A new sales channel for your food business: pre-orders through Hotplate

Whether you have a brick and mortar restaurant, cafe, or consistent farmers market stand, you could be unlocking a whole new sales channel and customer base by offering pre-orders.

What are pre-orders?

Pre-orders are customers’ food orders that they pre-pay for in advance then pick up at a specific date and time in the future.

Do people really order food that far in advance?

They do! Hotplate has businesses that regularly sell out their pre-orders days – if not weeks – in advance. Customers like that they can secure their order for a popular food without having to wait in a crazy line.

Incorporating pre-orders into your current business

Any food business, especially hot food like pizza or BBQ can benefit from offering pre orders alongside their other sales channels. You can keep your existing POS system* for walk ups, phone orders, or real time online orders and simply add a pre-order system to manage those orders.

Hotplate for preorders

Hotplate is free to use and allows you to set up a storefront where customers can pre-order your goods for specific pickup windows that you set. Most successful businesses using Hotplate offer at least one pre-order day a week and many offer an exclusive or special menu item that’s only available to customers through Hotplate. Every time your preorders open, Hotplate will automatically text your list of customers to remind them to get their goods.

Pepp’s Pizzeria: Business boomed with preorders

One of the fastest growing businesses on Hotplate is a Pepp’s Pizzeria – pizza shop in Iowa that takes most of their orders by pre-order. Customers can order days or weeks in advance, but they only have a 15 minute window to pick up their hot and fresh pie. Having most of the pies orders already in the system before their shop even opens means that the team can plan out their shift and not worry about getting too in the weeds with a big rush of customers.

Image credit: Pepp’s Pizzeria Instagram

The pre order advantage: forecasting

As a food business owner, you’re constantly forecasting ingredient buys, staffing, packaging, etc. If you operate a walk up only business, you’re also guessing how much inventory to prep based on the number of customers you’ve learned to expect. With pre-orders, there’s no guessing game. You start your day knowing exactly how many customers are showing up at exactly what times, so you can plan accordingly. Plus, when all pre-orders are pre-paid, you can keep lines moving quickly and customers happy.

The bottom line

Adding a preorder system and practice to your food business can help bring in more sales, attract new customers, and help your operation run more efficiently.

Glossary

POS – Point of Sale. This means whatever software you use to accept orders and payments from customers. For brick and mortar food businesses, this is often Square or Toast.