How e-commerce can be a solution for restaurants in a pandemic context
11.11.2020
In a time that social distance is imperative, business like restaurants saw their activity limited due the capacities and schedules restrictions.
Although I think that e-commerce is a solution for practically all sectors, I confess that I did not put restaurants at the forefront, but the pandemic has changed everything. With focus on the solution, many e-commerce platforms like Shopify adapted and build some new features to mitigate some problems that many small business are dealing
With the limitation of doing business in person, electronic commerce / e-commerce is the natural solution.
This article aims to show the capabilities of the Shopify platform that addresses some of the urgent needs of many restaurants. It is important to safeguard that an e-commerce project must be planned and worked in a longer time frame, being able to manage opportunities that I will not mention in this article, which only tries to help solve a specific problem.
1 – Online Store
The online store is the key piece, it’s the central hub of digital presence. Through online store is possible to manage all the digital presence, orders, payments and shipping. In this case I recommend a simple approach, the main goal is to show all products in a “menu” style. This approach also can be useful in the restaurant where customers can scan a QR code and view the menu in their smartphone without having to handle menus and maintaining the social distance
Despite having a central role, the website is only one of many sales channel, which works in conjunction with Facebook stores, Instagram or any other Marketplace.
The Shopify platform allows you to centrally manage multiple sales channels, such as Facebook Shop, Instagram Shop, Google Merchant or another marketplace. To learn more about this topic you can read this article that explains how to set up sales channels like Facebook Shop and Instagram Shop.
2 – Local deliveries
In the traditional model of e-commerce, the delivery method mainly passes through carriers, but in the case of catering this is not feasible. Fortunately the Shopify platform offers a solution for managing local deliveries. In a very simple way, at the time of purchase, the customer is given the choice to pick up at the store or order home delivery, which will appear on the order.
After preparing the order, through the application “Local Delivery” we can create list with the deliveries, by selecting the products that are identified for that purpose. The application do the rest, optimizes routes, give the chance to print the list with all the indications and share the lists to smartphone application.
Through the application available for iOS and Android it is possible to access the delivery list and start the delivery process. The application manages the entire route, communication with customers and integration with navigation applications such as Google Maps or Apple Maps.
3 – Takeaway
In addition to local deliveries, it makes sense to offer pick-up at the store / takeaway. Since the processing of orders and payments is handled by the platform, the act of collecting at the store much easier.
How you can create a online store with local deliveries?
É simples, se tiveres o mínimo de conhecimento, podes começar já. Para isso basta clicares no botão em baixo. O Shopify permite criar uma loja sem qualquer custo durante 14 dias.
If you prefer professional help, just talk with us. The solution presented is quite simple and tries to show a quick way to solve a problem, but an e-commerce project is much more complex and for that you can count on our help in areas such as:
In one way or another, the important thing is to adapt the business quickly and take advantage of digital tools. When all this is over, you will be more prepared than ever for the future, after all the adoption of this type of technology would be a matter of time.