Stay ahead of the game with these takeaway options

Whether you own a food truck, a deli, or high-end restaurant, finding new ways to serve customers who are looking to place food orders from anywhere and everywhere is key to adapting to today’s challenges. 

If you’re looking to offer takeaway options online, on social media, or over the phone for your business, you have choices when it comes to how customers can pick up or receive their items. 

From Click and Collect to local delivery, here are a few takeaway options to easily expand the ways customers can get your pizzas, meal kits, cinnamon buns, and veg boxes — without missing a beat. 

Add Click and Collect or takeaway options 

If you’re located in a neighbourhood where customers can come to you, you can provide them with online order systems that allow the option to Click and Collect. If you haven’t yet enabled Click and Collect options for your store, consider that recent surveys show that UK restaurant takeaway services are growing faster than any other sector in 2020. Even before coronavirus, Click and Collect was on the rise. Supply chain platform Blue Yonder (previously known as JDA) reported that the UK’s click and collect market was expected to grow by 78% by 2020, to £8.2 billion. 

When it comes to what to sell and which businesses can adapt best to introducing a Click and Collect model, the food industry is a great place to start. Most restaurants, groceries, food and drinks shops can easily convert to offering Click and Collect with their existing online store. There’s even the option to adapt menus and offer to supply food boxes or recipe kits, too.  

If you use Square Online (Square’s free Online Store) and you enable takeaway options, customers placing orders will see a selection for in-store pickup at checkout, and they can come inside your premises when their order is ready for takeaway. Your customer will receive a text message letting them know to call your pickup location’s phone number upon arrival, and you or your staff can bring their order out to their waiting car.  

Set up local delivery 

With Square’s own delivery solutions and online integrations, you can offer delivery on your online order system for customers within a delivery range that you determine, and you can use your own staff (or yourself) to deliver orders. Eligible customers can select delivery at checkout and even opt to receive delivery text alerts. Per-order fees for delivery via Square Online will be waived until 1 April, 2021. 

Local food delivery: When you enable local delivery in your restaurant ordering systems with Square Online at your restaurant, order tickets sent to your kitchen will print all delivery details in the notes section. 

Local retail delivery: If you are offering local delivery for retail goods (from a deli for example), customers can select delivery on your online order systems at checkout. Order tickets sent to your point of sale will print delivery details in the notes section. 

For both retail and food, you can also set an estimated delivery time, delivery fee, and a minimum delivery order value. 

Learn how to set up local delivery. 

Work with delivery partners 

You can also set up delivery and takeaway options through integrations with Square partners. These integrations can help you offer customers delivery by courier, receive online orders from customers, and manage orders from these platforms, all within your Square Point of Sale. 

Here’s how Square’s partners can help you get set up: 

Deliverect connects apps like Uber Eats and other food delivery platforms directly to Square Point of Sale, so there’s no need to re-enter orders. Get started with Square + Deliverect integration. 

PepperHQ provides you with ordering, loyalty, marketing tools and more, deployed in your own mobile app on iOS and Android. You can cut queue times and increase frequency & spend from regular customers with in-app ordering. Get started with Square + PepperHQ integration. 

Things are changing quickly regarding reopening regulations, so it may be helpful to alert your customers via email or on your social media platforms that your restaurant is open for business through Click and Collect, takeaway, or delivery. Let them know what measures are in place and what policies employees are following to keep guests safe, and what customers need to be aware of before dining in or ordering takeaway and delivery. As lockdowns are rolled back, let customers know how to support your business and employees. 

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