Everything is Getting More Expensive for Restaurant Owners. Can Personal Payment Technologies Help?
Restaurant owners and operators are definitely feeling the pinch as inflation and supply chain issues are the main drivers behind rising costs. A staggering 72% of small restaurant owners surveyed worry inflation may cause them to close by the end of 2022.
In the United States, common restaurant ingredients like flour -- when purchased in a U.S. city -- rose 22% in the last year, while eggs have increased 38%.
Looking regionally at the Canadian restaurant industry, Mark von Schellwitz, the Vice President of Western Canada with Restaurants Canada, said recently to the CBC:
“When you look at dairy, it's up nearly 20 per cent, beef 16 per cent, cooking oil 20 per cent. There's been a lot of inflationary pressure ... and our natural gas costs have gone up by about 22 per cent as well. We have more than half of our members that are still losing money or just breaking even right now.”
Let’s not forget that rising costs are only one aspect putting pressure on restaurant revenues. There’s also labor shortages and the impact of all of this on the guest experience. But those are topics for another blog post.
Where’s the Solution?
Like any industry faced with incredible change and disruption, the solution often lies in technological innovation. For restaurants, QR-based personal payment technologies that integrate with POS and provide a seamless and intuitive order and pay system are just such a technological innovation.
Certainly, this technology won’t help bring costs down, but it will help boost revenue on other ways, helping to offset rising costs.
QR based order & pay systems boost revenue in these 3 main ways:
Reduce the burden on servers so that restaurants can be open at full capacity even if they don’t have a full complement of front of house staff.
When guests have access to their menu throughout their meal and don’t need to wait for a server, order sizes are typically larger.
When guests can pay at their convenience, tables are turned faster, so you seat more guests.
Adding up all the benefits can lead to significant revenue increases. In fact, one Ready client, Syfy Enterprises’ Tomatina chain, saw revenue increase an average 29% across locations in just 30 days after onboarding Ready.
Do People Like Using QR Technology?
If you’re going to have a solution, it better be one that customers are willing to use. In the case of QR code order & pay technology, we unsurprisingly see the willingness to adopt breakdown along age groups. Gen Z and Millennials in particular (with a 78% approval rate) welcome QR codes in restaurants at a very encouraging rate, while boomers can lag behind in adoption.
Those numbers suggest a significant interest in using QR menus. Especially if your restaurant is one that caters to a younger demographic, though boomer willingness to adopt is perhaps higher than may be expected, especially in urban geographies.
Facing rising costs and labor shortage, personal payment technologies using QR may be able to provide the revenue boost your restaurant needs.
If you want to find out more about how Ready’s order & pay hospitality, entertainment and restaurant tech can help your brand increase revenue, please get in touch with our team today.
The key is that the technology must be easy to use, well designed and integrated with your point-of-sale technology.
Importantly, this doesn’t just improve the guest experience by allowing them to have control if they want it. It also empowers servers by removing some of their transactional responsibilities, allowing them to more easily serve more tables and letting them focus on the qualitative part of their relationship with guests.
Since servers can serve more tables more easily, and guests can leave when they like, without necessarily having to wait for a server, tables are turned faster and more guests can be seated, meaning revenue increases
Better guest experience, support for servers and increased revenue? That sounds like a holiday gift we can all get behind.
If you want to find out more about how Ready’s order & pay hospitality, entertainment and restaurant tech can help your brand increase revenue and improve customer experiences, please get in touch with our team today.
About Ready
Ready partners with innovative restaurant, foodservice, and hospitality brands to create frictionless order & pay experiences that WOW guests.
Our mobile-first flexible order & pay software platform empowers guests with more choice, boosts revenue, and connects brands directly with customers.
We are a company of food lovers whose goal is to make guests, servers, and operators say, "Why hasn't it always been like this?"
Our clients are Restaurants, Hotels, Stadiums, Venues, and anywhere food or drinks are served.
Ready to order. Ready to pay. Ready when you are.