4 minute read
Delivering growth Examining the
DELIVERING GROWTH
Home delivery can be a fantastic way to grow sales and reach a wider audience. Catering@ Booker takes a closer look at what’s involved.
There’s little doubt the last couple of years have had a dramatic effect on the way your customers view home delivery. Many customers are now used to picking up their smartphone and ordering much of the food and drink they buy every week from one source or another.
What this means is that many of your customers are now more comfortable than ever with home delivery and there is a ready-made audience out there for caterers interested in dipping their toe in the home delivery waters for the first time. And if you already do home delivery, now could be a great time to examine how you could ramp your operation up to help you grow sales and profits.
SIZE OF THE PRIZE
The size of the home delivery market for food and drink is enormous. Statista, the global business data platform, suggests that the online food delivery market in the UK will reach over £13bn in 2022, almost double the £7bn of 2020. More than half of that is accounted for by catering businesses. But where do caterers start? Booker Sales Director Darren Bown says: “The first step is to realise that help is already at hand. Booker already offers everything you need to get your business ready for home delivery. From food and drink to consumables like takeaway containers and packaging, Booker already stocks literally everything you need.” The next step is to make sure you understand the commercials of home delivery.“Home delivery can be a hugely powerful way of growing your business, but it can be complex and caterers should ensure they understand the commercials inside out.”
LOCATION, LOCATION
One of the most important factors is location, as Darren highlights: “In urban
areas, caterers will have easier access to drivers and a bigger population of potential customers for their home delivery services. The opposite tends to be true in rural areas. That doesn’t mean it can’t work in rural areas, but it can make it more challenging.”
THREE OPTIONS
There are three main options available to caterers considering home delivery:
DO IT YOURSELF Recruit your own drivers and take care of the management of deliveries yourself.
USE A 3RD PARTY Work with a delivery specialist like Stuart or tap into your local gig ecomony for people already offering this service.
USE A THIRD PARTY AGGREGATOR LIKE JUST EAT.
There are pluses and negatives to each option and it’s one of the biggest decisions that caterers will need to take.Organising delivery yourself offers a number of obvious benefits, says Darren. You have full control over the process, you manage interactions with the customer and you have greater control over the cost-side.
It does, however, add considerable workload having to manage a fleet of drivers and vehicles, routing, managing the order process and more. Darren says: “Doing deliveries can obviously add cost to your business but if you do it well, the extra business you generate will more than cover those costs.”
Alternatively, you could use one of the third-party ‘aggregators’ like Just Eat. They will provide you with all the tools you need to get online with minimum fuss – but it comes at a cost of up to 35-40% commission on every order and delivery.
Booker has an existing relationship with Just Eat and caterers who sell on Just Eat gain benefit from savings from Booker in key categories like chips, protein, packaging and soft drinks.of benefits including savings from Booker in key categories like chips, chicken, packaging and soft drinks.
ORDERING SYSTEM
The next step is to organise your ordering system. If you go with an aggregator, they have their own ordering systems which are easy to set up and implement. If you choose to do it yourself, one of the easiest ways is by using one of the many ready-built plug-and-play apps that are available for popular social media sites like Facebook.
The apps allow you to set up an online ordering portal and start taking online orders very quickly indeed with a minimum of fuss Simply populate the app with your menu and prices, set a delivery area perimeter and you’re ready to go - and then it’s time to start shouting about your new delivery service.
