How to Build a Food Delivery Marketplace

The restaurant industry is undergoing serious changes. To provide great customer experience, many restaurants are expanding their services with food delivery. This is a very convenient option for people who can place orders from the comfort of their chair. 

At the same time, an online food service is quite hard to organize. You need to build a high-quality website, manage its performance, and fill it with reliable and attractive content, and at the same time run a food service. That’s why this e-Commerce business model is considered one of the most difficult ones. Building a food delivery marketplace can solve this problem and give your business a growth boost.

How Can a Marketplace Increase Your Sales?

When a customer calls a restaurant, the staff will manually note their order and switch to the next client. But a marketplace makes it possible to automate order processing so your staff can focus on cooking and delivery.

Marketplace lets you benefit from:

• Processing more orders;
• Improved accuracy;
• Content updates;
• Customized offers.

All these factors will result in higher efficiency and better customer engagement, contributing to a sales increase.

6 Tips on Launching Your Marketplace

As soon as you create a marketplace, you should start with a powerful promotional campaign to inform your customers about the extended services you offer.

To engage more clients, you can:

• Supply your website with banners;

• Involve online and offline advertising;

• Inform users over social media channels, etc.

Now, there are some more steps if you want to create a successful food delivery platform.

Make It Easy to Find Products

Your users will appreciate easy navigation on your platform. It should allow searching by categories or groups of items, and it should be intuitive to use. Place a search box in the most visible place and make sure that every customer can use it.

Add Engaging Photos

Let your customers see the products they want to buy. Use high-quality photos that are both attractive and trustworthy. Consider employing professional photographers, as every brilliant image rises your chances to attract more customers to your delivery service.

Create Unique Descriptions

People spend only a few seconds on each item, so you need to catch their attention with a short and unique description. The customers won't have the opportunity to taste or smell your meals before ordering, so use the power of words to help them imagine it. Remember that high-quality copywriting is among the marketing necessities for your website. 

Include Product Videos

Add more visual content to your platform. Great videos can effectively attract people's attention and even give them a sense of being in a restaurant. The videos can describe the cooking process, picture your customers enjoying the meals, and tell more details about delivery – options are almost unlimited here.

Add Contact Info

If you are interested in a long-term relationship with your clients, give them the possibility to reach you. A phone number, email, and a physical address do not just make it easier to contact you; they also make your business look more reliable.

Involve Social Media

The number of followers on social media platforms is vital for any online business. Use these platforms as another marketing channel: share pictures of your food, promote special offers and communicate with your clients in their environment. 

Payment Solutions: the 5 Best Options

Every e-Commerce business requires a reliable online payment system that will process multi-vendor transactions in a safe way. There are a lot of different solutions available for marketplaces. Here are the top five of them.

PayPal for Marketplace

The oldest tool on this list, PayPal is easy to use and very popular among customers. What is more, there is a solution called PayPal for Marketplace that accepts multi-vendor transactions and grants you the possibility to charge a service fee. It accepts 25 different currencies and offers several payment methods.

Stripe

Thanks to high security standards and amazing banking infrastructure, Stripe serves great for both individuals and business owners. It allows the customer to pay directly on their website without signing in and has a security system of PCI DSS standards. 

Braintree

Famous for the simplicity of their services, Braintree has great functionality for multi-vendor marketplaces. It allows users to divide payments, has fantastic report-generating functionality, and is intuitive in use. However, it doesn't support escrow funding, which can be a downside for a marketplace.

Adyen

Regardless of the customer’s location or bank, Adyen will provide a standardized convenient and safe experience for their users. It accepts more than 250 payment methods and it’s a great choice for an international business. 

Dwolla

This payment solution allows you to accept transfers directly from the client's bank account, meaning that you can avoid credit card fees. Unfortunately, their service is available only for US companies and doesn't support international transfers.

The Future of Online Food Delivery

The food delivery services are in great demand and have almost unlimited potential. Just remember that if you want to overcome competitors, you should be open to innovations and new technologies, as they will result in better customer engagement and higher sales.

Last but not least, you should find a reliable development partner such as Roobykon that can enhance your platform with an attractive UI and advanced functionality. Let’s discuss your food delivery service and find out how to make it the best option for customers.