According to statistics, revenue in the Online Food Delivery segment is projected to reach 5-15% in 2022 for countries all over the world. While COVID-19 pandemia performs as a booster for transition to online food ordering, for many restaurants it is a matter of staying in the business. When it comes to online presence, some restaurants can barely keep their PDF or JPG food menus actual, never mind taking orders online. How can a restaurant establish and maintain the online presence?

Let's take a look what options a restaurant have from cheap to expensive:

1. Use social networks.
2. Build a website in-house.
3. Use food menu service.
4. Hire a freelancer.
5. Hire a company.

Social networks is a great way to promote business and stay public. But it seems to be the only benefit for the restaurants. There is no special or any functionality to sell meals from any social media so far. You need to be very creative to come up with some meal folders on Facebook or save menu as Instagram stories.

Building a website in-house means the cheapest way, but involves the longest learning curve with unpredictable results. The length of the curve may mean months. It is likely that the website will never be finished and will always be in progress. To a certain degree, it is not a bad thing, but a website will not function as expected. Besides, eventually a person who started its construction will have to become full time website developer.

Food menu services or websites with subscriptions offer some decent functionality, but you lose promotion benefits. Starting as free or very cheap, they charge you more for any new feature or take commissions from every online transaction. Menu is limited to functions that a service has. Very often the only benefit of such services that you make this first step into the online presence. It's really hard to get a branded design or automate data synchronization to keep menu actual.

Freelancer may help to speed up website development process and use the knowledge of the market and technology to utilize the best and get work done with predictable results. The biggest challenge with freelancers is finding a reliable and competent person. Probably freelancer is the best option for small and medium restaurants as you would get personal developer for a reasonable pricing. Promo budget needs to be added on top of all development expenses.

Hiring a company is the more expensive (sometimes it is times expensive) option comparing to developer. You may expect more attention to details, more professional approach, more papers and longer turn-around. Companies do not rush the process and let you feel the importance of the service you pay for. Works well for medium and big restaurants, when there is a budget for online restaurant image.

There is a niche for almost any request and budget in growing food ordering business. With our FW Food Menu online food delivery system, we offer a quick start solution with further customizations and training on key features for the quickest return of investments. Contact us via website or in social networks for alternative expert advice on the best fit online for your restaurant.