Online food delivery system has been emerged as one of the unique and most profitable online business in this digital world. This business is on its peak and expected to go further. There are many online food ordering and delivery system giants which has been emerged as billion $ companies now. These online food ordering and delivery aggregators provides platform to different restaurants to place their digital menu.

These aggregators convince restaurants to pay significant commission on each order while they engage customers by themselves. These big aggregators help restaurants to engage more customers with their platform and hence results more revenue for the restaurants. But is it really so simple?. On what extent, these aggregators are helpful or harmful for the restaurants. Let’s discuss more about it.

Customer Relation

Although, these aggregators help restaurants to engage more customers to the restaurant, but what are the nature of relationship of those customers? Are those customers really connected with the restaurant? And the answer is NO. Those customers are connected with that particular platform these aggregators are providing. Those customers are not loyal to restaurant but are loyal to the platform. They visit the platform, which is not Restaurant’s website. All order given through the platform for the restaurants are conducted by Aggregators. Customer’s details i.e. name, email, address, mobile no etc. is stored by the aggregator. So basically they are building their own customer base with the help of your kitchen.

Special offers

Customer search restaurants through the platform for particular location and they get list of restaurants as a search result. But in most of the platforms you can see special offer or discount coupons on most of the restaurants and these offers are managed by Aggregators not by the restaurants. These Aggregators adjust menu price and their commission in order to place a good-looking offer and finally credit for the offer and discount offered to customers goes to aggregators. This is a solid marketing trick used by the aggregators to engage more customers.

Misleading Restaurants profile

Most of the time, these online food delivery platforms try their best to restrict customers to engage directly with the restaurant online. This is their business and they will benefited only when the customer order something from the restaurant though the platform. So they often use tactics to mislead customers online about restaurants they host.

Search Advertising

Many times when user searches for a particular restaurant with name, they got different link to order for that particular restaurant, but when customer opens the link they failed to spot particular restaurant on that website or aggregator. This is a marketing trick used by aggregators these days. Online ordering companies are using paid search ads featuring restaurants not in the business with the platforms. Their single motto is to engage the customer with their own platform by any way. They confuse customers with restaurant names in the ad and trick customers to visit respective platform.

Reviews and Ratings

Customers order food online from the platform and leave review and rating on the platform. But are these reviews and ratings are helpful for the restaurant?. Yes of course, positive reviews and ratings on the particular platform are helpful for the restaurant to grab more orders from same platform. But individually it will not going to benefit your restaurant by any way but indirectly it is beneficial for the restaurant aggregator hosting that platform. So here also your talent, quality, services and menu will benefits others business.

So stop relying on Restaurant aggregators and host your own platform to engage more customers online. Protecting your brand online is very important to create your own identity in the market.