I believe the restaurants that win catering over the next five years will use marketplaces to grow while building relationships they own, and Uber’s $2.3 billion move on ezCater just raised the stakes.
A large catering order can fill a slow weekday and introduce your food to dozens of potential regulars. Restaurant owners have good reasons to welcome that business, and every reason to examine what it costs them.
My position? Use third parties to grow, and fight for your first party. Take advantage of their reach while investing in your ability to attract, understand and serve customers directly.
Because a full order book does not necessarily mean you are building a stronger business.
Then there’s margin. ezCater takes a 15% commission plus a 2.99% payment fee, and delivery through ezCater’s own drivers costs $30 for orders up to $300 and 10% above that.
So, on a $500 order:
- About $90 goes to commission and payment fees, before delivery or tax;
- $50 goes to delivery, and whatever the customer’s delivery fee doesn’t cover, you pay;
- Any promotions you fund come out of your share too.
That’s up to $140, or 28% of the order, before promotions.
All of this comes before ingredients, kitchen labor and packaging. Direct ordering has costs, too. Owners need to compare what each channel actually leaves in the business. Revenue that keeps your team busy without leaving enough profit should be scrutinized.
Then comes a loss that is harder to see on a statement: data leakage.
By that, I mean the customer intelligence your business generates but fails to capture in its own customer relationship management system, or CRM. Who is buying: the company, the decision-maker, the person placing the order? Why did they choose you? What would make them buy again?
Imagine catering the same office every Thursday. You know what to prepare and where to deliver it. But do you know whether the office manager chose you for your vegetarian options, your price, or your reliability? Do you know whether the team loved the meal? Can you recognize when that weekly customer stops ordering and reach out to understand why?
That is the difference between processing transactions and developing customer relationships.
A useful CRM connects purchase history with preferences, feedback and conversations. With permission to follow up, you can anticipate the next team lunch, suggest a menu within budget or recover from a disappointing experience. Each interaction should help your restaurant earn the next order.
When that knowledge and the ability to act on it stays with the marketplace, your kitchen fulfills the orders while the outsourced platform builds the relationship.
Over time, your restaurant risks becoming a fulfillment center for the company that knows your customers better than you do.
Restaurant owners can push back by making direct ordering worth choosing:
- Start with the people already visiting your restaurant, website and phone line.
- Make catering easy to find.
- Answer questions promptly.
- Help customers choose the right quantities and stay within budget.
- Remember their preferences and make reordering simple.
A customer should never need to visit a marketplace because your own business failed to answer.
Technology should make this manageable for a busy team. Use it to capture inquiries, organize customer history and follow up consistently. Choose systems that let you retain and use that knowledge, so the relationships you build remain part of your business.
Third parties can earn their fees by bringing you valuable business. But their growth strategy cannot substitute for yours. Protect your margins, invest in direct ordering and give customers reasons to return to you by name.
Know your customers. Always. You worked too hard to build a restaurant to become someone else’s fulfillment center.