Know How You Can Launch Online Food Biz

The whole world is shifting from offline to online. Customers now prefer ordering a delightful meal at home by just a few clicks. There is huge potential in the online food ordering business as this particular niche is predicted to see an annual growth of 3.5 per cent for the next 5 years.

Now, if you are planning to hop on the bandwagon by shaping your own future and starting an online food ordering business, there are a lot of factors that will determine the success or failure of your venture. Some important factors to consider include an excellently designed website and a well-planned marketing strategy. Here is a stepwise guide on how to start an online food ordering business.

Search online: The first and the most obvious step before starting an online food ordering business is to search about it on the internet. The online world is full of blogs/researches/articles and opinions on necessary features, tips and business model of an online food ordering business. You will find “n” number of articles but you cannot rely on each one of them. It is very important to use industry specific keywords to narrow down your search. Start by typing “How to start an online food ordering business” on a search engine, the first few websites that appear in the search engine will be helpful to answer your queries. Also, make sure you stick to the information pertaining to the features of your website as you do not want to get carried away by all the information on internet.

Know your competitors well: Now that you have a basic idea of what you want to build, you cannot immediately start building a website. It is important to study the market and the competitor against whom you are going to launch an online food ordering website. Understanding which websites customer mostly rely on to order food and examining the features of the competitor’s website are first few steps to analyze the market before you hop in. Every website lacks some feature, you need to get hold of that and plan your business around it if you want the customer to shift to your website.

Be Clear Who Your Customers are: Though it’s true that the world becomes your playground when you start an online business, you also have to keep in mind the major audience. Keeping them in mind will also enable you to decide the important features like the language and the currency. A lot of things depend on the market you are going to launch your website in and helps you precisely decide the features of your website and know which kind of customer you are catering to.

Buy a domain name: You would have decided a name for your business while going through the above steps. Make sure you keep the domain name catchy and interesting so that it is easier for people to remember. Go to appropriate domain registering websites and find the name which interests you the most and check its availability. Once you find a suitable name, go ahead and register it.

Select the right business model: Though you have decided to leap into the business of online food ordering, it is very important that you clearly define the parameters of your business. Stating exactly how your business process is going to work is very important to avoid any kind of confusion. Food ordering business owners can choose from the aggregator model and the delivery model. The basic difference between them is: - Aggregator solely focuses on managing food ordering.The Delivery Model requires the website owner to handle delivery too.

Finalize on the revenue model: Defining the source of revenue beforehand is as important as defining the business process. How will the online business earn? What will be the primary source of revenue? These should be the most important questions that should pop up your mind. Usually, for an online food ordering business, commissions from restaurants are the primary source of money, followed by premium advertising service and, in some cases, delivery charges.

Connect with restaurants to ensure a few tie-ups before launch: While building a roadmap for your online food ordering business, make sure you try to make some contact with the restaurants and leverage the relationship. Connect with Restaurant owner(s) to see what their biggest problem is, try and solve the problem by your website’s features. You should have a good number of restaurants before you launch the website.

Start planning the website: By now, you must have a clear picture in your head and know what all customer and seller centric features you would need. Proceed with planning the layout of your website according to the information that you have gathered. Jot it down on a sheet, and try to visualize how the website should look from the customer, seller and admin perspectives.

Start pre-promotion before it gets live: Before the launch of the website, makesure the targeted audience are inquisitive. The curiosity of the audience to know what is coming up will help the brand become successful. The best way to do it is to start a social media channel and create a tagline to entice the customer. “Coming soon” the way you promote yourself before the launch highly affects the success rate of the website.

When the site is live- Start promotions to get more users: Launching your website is not the culmination of your business efforts, for it is just the beginning. There are other things which you need to take care of, things like strategizing a marketing technique to gain maximum customers. The way the website is advertised on different platforms will help determine the amount of traffic on the website. The best and affordable way to market your business is through social media as it has a large audience whose attention you can gain easily.
 

About The Author:

Ankush works as a senior digital marketer with India’s top rated web design development company FATbit Technologies. His expertise lies in search engine optimization, paid media marketing and formulating marketing plan for business of a number of industries. He likes to contribute on various topics that include digital media marketing, ecommerce and news related to ecosystem. Connect with him at below profiles:

https://www.fatbit.com/

https://twitter.com/ankushmahajann

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankush-mahajan-b37a4737/