3 Ways to Encourage Diners to Buy More Online

The key to a restaurant’s online ordering success is not just the amount of orders that are placed each week, but the average size per order. A higher average order amount will ensure a healthier bottom line and provides a cushion in times such as these. There are a few ways to get started, but first, restaurants can benefit from using our free online ordering revenue projections calculator. 

Calculate Profits by Increasing The Average Order Size

How Our Free Calculator Works:

1. Insert your weekly website traffic to your main store page into cell A6

2. Insert your average checkout conversion rate into cell B6

3. Insert your average order value into cell C6

Pull The Highest-Margin Items To The Top

An easy way to increase the average order size is to place items that typically provide a higher-margin of profit toward the top of the menu.

These are the first items seen and provide a greater chance of purchase from hungry diners. There are numerous theories around the psychology of menu design but for direct online ordering visitors, they’re more than likely going to purchase from the restaurant if they’re already on the restaurant’s website. Restaurants should include items that have higher profit margins, even if they seem expensive. After all, guests are looking for ways to support their favorite restaurants more than ever. Give them the option to.

Sell Unique Items Alongside Food

During COVID-19, restaurants have explored creative ways of selling their offerings through online ordering and their websites. While some restaurants have adapted their offerings to provide meal kits for diners to cook or assemble themselves, others have sold branded t-shirts and hats to wine club memberships and more. Let’s look at a few great examples of how restaurants are finding unique offerings to include in online orders to boost order size and profits. 

Read More Ways to Optimize Online Ordering

Vina Enoteca offers a variety of memberships to their wine clubs, which include monthly wine boxes of curated, hand-selected wines from their collection. This is a great example of quick ways to increase the size of an order for guests who are already interested in ordering wine for pickup or delivery.

Another great example comes from Secatogue Brewing Co. in Long Island, New York. Through online ordering, guests can choose from their favorite select beers to order for pickup and in the process, can add a t-shirt, hat, or sets of stickers. Featuring these alternative items increases the average order size which ultimately boosts profits for their brewery.

Even more, restaurants can seek to partner with a delivery fulfillment service to facilitate last-mile delivery. This added benefit will not only streamline operations for the restaurant but will further entice guests to make a purchase. With COVID-19, delivery is a preference for diners who are looking for safer, alternative ways of supporting their favorite restaurants while enjoying delivery’s convenience. 

Incentivize Diners With Promo Codes

One way for restaurants to drive more orders through their online store is to offer promo codes. Restaurants can set a promo code with a minimum purchase amount to increase higher order sizes. This could be either a percentage off or a flat dollar amount. For example, a restaurant could offer 10% off with the purchase of $20 or more. This incentivizes a would-be diner to add additional items to their order to meet the minimum requirement. 

These can be marketed through several different channels including posting them on social media, including them in marketing emails to subscribers, adding them to the homepage of the restaurant’s website — or in the case below — displaying the code directly in the store. Make sure to include the code name, conditions and availability date. 

Start Increasing Average Order Size

By moving high-margin items to the top of the menu, selling merchandise, among other items and incentivizing guests with promo codes, the average size of a restaurant’s online orders will increase — boosting profits. For more information on increasing online ordering revenue, read part one of our series, watch the webinar, or get in touch with a specialist from our team today.