How to grow delivery and meal kit revenue

Ten fixes for a delivery channel that only gets attention in the quiet months.

Delivery is the revenue stream operators cut first when the room is busy and put back when it is not, so it tends to be badly run in the months it matters most.

Winter is when a takeaway order replaces a night out rather than competing with one. Guests still want to treat themselves, just on the sofa for less than a table for two would cost.

The argument for having the channel at all is not growth, it is spread. A venue with one revenue line feels every quiet week. A venue with a room, a delivery menu and a kit range absorbs a bad month without touching the rota.

Ten things that move delivery orders

1. Take orders direct wherever you can. An aggregator brings reach and takes a cut of every order plus the customer relationship. Your own ordering page keeps both.

2. Get the ordering page right on a phone. More than a minute and a card, and you are losing people.

3. Write to anyone who has ordered once. The second order is where the habit forms and most venues never ask for it.

4. Use what they ordered. An offer built around the dish they already like beats a percentage off everything.

5. Tie it to loyalty. Free delivery as a reward costs you less than a discount and still reads as a treat.

6. Describe the food properly and photograph it properly. The picture is doing the job a waiter would do in the room.

7. Ask for reviews and answer them. Delivery guests choose from a grid of photographs and a score, and the score decides how far they scroll.

8. Read the complaints. Cold food, soggy packaging, missing items and late drivers are four different problems with four different fixes.

9. Upsell in the basket rather than afterwards: a drink pair, a dessert, a side. It is the easiest margin in the whole order.

10. Tell people it exists. A pinned post, the link in your bio, a banner on the site, and an email to everyone who has ever ordered.

Making the box feel like the restaurant

If the food arrives in a tub with a stapled receipt, you are selling calories and the cheapest option wins.

Seasonal kits with a cut-off date give people a reason to order this week rather than next. Different offers midweek and at the weekend, drinks with the weekend boxes, let you price the two separately. A premium version using the ingredients you are known for lifts the average order without touching the main menu. Then the small things: a printed menu, a playlist, candles, the sauce you make in house, a handwritten note, and something unexpected in the box.

That last one is not sentiment. A guest who photographs the box is doing your marketing for free, and a guest who gets a surprise mentions it when they finally come in.

Getting the word out

A delivery menu nobody knows about is not a delivery menu. Put it in front of the people who have already ordered, then the people who have visited but never ordered, then the ones who signed into your Wi-Fi and never came back.

Email and SMS sends to those three groups from the same guest record, and reviews picks up the feedback from the orders so you see what is going wrong before the score moves. Email support@stampede.ai or book a demo and we will get the campaigns ready before the quiet months start.