Archive for April, 2008
Online Ordering and Delivery Services Grow
While many more restaurants are offering online ordering for pickup, fewer offer delivery. This article profiles a number of local restaurant delivery companies who handle online ordering and delivery for multiple restaurants in an area. This seems like an interesting way to offer customers the convenience of delivery service, without having to manage some of the logistics.
“People are demanding more from the Internet, and they’re taking advantage of the Internet more than they ever have,” Cislini said, adding that it’s not just the most computer-savvy customers ordering online. “We’re seeing a lot of transition. Our demographic used to be the younger people, and we’re seeing people like my dad . . . using the Web.”O Asian Noodle Bar & Southeast Asian Cuisine in Mesa, a trendy eatery at Val Vista Drive and Baseline Road, refers customers on its Web site to Delicious Deliveries for online orders and delivery.”
Healthy Dining Finder: Nutritional Information For Your Website
As a consumer-facing tool, Healthy Dining Finder allows users to search restaurant menus for nutritional information. For restaurants, they provide custom menu analysis and nutritional information, and make it available on their website. Currently, the site has a lot of fast food chains, however there are some fine dining exceptions. Healthy Dining Finder claims that restaurant owners can capitalize on the health benefits of their menu offerings by providing nutritional data. Apart from the economic value, the overall transparency conveyed by a restaurant in sharing nutritional information can also reflect very positively on customers’ perceptions.
On a side note: Rather than nutritional information, I know many diners would be happy with general information for allergies and special diets included on websites. This shouldn’t require rigorous scientific nutritional analysis - just a little bit of recipe information from the kitchen.
BooRah!: Consumers Say Yay or Nay to Local Restaurants Online
BooRah, a personalized restaurant review website, covers over 3,000 cities and 225,000 restaurants across the United States. It aggregates local restaurant information from bloggers, professional critics and consumers, calling itself a ‘one-stop destination’ of local restaurant information. We haven’t heard much about BooRah from a restaurant owner’s perspective but would be interested if anyone has had any experiences with it. It seems they enable restaurant owners to track their online reputation, as well as add discounts, content, menus and other information to the site.
“BooRah recently introduced additional features that enable restaurateurs to upload their own information to the site including discount coupons, menus and pictures. BooRah provides comprehensive local coverage without the need for reviewers and editors. The rankings and summaries for restaurants generated by BooRah’s semantic technology are comparable or better than Zagat’s while providing a 5-fold increase in coverage. BooRah also offers a bookmarking feature to share one’s favorite restaurants with friends and family by linking on popular social sites such as StumbleUpon, Reddit, Del.icio.us and Digg.”
Restaurant Website Predictions For ‘08
Despite the economic downturn, restaurants will continue to build momentum leveraging Web technologies.
“Technology will continue to advance even more rapidly than in previous years. Companies will look to the Internet for connecting with customers in more ways than before. Traditional print and television mediums will drive consumers to websites for offerings and coupons. Online ordering will become more robust as mobile handheld devices, such as the iPhone, have web browsing capabilities similar to their desktop versions. Also, a “Facebook” and “MySpace” type of social networking will become more prevalent with company sites where consumers can create online profiles. Bottom Line: The restaurant industry has a long way to go before it catches up with other industries in terms of technology, but there will be noticeable growth.”
KAON Consulting Offers 2008 Predictions for Restaurant and Food Service Industries
Nice Site of the Week: Le Pigeon
Le Pigeon is essentially a one page website with some lovely food photography. While I’m not a big fan of the pdfs-as-website-content approach to design, their site has charming simplicity and captures the information essentials on their homepage.
From Looker to Booker: Potential Customers Care About Your Website
Coyle Hospitality Group conducted an interesting survey about how the Internet influences the way we dine:
“Sixty-seven per cent of those polled indicated that the quality of a restaurant’s personal website is indeed an indicator of the level of service they can expect to receive when dining there.”
Customer Numbers Down? Review Your Existing Sales and Marketing Practices
Ken Burgin provides some great tips for evaluating existing marketing strategies - many of which are not only website-based, but also inexpensive to implement.
“How well does your website turn browsers into customers? Does it have a strong message, tons of information and an attractive layout? Or is it uber-cool and intimidating, or old fashioned and uninviting?”
Now Hear This: Customers Don’t Like Busy Websites
A straight-up rant by the reputable San Francisco KQED Food Blog, Bay Area Bites, followed by some lively discussion:
“What should have been a 5-minute email turned into a half-hour nightmare as I slogged through websites that are more intent on impressing me with movies, music, and other annoyances than on giving me direct information….Hear this, restaurants: We are not looking to your sites for entertainment…”
Restaurant Websites: The Great and the Terrible (Bay Area Bites)
