Is Chowly Worth It?

Restaurant owners and managers confront countless questions each day as they navigate the systems necessary to maintain a thriving business. I’d like to address one such question that might be on your mind if you’re someone who’s aware of how costly and complicated providing delivery can be, whilst recognizing the necessity of the service: Is Chowly Worth it? If increasing ROI by saving money on labor costs, decreasing order errors, and increasing volume sounds like a net positive, then the answer is a resounding Yes! Now let’s explain.

Restaurants have seen a lot over the last two years and are currently under an immense amount of pressure. Inflation is leaving its mark with rising food costs, rent, and employee wages. Finding staff, even at higher costs, has been increasingly difficult: according to the National Restaurant Association, “roughly half of restaurant operators expect that recruiting and retaining workers will be their biggest challenge this year.” Perhaps most notably, technology has begun to revolutionize the industry as an adaptive response to pandemic restrictions. Digital sales now amount to 69% of a restaurant’s business.  This means finding and utilizing the right tools to enable digital and off-premise growth is vital.

This is where POS Integration enters the conversation. It offers a streamlined approach to online ordering operations, which enables restaurants to increase their off-premise revenue by helping with three main points: decreasing labor costs, decreasing order errors, and increasing order volume.

1. Decrease Labor Costs

   • We already know that third-party delivery brings in orders. But paying someone to confirm those orders and type them into the POS system is a waste of time and money. You can utilize that person elsewhere or eliminate the position altogether. Why pay someone to type in orders when you don’t need to?
   • We’ve found that many busy restaurants have at least one full-time employee dedicated to transferring orders from a third-party delivery partner’s tablet to their restaurant’s POS system, not to mention having to manually make menu changes in 4+ different places. Consider what this cost savings may be for a single employee.
     • If your local employee’s wage is $15/hr. and you have someone transferring orders 40 hours a week for a year, that’s an annual savings of $31,200.

2. Eliminate Order Errors

   • By no longer typing in orders, you’re reducing the risk of human error, many from entering the wrong item or missing individual modifiers. Avoiding this issue will save you more than just food and money (especially if the customer requests a refund, which is as high as 9% of third-party orders). It will also keep your customers happy. Reliability engenders trust; trust creates loyalty. A loyal customer-base is sustained by precision at every level of service.

3. Increase Order Volume

   • By making sure your restaurant is visible on every third-party platform in your area, you increase your chances of receiving orders. Before the pandemic hit the US in 2020, most customers used  one third-party app to order take-out and delivery. But now, in 2022, Janine Perri from Bloomberg Second Measure notes that fewer customers remain devoted to a single meal delivery service. Consumers are searching for food everywhere, which means visibility is key. You don’t want to miss out on orders based on underrepresentation in the third-party market share.

4. Increase Revenue

   • Chowly has created an upcharge feature that allows you to increase your menu prices to offset commission charges. We’ve helped our clients recover $100,000s of dollars from third-party commissions through this feature. Straight to the bottom line.
   • On average when a client adds a platform they add an incremental revenue averaging$3,500/mo.

These are just a few of the pain points that Chowly’s technology is designed to alleviate. Chowly is an essential tool for any restaurant looking to grow its off-premise sales and drive its digital business forward.  The technology is easy to use, and it solves a set of genuine problems that many restaurants in the industry are facing today. We want to make sure restaurants of all sizes, whether 1 location or 1000 locations, can be armed with the best tools to succeed.

One last thing

Let’s run through a basic Return On Investment (ROI) to really answer the question: Is Chowly Worth It?. Let’s look at a restaurant, we’ll call it C’s Tacos. They’ve got 5 locations and are on two ordering platforms (Grubhub and DoorDash) and they spend about 4 hours a day hand entering orders:

• Labor Savings @ 4 hours per day @ $15/hr = $9,000 per month
• They add UberEats and Google Ordering through Chowly
• • Chowly restaurants average 150 orders/month/platform
  • At a $27 basket size, that’s $40,500
• The average Chowly client pays $99 per month
  • That’s $495 per month for all locations

So is Chowly worth it? Well, would you pay $495 to get $9,000 of savings and $40,500 more revenue? I would.

In 2022, Chowly’s focus has been on product improvements and updates and we can’t wait to share more with you later this year. There has never been a better time to give Chowly a try for 30-days free. See for yourself why Chowly is worth it, alongside 12,000 other restaurant partners and counting.

About Chowly:
Chowly is a POS Integration Software that aggregates online orders from third-party delivery platforms and integrates them directly into a restaurant’s POS system. Chowly partners with 150+ marketplaces, like Uber Eats, DoorDash, Grubhub, Postmates, and all the major POS systems, making it a versatile tool for restaurants of all sizes.

Improved features:

Google Ordering: Chowly has partnered with Google to offer Direct Order, which takes pickup and delivery orders made through a restaurant’s Google search page, and integrates them into the restaurant’s POS system. This feature has a lower commission fee (only 5%) compared to other third-parties (up to 30%). This allows customers to search, order, and pay for their order without having to leave the Google interface.

Menu Sync: With Chowly’s POS integration, restaurants can now manage all of their delivery menus in one place, at the same time, directly in their POS system. This feature makes menu item changes and updates extremely easy and much less of a headache. This includes 86’ing items!

Virtual Restaurants: Chowly provides all the tools necessary to help restaurants launch a successful Virtual Restaurant using their existing kitchen space. This includes offering a portfolio of well-known delivery-only brands that restaurants can choose from.

As Chowly continues to develop efficient solutions for the ever-changing challenges that restaurants face, it solidifies the company’s mission to simplify technology for their 12,000+ restaurant partners. If you’re looking for a way to boost your restaurant’s efficiency and growth, Chowly is worth considering so you can take back control and streamline your third-party delivery marketplaces. Try Chowly for 30-days free.

For more information, visit Chowly.com or follow @Chowlyinc.