What is Native Delivery? 

Have you ever thought about going native? No, we don’t mean dropping yourself off in the jungle somewhere to see what happens (although that could be a fun experiment). We’re talking about ditching third-party delivery apps and getting into the self-delivery game. 

In this post by Shift Pixy Labs, we’re talking about taking advantage of all native delivery has to offer. Native delivery allows you to take control of the food, people, and delivery that makes your business what it is. This way, you won’t get lost in the restaurant jungle.

What is Native Delivery, Exactly?

In simple terms, native delivery gives restaurants the ability to use their own mobile apps and websites for delivery orders and curbside pickup. Instead of paying hefty commissions for an outside delivery service, the delivery drivers can be current employees or ones you trust. 

You can say goodbye to outsourcing actual deliveries and finding customers, and hello to 30% more profits. Yeah, that’s about how much a third-party delivery service charges to pick up and deliver your food.

Pros of Native Delivery

Now that you know what native delivery is, let’s explore the actual benefits and why choosing to go in-house for all your delivery needs is an intelligent decision. 

1. Keep Your Customer’s Data

Okay, you had a stellar night with incredible food sales. Yet, most of the people choosing your restaurant don’t have names, data, or any way for you to track them. All your customer information is in the hands of the food delivery app, not yours. 

Going forward, you can’t offer your loyal customers promotions, rewards, or incentives to return. If your relationship with the third-party delivery app ends, so does reaching your customer base. When you go with native delivery, you can truly experience the power of information. 

2. Provides a Branded Experience

Trust can be hard to come by in the real world but trusting the hands of strangers to deliver your hot food is an even further leap of faith. Between the kitchen to the customer’s door, many things can go awry. Food deliveries can run late, go missing, or arrive cold. 

You have no idea what kind of branded experience the driver gives. Nothing’s worse than an unfriendly driver who is far from your brand identity. It takes about 12 positive experiences to balance out one negative one. 

Outsourced food delivery may not be consistent with your in-store branded experience. But native delivery ensures that delivery drivers represent your brand seamlessly since they are trained by you! 

3. Say Goodbye to Hefty Fees

Digital delivery is a hot market. 60% of U.S. consumers order takeout once a week, and ordering online could replace half of the dine-in market by 2022. So, your restaurant needs some kind of delivery service in place to get your piece of the pie. But outsourced delivery apps charge high fees for both the operator and end customer. 

Plus, 70% of all people ordering delivery prefer to order directly from the restaurant. Choosing native delivery allows operators to change the economics and say goodbye to high delivery fees and give customers what they desire.

4. Offers Personalized Experiences

Let’s be honest; you can’t compete without personalized experiences. Moving delivery in-house or with ShiftPixy’s tech stack allows you to offer menu recommendations, special promotions, and an exclusive experience. 

Ordering directly from the restaurant gives you access to their email address and phone number, so you have a higher chance of a repeat order. People are more apt to open an email promotion or text than other avenues of communication. 

The ability to offer customized experiences for diners helps them connect with your brand, builds customer loyalty, and gives you some sweet control over the process. 

5. Improves Delivery Times

Third-party delivery apps regularly combine deliveries to improve profitability. Your food leaves the ghost kitchen piping hot but arrives lukewarm. The diner only lives a few miles away, but the delivery driver made a few stops along the way. 

Nothing’s worse than cold french fries or food that takes forever to arrive. Most likely, the delivery driver has no way to keep the food warm or even cares if it comes hot. Your restaurant is another dot on the screen. 

Native delivery takes out the middleman and makes sure that the food goes from the kitchen to the curb in less time than trusting an outside delivery service.

6. Increases Profit

We all love food. We all love profits. Native delivery eliminates the high delivery cost and brings those dollars back to the restaurant. Also, third-party delivery apps can change their delivery fees on a whim. They hold your customer’s experience and information. When they change prices, you have no choice but to say yes. 

Yet that’s not the complete picture. A terrible delivery experience builds customer dissatisfaction, and the chance of repeat business lowers. In a nutshell, a third-party delivery app charges a high initial fee and may also cut into further profits because the customer doesn’t return. Native delivery removes this possibility. 

Go Direct With Native Delivery

Have you ever booked a hotel room online but then discovered that if you’d gone to the hotel’s website, you would’ve found a better deal? Yeah, sucks, right. Well, the same thing happens for food delivery. 

Using the restaurant’s website or mobile app offers better deals for the customer and a controlled branded experience. But, to be honest, creating an in-house delivery service can be a little costly done the traditional way. From the investment in technology to delivery cars and drivers, you’re looking at a chunk of change.  

But what if there’s another option that bridges the gap between third-party delivery and in-house delivery? Native delivery with Shift Pixy is this answer. 

Skipping the outsourced apps and going native with ShiftPixy allows restaurants to make quick hires and includes a native delivery component with the service. The ShiftPixy delivery aspect will enable consumers to make purchases online from the operator and then have the food delivered via their own staff. 

When you “go native,” you’re getting the best of both worlds— in-house delivery service with a controlled experience. Customers order directly from the restaurant (something they want), and the operator now has access to the data while saying goodbye to high delivery fees. 

Third-party apps may have made the restaurant jungle easier to manage as food delivery swung through the restaurant world, but now it’s time to make the switch to native delivery. Your business depends on it.