Why your POS software needs to integrate with your food delivery app

Whether you’re running a grocery store, a deli, or a restaurant—you need point-of-sale (POS) software that allows your business to run smoothly. But you’re already doing business online, even the best POS software for grocery stores or restaurants is going to be the weak link in the chain when it comes to fulfilling orders if your employees have to manually copy orders into the system from your food delivery app. 

It’s no longer enough for your restaurant or grocery POS software to log and send orders – you need a robust software profile that can collate and track data, allow you to keep track of your inventory, provide a level of employee oversight by limiting access to certain features like discounts and refunds, and mesh with your customer loyalty schemes.

Most importantly, your POS software needs to integrate with your food delivery app so that all inbound orders are tracked, recorded, and flowed through your personalized fulfillment process, end-to-end.

The Numbers Don’t Lie – Integrate or Lose Money

A study by the Independent Restaurant Coalition reports that 71% of restaurants have a profit margin of less than 10%. For every wrong order that goes out or is never fulfilled due to faulty integration between a restaurant’s POS software and their food-delivery app, owners are shaving down their profit margin.

Ensuring that the right order gets to the right person and that no inbound orders are missed is crucial, given that 25% of consumers say they spend more on off-premises orders than they do when dining in. 

Additionally, integrating a third-party delivery service has been shown to increase sales volumes by 10 to 20%, so making sure all those orders are accounted for can prevent easily avoidable losses.

Eliminate Error and Build Customer Knowledge

Popular third-party food delivery platforms like DoorDash and Uber Eats offer integration with only a select few POS software systems. If your system doesn’t integrate with either, you have to trust an employee to manually input orders that come in through the apps into your system to start the fulfillment process. This process, of course, is highly prone to human error.

Cross-platform integration between your delivery app and POS system means you eliminate the possibility of human error when inputting orders. Plus, if your delivery app integrates with the POS software you are comfortable with, you get the added benefit of being able to track inbound orders and compose data-driven reports that will show you trends in what your customers are ordering.

Having better knowledge of what your customers want is undoubtedly crucial to your business’s long-term success. Implementing a system that captures that knowledge passively is a great way to ensure you’ll get to keep serving your customers for years to come.

Integration Should be Customizable

Even if your POS software integrates with a large third-party vendor, you’re limited in what your online storefront looks like and what kind of special ordering options should be available to your customers.

Whether or not you’re selling specialty cuts of meat or organic vegan or vegetarian food, the ordering options your customers have when they step into your store should be the same as the ones they’re presented with when interacting with your online store. Finding a platform that allows you to customize your online presence will allow you to fully own your eCommerce experience from start to finish.

Your online storefront should be as special and unique a place as your physical storefront, and your customers will appreciate the digital look and feel of your online presence, flexible ordering options, and personalized touches for the same reasons they love walking through your door.

Let’s Get Started!

Integration between your POS software and your food delivery app is a must if you want to eliminate the undue costs associated with human error and not miss out on valuable customer insight by capturing historical sales data.

Full integration allows you to own your whole fulfillment process from end to end. Furthermore, adopting an integrative solution that provides you with options to customize the user experience to your liking will allow your online business to stand out from the competition.

For more information on how you can start building your own fully integrated, fully customizable online storefront for your restaurant or grocery business, we’re here to help.