Platform Apps such as Deliverer, Just East and Uber Eats to name a few are very expensive costing on average 30% of your sales revenue. The impact on your business doesn’t end there. Because the platform Apps have direct relationships with your customers and push their brand not yours they ultimately control key areas of your business, not you! Because your business becomes dependent on sales generated through the platform apps, they ultimately dictate and control the terms!
So, you’re paying huge commissions and losing control of your own future, at the same time as taking the primary risk! Why?
It’s never good business to hand control of your business to others, as ultimately they won’t have your best interests at heart. There’s already publicly available evidence that the big platform providers are flexing their power and directly impacting those who work hard and take risks of running their small independent business.
If you have your own branded mobile and web customer ordering apps, you can balance these risks by developing your own brand identity, customer loyalty and repeat business. Additionally, for every order you take direct, you save the commissions and make more money. You can then foster a positive relationship direct with your customers by offering great products, special deals, flexible menus, fast changes and service associated to your local name not one of many.
By having this powerful in-house easy to use capability, yourself you balance and mitigate future unknown risks. For example, the emergence of high street ‘dark kitchens’, where you could overnight lose your recurring platform order provider business to an unknown non-high-street provider, producing much the same as your business and there’s nothing you’d be able to do about it!
We’re not saying don’t use the platform providers, we’re saying use them as much as they use you in a risk balanced way. Develop your own recurring loyal followers of your brand locally and protect your future.