The Cloud kitchen model has been the most preferable model for most food business owners these days. Rather than spending hefty amounts on fancy interiors and decoration in restaurants, it has become easy for them to open a cloud kitchen that requires none of these.
After this pandemic, the restaurant industry has faced a huge loss as people are now more concerned about their safety and hygiene. So, most restaurant and cafe owners are now shifting towards the cloud kitchen model. It has become feasible and an efficient option for them.
When you differentiate cloud kitchens from restaurants or cafes, there are some major factors that make the cloud kitchen a better and profitable model.
At the end of this article, you can easily decide which model is the best to start with and also how cloud kitchens stand out from a restaurant in various aspects.
1. Investment
In cloud kitchen,
Low initial investment (Renting out a big space is not required. The minimum area required is 200-300 sq ft)
Low operational cost (Minimal Staff requirement)
Designing of interior and exterior costs neglected.
Only equipment maintenance is required.
In restaurants,
High initial investment (Renting of big space is required. Minimum space required is 550-750 sqft)
High operational cost (Have to hire staff for the management of restaurant)
The design of the interior and exterior is high.
Have to spend on additional charges such as ac maintenance, security guard, etc.
2. Location
In cloud kitchen,
Can be located anywhere(backside of apartment, individual residential property)
Doesn’t require much space to set up
Can be operated from your own residence.
In restaurants,
Have to be located in a good locality/central market
Requires large space to set up
Can’t be operated from own residence
3. Staff
In cloud kitchen,
Minimal staff is required
1 or 2 chefs is enough to run the kitchen
No additional cost is required for hiring waiters, managers, etc.
In restaurants,
Having more staff is compulsory for the smooth running of the restaurant.
More chefs are required for serving people faster
Additional costs are required for hiring waiters, managers, etc.
4. Scalability
In cloud kitchen,
Can be expandedeasily
Franchises can be taken in a lower value
Can grow their kitchen at low cost
In restaurants,
Requires large investment for expansion.
Franchises of dine-in restaurants are higher
Requires proper location, planning, staff to expand
5. Multiple Brands Under The Same Roof
In cloud kitchen,
Can open multiple brands under the same roof
Do not require various kitchens to operate separately
Same chefs can prepare recipes for all the brands
In restaurants,
Can’t have multiple brands under the same roof
Requires separate kitchens to operate for multiple brands
More chefs, staffs, are required to handle the restaurant
6. Higher Profit
In cloud kitchen,
Can save on high rental costs
Can save on additional labour costs
Can save on maintenance charges, staff salaries, decoration expenses
In restaurants,
Can’t save on high rental costs
Can’t save on additional labour costs
Have to bear the expenditure of the staffs, maintenance charge, high electricity bills, etc.
This lowers the profit margin when compared with cloud kitchen
I hope this article gives clarity on how cloud kitchens and restaurants are different from each other in various aspects. These factors differentiate that the cloud kitchen model is more profitable than starting any restaurant or cafe.
Always the mindset of a businessman is to reach their customer’s demands. The first and foremost priority is customer satisfaction. You always put in your best to serve your customer the best way possible but you never know whether the customer really liked it or not. So, collecting customer feedback helps a business know the areas where it is good at and also the faults which have to be neglected or improved.
Sometimes, being a cloud kitchen owner, maybe you have served some exotic new dish to a customer, but the customer didn’t like that flavor. So, in order to know what was wrong with it, customer feedback is much necessary.
Also, taking customer feedback shows how much you care about your customer satisfaction and this can really impress your customers, they can be one of your loyal customers in the future.
Here are some advantages of collecting customer feedback –
Customer Retention
Collecting feedback from your customer eventually leads you to improve on areas where your kitchen lack behind. So, working on those faults and getting better each day would definitely raise the standards of your cloud kitchen. A customer always desires to get the best food served and if you consistently fulfill their desire, they are not going anywhere. You have earned a loyal customer for your cloud kitchen.
Customer Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction is the first priority of a cloud kitchen. So, how do you know whether the customers you are serving are happy with your service or not? This is where customer feedback helps your cloud kitchen by letting you know the customer’s experience. There is always a bond between your service and your customer which has to be constantly maintained at the top in order to satisfy your customers.
