Selling tips for a restaurateur on Swiggy and Zomato

Anukriti Srivastava
UrbanPiper
Published in
4 min readJul 11, 2019

With fierce competition, changing economy and rising trends, restaurant sales can barely be constant. But, as a restaurateur, there is one thing that always remains constant — No matter how much a restaurateur sell, they always feel like they should be doing more to grow the restaurant sales.

In the online ordering space, it can be tough sometimes to keep the restaurant at the top of customers mind. The key to the growth of business is to maintain the balance between holding on to existing customers & bringing in more customers.

With any goal in mind, the simplest way to achieve it is to map out the plan/path and then break out each step into executable pieces. So, for increasing restaurant sales online on Swiggy and Zomato, here are the few tips for a restaurateur to try out —

Sleek & short online menu

When it comes to restaurant menu, bigger does not always equal better. In recent years, there has been a rising trend in reducing menu for better focus and overall success for a restaurant. A smaller and stronger menu results in more efficient service and improved consumer experience.

One of the advantages of having a shorter menu is that they are customer-friendly. A simple-to-comprehend menu allows customers to decide what to order without much hassle. The entire decision-making process gets simplified.

Tip: Smaller and functional menu adds great value to customer satisfaction. Learn more.

Offer specials

According to a study, 35% of consumers, including 53% of consumers between the ages 18–35 years old, are more interested in trying new flavors in specials than they were a year before.

Offering specials make a great way to engage with the customers and keep the menu competitive. It also provides an opportunity for the chefs to be creative and make limited-edition dishes, thereby improving sales for a restaurant. However, the success of the specials is limited on how the restaurateur decides which are the right dishes to include. In order to recommend the right specials to the customers, a restaurateur needs to know well about customers choices and preferences.

Tip: Keep an eye out on your product performances and as they change with seasons. Use this insight to plan out special dishes

Recommendations

Food recommendation is a great way to encourage customers to order items from a restaurant. As a restaurateur, while deciding which items to mark as recommendations, consider the dishes availability, product performances & customer preference. This will result in more powerful inventory control and reduce wastage of food items. Also, it gives a guarantee that a restaurateur is maximizing the products at hand.

It is equally necessary for a restaurateur to keep geographical needs in mind while planning recommendations. For example, for a health-conscious neighbourhood— unhealthy recommendations won’t work.

Tip: Currently Zomato allows merchants to mark items as recommended, while Swiggy decides recommendations based on their recommendation-engine. Make the best out of Zomato item recommendations.

Item recommendations on Zomato

Promotions

In the growing online food delivery marketplace, restaurant promotions are really worth it. It can be thought of as one-time campaigns but they actually help a restaurateur to retain the customers and increase customer lifetime value.

Swiggy and Zomato provide ample of promotional options for restaurateurs. If a restaurateur is thinking of the sustainable ways to promote the restaurant online, head here next to understand promotional strategies for Swiggy and Zomato respectively.

Tip: Stay on top of the promotional methods that Swiggy & Zomato offer to stay ahead of your competition.

Wrapping up

Assessing and re-assessing the way things are running in the B2C industry is an important part for running any successful business. When it comes to determining ways to increase sales for the restaurant, there are many factors to be taken into account. Though, the good news is that most of the basic principles remain the same for all kind of restaurants selling online.

These selling tips provides a basic checklist of attracting new customers while retaining the existing ones, thereby increasing sales for a restaurateur in the online food ordering space.

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