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The Secret to Optimizing Your Online Ordering Menu… Data!

By January 7, 2019November 14th, 2023No Comments

One of the advantages restaurants have today for increasing revenue and profits is access to a variety of data sources that can be used to improve your online ordering menu. Here are some of the ways that we use data to refine our customers’ online ordering menus.

1. Analyze the sales volume of menu items across each of the online ordering services that you use. As with all data analysis, the more data you can analyze, the more accurate your assessments. Understanding which items are most and least popular will help you decide which items to add, remove, or rearrange on your menu. Remove unpopular items to eliminate distractions.

2. Using these larger data sets across multiple online ordering services, you can A/B test different prices for menu items to optimize pricing for volume and profitability. Bundling items together is great.

3. Identify problematic items that require contacting the customer for clarification or a refund. You may use this data to clarify, simplify, or remove problematic items.
Related, add modifiers to your online ordering menu when customers routinely seem to “add on” extras for particular items. Let them upsell themselves.

4. Use data that you collect from direct email marketing, digital advertising, and your own website activity to further optimize your online ordering menu. For example, if you include links to special promotions, coupons, or your own online ordering website in direct marketing outreach, you can measure which messages, which photos, and which menu items elicit the greatest response. You can use this information, combined with data on sales volume from online ordering services, to paint a clearer picture of your customer’s menu preferences.

These are just some of the techniques we use to help restaurants design and optimize menus for online ordering at Ordermark. Looking for more tips check out [Online Ordering 101] and feel free to reach out if you have any questions or would like assistance with optimizing your online ordering menus.

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Alex Canter

Alex Canter

Alex is a restaurant industry innovator, in-demand speaker, and passionate advocate for restaurant operators and workers. He was raised in the kitchen of the world-famous Canter’s Deli in Los Angeles, where he invented Ordermark. A fourth-generation restaurateur, the restaurant business has been in Alex’s blood for over 85 years. In addition to being the visionary and leader of Ordermark, Alex is active with the Techstars network and enjoys mentoring other restaurant technology entrepreneurs. A 2019 recipient of the Forbes 30 Under 30, Alex has previously led several technology ventures.