Find Out What’s Driving Sales Right Now In Your Area

6 Things That Are Driving Sales Right Now:

Dedicated pickup spots outside the business

The most effective pickup spots are the ones with the call/text when you arrive. The customer relays which parking spot number they are parked at, and the employees can swiftly deliver the food to the customer. The pickup spot system has been proven successful by grocery stores and retailers alike. This system has reduced the perceived waiting in the pickup window line AND allows orders to flow out easier vs. holding up the line with waiting.

Drive-Thru and pickup window message

Pre-COVID-19 restaurants typically only had one window for either drive-up ordering or call-ahead pickup. However, with the increase of to-go orders, restaurants have to reevaluate what they want to use their drive-thru for and do their business benefit by having two distinct systems in place. Make it clear if you have both and how they differ or clearly state that it’s ONLY for one service type. Customer perception often is an order window is for both call ahead and drive-up ordering. Improving your messaging also reduces customer confusion and complaints.

Drive-thru service increases impulse sales

Many restaurants and retailers are not set up for the fast food-style drive-thru as their traditional products require prep time. Developing a limited selection of items that are pre-made or can be made quickly means people can swing by and grab it without first planning. (Airport kiosks are a great example, everyday items that have regular demand)

Online ordering + SMS/Instant Message when the order is ready

Your brick and mortar inventory can be simultaneously offered online and in-store with your current POS. Square POS is an example of a POS that offers this. Consumers are on their phones more now than ever and ordering from your business online makes it easier for them to shop and build a shopping cart. Online systems are also excellent for real-time updates about their order status. This messaging feature is a two-edged sword; if the customer is waiting in the back of the sole pickup window line or the message isn’t timed correctly with the complete order, this creates more problems than it solves.

Keep Website, Yelp, Facebook, and Google Business up to date

When looking for where to eat, consumers are confused about who’s open, who’s interior is closed, the latest hours, and the most current products/items for sale.

Restaurants need to advertise your to-go alcoholic drinks

Alcoholic beverage sales can account for 25% of gross sales at a full-service casual dining restaurant. COVID-19 has reduced onsite sales and consumption of alcohol; however, all is not lost. Some states have rolled back laws to allow the sale of to-go mixed drinks. Use drink specials to drive food sales to your restaurant. State law packaging requirements on to-go mixed drinks in April were not well defined or supported; however, multiple vendors have since come onto the market to accommodate the requirements.

How can you improve?

Over the weekend, I couldn’t help but notice how fast-food restaurants were PACKED right across the street from casual dining restaurants who were dead. Was fast food better tasting? NO. But why was I in line over the weekend multiple times and not at a better-tasting place? I was looking for a fast and easy way to feed the family after being out and about. Many full-service restaurants and retailers don’t offer this ‘low friction / high impulse’ experience I was looking for this weekend. But could your business capture this previously disregarded demographic? Yes, here’s how.

Turning four existing parking spots into pickup spots with clear signs posted will allow you to reduce the wait time overall vs. customers waiting in the pickup window line during peak times. People will begin to see it’s easier to order and hang out in a spot than sit in a ‘long line’ with their foot on the brake. Update your employee script to let pickup orders know where to go, and update your online portal to say similar.

Next, develop a list of items that you can fast track and prepare in under 5min. NOW you can capture people who want to support you, but the friction has prohibited them thus far. Adding a transitional drive-thru might not be on your mind, but mom and pop restaurants who were able to add drive thru’s are reporting 25% of sales are already flowing through their new drive-thru’s, and existing drive-thru’s report increased sales during current times.

Get some or all of your brick and mortar store online. Brick and mortar stores that just opened up their online stores in the last four months are reporting up to 20-30% of their business is now online. Setup the messaging tool in your POS, like Toast or Shopify, and communicate that orders are ready for pickup. Just be careful how you set up your text messaging updates because some POS systems will text if any part of the order is ready vs. the entire order being available for pickup.

Lastly, as soon as menus are updated, update the website and other places as consumers make buying decisions daily based on what you have listed.

About Vitality Marketing Firm:

We build marketing & system automation to remove the manual and repetitive tasks. Businesses benefit from automation by freeing staff to work on things that no computer can solve. Marketing automation also allows our clients to communicate with their customers at a simple level without needed to involve a human until they are ready to buy.

Learn How To Automate Your Business

Automation Examples
- Collecting Customer Contact Information
- Contacting Customers Who Have Not Visited Your Business Lately
- Connecting Your Point Of Sale to Your Email System
- Sending Postcards to Neighbors of Your Current Customer
- Tracking Customer Buying Habits And Showing Relevant Ads At Just The Right Time
- and more…

Author: Jason Pulliam

Jason Pulliam is an avid researcher of technology and marketing. He enjoys figuring out ways to automate tasks and increase the personalization of the customer’s online journey. When Jason isn‘t pushing all the buttons to see what they do, he’s a nutty husband to his wife, Jada, and proud father for his two daughters. Jason enjoys all cold things, in every sense of the word, and you might find him working inside a fridge if that were possible.