Online Delivery And You! Your options when considering online delivery apps.

So your business is still open and you’re not sure what to do next. One of the biggest trends right now is offering delivery, to-go and pickup for customers to get their product safely. Read on and learn what you can do to help boost your online presence and keep your business running.

Maintain a healthy social media presence. In today’s social media age, any business should know that maintaining a presence on social media is not only good for business growth, but a great way to communicate to all of your loyal customers. Many restaurants are using Facebook and Instagram to communicate new business hours and how to order take-out or delivery.

Begin offering take-out, delivery, and/or curbside pickup. This isn’t just limited to restaurants! Many retail stores are now offering order-on-line or by phone options for curbside pickup.  For restaurants, options like DoorDash and Uber Eats make it easy for restaurants to continue to do business without having to setup their own delivery team. For retail stores, using online shopping-carts like Shopify or even Squarespace can help your inventory continue to flow from the shelves to a new home.

DoorDash:

DoorDash is one of the most popular food delivery platforms in the market. To sign up, submit an application online. Once your application is approved, you will submit your full menu to the DoorDash team and once they have it loaded in, you can start accepting orders right away! DoorDash says the entire process start to finish can take about a week. To use their service, DoorDash asks for 30% commission on orders placed through their service.

Postmates:

Postmates is another great option for food delivery. The sign up process begins with an online application after which a representative will contact you within 72 hours. Setting up your business will require a full menu and description of your business to be submitted. Postmates estimates about 10 days to setup your business, however they also provide a tablet for you to receive online orders and that may take up to 15 days to arrive. Luckily, in that 5 day window, Postmates will provide online orders over the phone and you will not be charged commission on those orders. Postmates commission vary between 15%-30% based on volume.

Uber Eats:

Uber Eats is a service provided by popular ride-sharing platform Uber. The benefit of Uber Eats is its already massive workforce of free-lance drivers that can switch between the two services. UberEats requires an online application, and then they will even schedule a photoshoot of your restaurant and popular food items to post on their platform. They also provide a table that receives the online orders for you. Uber Eats is a lot more ambiguous about its setup time and fees. Setup can last “a few days” and fees on UberEats varies based on your business volume. There is an upfront one-time service fee to cover the cost of the welcome kit, tablet, software and photoshoot. Service fees are done per order and vary based on your business.

Shopify:

For online retailers looking to offer online ordering, Shopify is a online shopping cart that is easy to use and versatile in how it works. Setup can vary depending on your stores offerings, but Shopify says you can make your first sale the day you setup your online store front. If you are already a SignaPay merchant, you can integrate your processing through Shopify with ease to connect your payment gateway. Shopify offers three paid tiers of service, Basic Shopify ($29/mo), Shopify ($79/mo), and Advance Shopify ($299/mo).

DoorDash Application: get.doordash.com

Postmates Application: postmates.com

Uber Eats Application: ubereats.com/restaurant

Shopify Learn More: shopify.com