Improves Recipe
When trying out new recipes or introducing a different cuisine food, a cloud kitchen’s owner is always worried about whether the recipe will do good or not. This is completely decided by the customers. So, let them taste your new recipes and collect feedback on the same, this will help you analyze which of the recipes are working well and which one is to be improved. The opinions of customers on recipes work out very well and thus help you to sort your dishes accordingly by neglecting the ones not performing well.
Customer Experience
Providing the best customer experience has to be one of the major priorities of being a cloud kitchen owner. A happy customer will always give you more customers in return. Always focus on serving your customers in the best way possible. Customer experience can be enhanced by valuing their opinions. Customer Experience is like a first impression that lasts long and to make it the best, you are responsible. Collecting feedback would help your cloud kitchen fix the areas where it needs improvement so that the upcoming customers won’t experience the same.
These are some of the most important features of collecting feedback from your customers. Having a happy and satisfied customer is all a business owner wants at the end of the day, so start collecting customer feedback from now and be on top of your customer’s wishlist whenever they want to have good food.
Many people out there dream of starting their own cloud kitchen but step back due to low financial conditions. Not having enough revenue to invest in order to start their kitchen business shatters their dream.
This article helps you to understand where you can get funding or financial help to get started with your cloud kitchen business.
To qualify to get funded by any external means you should have –
a proper concept for your cloud kitchen
a nice location
blueprint of setting up your kitchen
confidence for various interviews and pitch decks
Online lenders
Online lending is any kind of loan that’s not directly from a traditional bank. Online lenders offer loans faster than banks. They don’t demand much collateral. And when compared with banks, online lenders’ approval rate for funding is much higher.
For Example, Lending room, Lightstream, etc.
2. Family and friends
Borrowing loan from family and friends is a lot easier than going to any traditional bank or money lender. It’s always the best option to take help from your family as they know clearly whom they are funding and what’s the status of your business.
Your family and friends may allow you to pay a bit later when your business is not doing good and also are more easily convinced than any bank or investor. They would comparatively charge a lower interest amount than banks. Always remain transparent to the one from whom you are lending money to avoid any damage to your relationship.
3. Banks
Banks are also one of the ways to get funding for your cloud kitchen business but they demand cash flow before agreeing to lend you the loan. Also, the interest rates are higher in banks when compared with other modes of lending money.
You can get a loan from the bank without cashflow, if:
A large amount of collateral is given.
A large amount of downpayment is paid.
A perfect prediction score is given.
4. Investors
Most of the time investors become shareholders. They don’t help you run your business but ask for a share in the profit gained. A real investor always gets more passionate about your business in order to scale it up high and get more returns than invested.
If an investor observes potential in your business, they are likely to invest a hefty amount in your business.
What are the requirements to get funded by an investor?
your cloud kitchen concept should be unique and different from others.
should be scalable and franchisable
should be profitable
What do investors see in the promoter before funding them?
the promoter should be good and confident in his business plan.
he should have long-term thinking to scale up his brand
I hope this article will help you with where your cloud kitchen can get funded if there is any need for financial help. If the blog is worth enough to read, then do give a thumbs up and share it with your mates. And do comment below your feedback!
Entrepreneurs these days are curious to start their own businesses and startups but are not willing to invest time in learning the entire pros and cons of that particular field.
Every industry has its own advantages and disadvantages. Before getting into any industry, one should be aware of which are the points where I can excel and the points where I can fail.
Being prepared earlier is always better than suffering later.
So, this article conveys the various reasons for cloud kitchen failure and all these are practical factors which when not practiced will definitely lead to failure of the kitchen.
a. Improper Location
Starting your cloud kitchen where your target audience is high in numbers creates a lot more possibility of your sales getting higher. But, often people search for space where rent is low no matter how far is it from their target audience.
If you are unable to serve your target audience then it is very obvious that you can’t sell more, which in turn will not make you enough profit and ultimately lead you to close your cloud kitchen.
