Small Deli wants to allow online ordering, needs advice

February 23, 2013 12:37 PM

I'm helping a small local deli with a website redesign using Joomla, and they're really interested in online ordering. I'm familiar with setting up standard shopping carts, but this is a bit different. Does anyone have advice on what cart to use (one that's fairly customizable) and how to best receive and process orders?

The owner wants orders to go directly to a printer creating a paper copy of the order, but I'd like to consider some sort of android tablet solution.

Anyway, this particular ecommerce solution seems like it would have it's own unique challenges, so hopefully someone with experience specifically in the restaurant-ordering-online area might chime in.

posted by klinefelter to technology (6 answers total)

Have you looked into outsourcing this to GrubHub or Seamless?
posted by kickingtheground at 1:09 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]

kickingtheground, I'll definitely look more closely at those services. They seem to be focusing on delivery, though, and this would be pick-up only. The deli should seriously consider delivering, come to think of it.
posted by klinefelter at 1:26 PM on February 23

Front and center on www.grubhub.com there are buttons for "Search Delivery", " Search Pickup", and "Search All." So you may be in luck.
posted by Tehhund at 1:47 PM on February 23

This is not something you want to tackle. Call up Grubhub or Seamless or Foodler and set things up with them.
posted by dmd at 3:34 PM on February 23 [2 favorites]

If it's pickup only this could easily be accomplished with a simple webform like Google Forms, etc. as long as they get email notifications that the workers pay attention to and the users pay when they pick it up. But seconding looking into getting with a service, which will increase the eyeballs they get.
posted by bleep at 3:55 PM on February 23

Bleep is exactly right; you'll get far more eyeballs from an ordering service than you will with a bespoke website. And those eyeballs are connected to growling stomachs with cached payment information.

Eat24Hours.com is my ordering service of choice.

I'll search their roster for a new restaurant just because I already have payment information cached and like the interface, rather than doing it the other way around and going through a search engine or Yelp to find the restaurant and figure out how to order from them. And their "order the usual" feature would be killer for small deli trying to boost and stretch the lunch rush.

My process, and I think I'm typical, is "Yelp -> Restaurant website -> Yelp -> Restaurant website -> Yelp -> Restaurant website -> Eat24 link, DONE".

Not a Joomla answer, sorry. I just think a custom shopping cart system for a restaurant is going against a strong tide.
posted by Kakkerlak at 5:13 PM on February 23