Re-Igniting Online Payments

But, as with most industries these days, more people are turning to online. Restaurants have been slowly beginning to adopt online strategies, but one big turn of events made everything change.

In 2020, the world was frozen by COVID-19, and the restaurant industry was hit hard. Everyone was caught off guard as governments began to shut down businesses that had people in too close of proximity.

One of the biggest hurdles for restaurants was having an online ordering system that was able to accept payments safely and didn’t take too long to set up. But even before the world was put on hold, there was much more preventing restaurants from making the shift.

The Con-Diments Of Going Online

For years the standard way of setting up restaurants with online payments and ordering software would take anywhere from 7-10 days. As mentioned before, many restaurants do so much business in-store, why shift online when the process is just going to be a burden?

There was also a concern for the lack of control a restaurant may have from a third-party service, and accuracy is critical for restaurants to maintain a good reputation. If that reputation is compromised because the wrong order was picked-up or delivered was slow causing the food to be cold, they risk losing that customer and receiving a bad review or having to initiate a refund.

Fraud is also a worry for restaurants taking online orders. How do they know the one who is ordering is also doing the eating? When credit card numbers are compromised, one of the most common ways they are used is to order food for the fraudster. But once the cardholder realizes they did not initiate these transactions, they issue a chargeback, which ultimately ends in the restaurant being on the hook for the transaction.

Restaurants need online ordering software they can trust. They want their orders and payments to seamlessly integrate with their existing point-of-sale (POS) systems while giving them the security and control they desire.

Table For Two: Order-Ahead Platforms And Payments

In the last few years, we have seen the emergence of order-ahead software that is putting the power back in the hands of restaurants. These customer-centric, order-ahead companies recognize that the profit margins for restaurants are already slim, and rather than profit off of these restaurants, they work to find ways to pass the savings off to their customers.

One of the most efficient ways they can do this is by partnering with payment providers. As you can guess, payments play a large part of the online ordering process. One thing you may not have guessed is that in addition to onboarding for the order-ahead software, restaurants also need to be onboarded for online payments acceptance.

Here is one big way that cost-savings come into play. Together with payment facilitators like Worldline, order-ahead companies can bring on new restaurants in as little as 24 hours, eliminating that traditional 7-10 day gap. The payment onboarding is also done online and can be integrated directly into an existing application or software, which maintains the order-ahead companies’ brand through the entire process.

The speed of going online saves restaurants time and money as it allows them to start processing online payments right away and frees up employee hours.

Making Sure The Food Ends Up In The Right Hands

Proper protection measures need to be put in place during the ordering process to address the concerns of fraud for the food industry. Rather than leave that task up to the order-ahead software, payment providers like Worldline already have a whole arsenal of fraud defence tools that can integrate directly with the software.

Restaurants can take advantage of tools such as address verification (AVS) and enabling risk thresholds, which can help prove the person ordering actually has the credit card.

Online payments and order-ahead software create a perfect combination to support options like take-out and delivery safely and securely. As the world recovers from the effects of COVID-19, contactless and card-not-present payment options, along with curbside pick-up and delivery, will become the new standard as the customer doesn’t need to interact with anyone during the process.

The health and safety features that contactless payment methods offer are now more desirable than ever. With these invisible payment options, payment providers can help support restaurants as they reopen their doors to a new world of dining out.

For more information on how online payments can integrate with your order ahead software, visit our order-ahead page. If you’re curious about what order-ahead companies we work with, check out our Partner Listing.