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Online food ordering, implementation help needed

Started by dean nolan May 24, 2009 at 10:07 AM 2 replies 1.5k views

Original Post

May 24, 2009 at 10:07 AM

I am developing a new business for people to order from thier local fast food restaurant online. The concept is nothing new and I am aware of my large competitors. The thing is, there isn't a lot of competition in my local area so I would like to focus on that. To start driving traffic I will get the site up with just contact details and scanned menus for people to browse and then an online order feature when I sign up a restaurant. The big rivals send the order info to a printer or fax machine in the restaurant. I don't have any real money to invest here yet so was wondering if anyone here had ideas on how to implement this cheaply. Are there any services I can use to fax an order using .net without me requiring a fax machine? Also would fast food shops even have a fax machine already? I was thinking email is cheapest but a lot of places may not even have internet. Phoning up seems like an easy option but if I have a lot of orders that could be problematic. My ultimate goal would be to get a little palmtop in and provide cheap wireless net and send the order to that, then I could get instant feedback from the restaurant when they take the order and deliver etc. Also I thought of texting being an option? I would love to hear any idea for me to get this up and running hassle free without it being a pain for the restaurant. Thanks

Luckless

May 24, 2009 at 10:45 AM

I think your best bet is to go talk to the managers at the restaurants, and ask them how it would be best for them to take incoming orders, tell them what options they have, and get feed back.

Building a product like this with little or no input from the customers is doomed to failure.

MagicScript

May 24, 2009 at 11:54 AM

You may find the following article useful:
Chicken and Egg Problems

It describes similar type of business and how they solved the "no customers means no businesses care" and "no-businesses mean no customers care" problem.

ChurchSkiz

May 25, 2009 at 1:03 PM

I would phone them in to start, if you get enough customers that this is too hard, then I would deal with that problem at that time. I agree your best bet would be to talk to the store managers directly, but without business they wont' care. If you're in there 20 times a day placing large orders, it might change their mind.

p.s. I think this is a great idea especially for a college town. I would have never left my house at 20 if there was stuff like this.

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