Not All Food Ordering Systems Work the Way I Like
Can I be honest with you? I'm from California and I don't like Avocados. If you know me, you also know I'm not much for salads or vegetables. But I love Bacon. So when I go to order a BLT, I really want a BMT (bacon, mayonnaise and tomato). And when I want a BMT but the only BLT comes with an Avocado, there's only one wish I have. That the food ordering system I'm using (Uber Eats, etc.) allows me to adjust the order (and not just enter a note).
Some restaurants on Uber Eats give me full control. Others make me write notes. And about 75% of the time that I put in a note, it gets ignored.
Can You Build a Food Ordering System on WooCommerce?
So being a WooCommerce guy, the thing I looked into, right when the pandemic started, was how easy it would be to build these kinds of food ordering systems on WooCommerce.
If you know WooCommerce then you know that it can do just about anything. But its flexibility is not only its greatest strength. It's also where the biggest challenges come in.
I played with variations, composite products, product bundles and chained products. After all, when I order a sandwich, I want a side.
But I also want to be able to charge for some sides. This becomes one of those, “sure you can do it, but…”
It wasn't that you couldn't do it. It was that no person running a restaurant would know or want to configure it in WooCommerce.
Check Out This Video
When it comes to food ordering on WooCommerce, this is exactly what I want. A simple way to show me a sandwich, a set of options for sides (including some that have an extra fee), a question about whether or not I want a pickle (which I never do), and lastly, the ability to remove items from my sandwich to make it truly my own.
And this is not only running on WooCommerce, but it doesn't require tons of extra plugins or tons of extra setup.
I built this sample in 7 minutes. Most of that time was typing. And the beautiful thing is that once you type options once, you may not have to do it again. Imagine those sides are the same for every sandwich. You only type it once.
Introducing Orderable
I did the above with a new WooCommerce extension called Orderable.
Orderable is today's best option for building a menu and food ordering system for online restaurants.
- It makes ordering really easy
- It's a mobile-first solution
- You can support pickup and delivery windows
- Product add-ons (like I showed you above) are fast and easy
No Fees Per Order
Best of all, Orderable doesn't charge you a percentage of the ticket. So folks building an online food ordering system pay a single fee (currently discounted) and then don't pay anything regardless of how many orders they handle.
Check it out, I think you'll dig it!