Why a giant leap is only the first step to bossing on line sales Mark Petrou – Previous National Fish and Chip shop of the Year winner, founder of chippychat.co.uk and author of Fish and Chips - a National Treasure shares his 3 step strategy to maximizing profits from online sales.
I
was at the top of my profession (winning fish and chip
DNA. One of the most obvious things I’ve seen in nearly
shop of the year 2006) in a time when there was only
every shop I’ve visited before, during and as we come out
really one type of customer (apart from phone orders)
of the lockdown era is that many operators are caught up
– The walk-in…
in the day to day pressures of running their business and
The walk-in customer is without a doubt the most
price sensitive customer you will be likely to encounter (unless you’re daft enough to throw away your brand value
are failing to look ahead. Are you making plans or maximizing the opportunity of having your business online?
to Groupon). Nowadays we have many types of customers. Walk-ins, the grey pound, the time-poor parents and the weekend millionaires. We have phone orders, app delivery orders, click and collect customers, eat-ins and contactless aggregators who may have never even visited our store. Covid 19 has forced many independent operators into accelerated modernisation. We’ve had to adapt very quickly. Some have partnered up with aggregators like
Three clear steps to maximise online success Step 1 - Online ordering Earlier in this article, I wrote that we now have many types of customers. Since smart phones appeared (2007) Consumers have been sucked into changing the way they like to spend and shop. No one can argue that having online ordering is a fundamental way to future proof your
Just Eat, whilst others have been turned off by the fees
business. More and more future customers will want to
and have chosen to go independent and set up online
order their meals this way. The walk in customer is the
ordering without. Many shops have also taken to social
person that makes a front line owner/operator afraid to
media as well but I wonder just how many have actually
put their prices up – in fact an online customer will typically
had a plan in place as to where this path leads to? Have
spend twice as much per transaction as a walk in customer
you even considered the power of the data that is growing
and price increases are much easier to implement and be
in the back end of all this technology?
accepted online as well.
I’ve been consulting for chip shop owners privately with
The fear for many of setting up online ordering is
a dedicated team of experts to support me (Spud Guru)
managing the switch and if you’re considering delivery as
for over a decade and never promoted it before. From fish
well as click and collect, the whole “driver, insurance, pay
cutting and frying to mixing batter and from driving sales
thing” can also be daunting. This fear often drives us to
to cutting costs, Knowledge sharing has always been in my
making the mistake of choosing to work with an aggregator
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Fastfood Professional • October and November 2021
October and November 2021 • Fastfood Professional
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