it to survive. 

So, what does the future look like?

Future is bright for businesses that will successfully operate their online sales directly on their website. They will have their regular customers who often can order online for convenience. They can pick up or you can deliver to them - Just like the pizza guys doing for 40 years. 

But now you can manage all these with easy to use software solutions that helps you to take online orders and manage deliveries seamlessly. 

If you only rely on marketplaces, your profitability will suffer and you will struggle to stay in retail business. Either you have to transform to a Ghost Kitchen, or go out of business. 

This current crisis has cracked open a window into the future for us. It’s time for a change if you have not done it yet.

How to Start a Grocery Delivery Service on QuestTag

We hope everyone is staying safe during this COVID-19 crisis. 

With most of the world Staying-in-home, the need for home deliveries of food and groceries is obvious.

Many local businesses and community organizations are starting to do home deliveries in their local areas. Grocery delivery is becoming a very needed service now in every community.

I wanted to share with you how you can start a grocery delivery service with QuestTag. It’s super easy and you can set it up under 10 mins.

The main steps of managing a grocery delivery services are the followings:

1. Take orders and enter them into a dispatch system:

   QuestTag offers an easy online ordering form for grocery delivery. Every account has access to these templated online ordering forms which are under “Online Order Forms” in the main menu.

   These are web forms come with sharable hyperlinks which you copy and connect to your website’s order button or share with people or businesses to send you orders.

2. Set up Drivers in your dispatch system:

We have Driver Apps associated with Dispatch system called “QuestTag Delivery”. You can add drivers to your dispatch system and ask them to download our free App from the App Store or Google PlayStore.

Once they download the App and login with the credential they receive after you add them, they can start to work immediately. It takes less than a minute to add a driver.

Once they login to the App and “Go Online” dispatcher can see their current location on the map and also able to assign them orders. The orders have all the necessary information including pick up address, delivery address, item details and special instructions for the driver to complete the job.

3. See where the orders are on the map and dispatch them to drivers:

Once they “Go Online” you can see their current location on the map and assign them delivery orders. You can monitor progress in real time including their current location, status of the each of the orders - “picked up”, “on-the way” or “delivered”.

See everything from one place

See pick up and delivery locations and driver’s real time location

3. Send Uber like real time tracking info to recipients via SMS and Email:

Once you assign orders to drivers, dispatcher can also see the ETA of each of the deliveries on dashboard, and send estimated ETA to recipients so that they know who is coming and when. Same experience like Uber or DoorDash.

4. Take Proof of Delivery and keep all digital records of deliveries:

Once the driver completes the delivery, they can take a photo proof of deliveries for record keeping purposes, especially important for contact-less delivery this days. Also, you will have all the records of deliveries with time stamps and details.

The only caveat is we don’t have a way to take payments in our system, you might need to have a payment App for taking payments for grocery deliveries. There are many providers of payment Apps including Square and others.

So, that’s about it. It’s really easy to start and manage without the hassle of phone calls, texts and spreadsheets.

If you have any questions, please send us an email at info[at]questtag.com. Thank you!

Why the world needs a free dispatch and delivery tracking solution?

The first use of internet for many people were though free email accounts. Free email service like hotmail, yahoo mail, and later gmail brought people online to communicate with each other, start businesses correspondence and later do business transactions though e-commerce.

The growth of e-commerce is still at the early stage. Only 10-12% of world wide retail is though e-commerce. It is expected to grow to 40% in next 10-15 years. One thing that grows with the adoption of e-commerce is parcel delivery because most of the online purchases require a delivery, often a short distance local delivery.

This gives rise to the opportunity for growth for small delivery companies all over the world. Sometimes many businesses can choose to delivery themselves, same as the neighborhood pizza shop has been doing for decades. To manage the chaos of deliveries with small or large team, business needs simple and easy to use tools to make their life easy.

For many young entrepreneurs, especially in the developing countries, a FREE delivery tracking tool could help them begin delivery company in their city and support online commerce within their community. The possibilities are endless.

QuestTag wants to let thousand flowers bloom in last mile logistics to create the strong and agile foundation for tomorrow’s e-commerce globally.