For example, Crispy Burgers and Nexus Burgers are two cloud kitchens. Crispy Burgers have their kitchen settled in a locality where they have targeted the college students. So they have their specified targets of students. And when it comes to students, food items like burgers, pizzas, sandwiches are common interests. This is the reason it has a higher number of sales. On the other hand, there is Nexus Burgers, even though its food quality is good, they are located far from their specific audience. So, they are going low on their sales and are unable to sustain with such a low revenue.
So, location plays an important role while starting your cloud kitchen. Choose a target audience, search for commercial spaces near to them(8kms max.) and there is no compulsion that you have to set up your kitchen on the main road. It can be located 1km inside the main road as well.
b. Poor Market Research
Not selecting a unique cuisine.
You should select a cuisine based on your target audience. It should not be so common that every second shop makes it and it cannot be so rare that no one is asking for it.
For Example, Khichdi Experiment — Is a very nice concept of launching varieties of khichdi in a locality of family residencies. It is very healthy and unique for a person to choose over other junk foods. Even, for families, they can have it for lunch & dinner.
Behrouz Biriyani — Biriyani is a very common interest of the people and almost every second shop out there has Biriyani included in their menu. Still, Behrouz Biriyani has done wonders. This is because of their high budget marketing. So, until and unless you don’t have a high budget, do not choose a cuisine that already has a lot of competitors.
2. Not targeting any specific audience.
You can’t grow your cloud kitchen if your target audience is everybody. You have to be specific when it comes to choosing your audience.
For Example, Lunch box has a target audience of office employees, working professionals, etc. These audiences can directly order a meal box from them and have their lunch or dinner. This benefits both the audience and the cloud kitchen. The audience saves his time by not scrolling through many restaurants. He already has a good option of having a full meal on a budget.
c. Ineffective Setting Of The Menu
Including a lot of recipes on the menu.
Try to limit your menu to 15–20 food items initially. Be specific on what items you should include regarding your selected cuisine. More recipes = More raw materials = More chefs = More investment = More wastage
This menu has more than 40 items. It confuses the customer what to buy and this can lead the customer to not buy anything. It clearly shows that this kitchen does not have any specific audience. They have not targeted any micro-niche.
But in this menu, they have limited their items to a specific number. This helps the customer choose what they want faster and easier.
d. Ineffective Setting Of Price
Not setting the price according to your target audience.
For Example, If you are setting a price of 300/- for a meal box and your target audience is students and working professionals, it is not going to work. If we consider Faasos, they have rice bowls ranging from 145/- to 180/- Here, they can attract their target audience successfully.
2. Not setting a crazy offer initially to attract customers.
Introduce a crazy offer, in the beginning, to allow your customer to taste your food. Until and unless people won’t taste tour food, they are less likely to order from your kitchen. So, try to give a 1+1 offer, Dessert free with above 200/- cart price, etc
e. Lack of standardization
Standardize the quality of the food you are serving.
For Example, Story of Yumist — Gurugram-based food-tech startup Yumist has shut down its operations. The company had raised $1 Mn in February 2015. But, failing to standardize their quality of food made them a failed cloud kitchen.
2. Standardize portion size.
You have to train your chef in such a way that the portion of food he serves to the customer remains the same throughout. You can’t serve different portions all the time. You can lose customers if this happens.
3. Standardize operation procedure
Your kitchen should be “System and process-oriented”. This helps to stay consistent and a smooth running of the kitchen.
f. Customer Interaction
Not taking customer’s feedback.
Send pamphlets with your food parcels asking them about the taste and quality of food. Ask them to give their review on google, your website, etc. If you have data of customers, call and ask them to give feedback.
For Example, Consider Dominos, they ask you for your feedback via text message.
2. Not interacting with customers through WhatsApp and SMS.
For Example, Burger King, Dominos, KFC, all these brands interact with their customers by sending text messages of various offers, deals, etc to make them direct orders from their kitchen.
3. Not having a social media presence.
For Example, Marky Momos have a very strong social media presence. This can help you bring in more orders. People always judge you on the basis of your social media feeds, so update each and every offers and deals on your social media pages.
g. Depending On A Single Source Of Income
Not having your own website/app for direct orders.
Relying on Zomato and Swiggy for sales won’t work. You should have your own website for accepting direct orders and in this way, you can even collect customer information which can help you later to reach out for direct orders.
2. Only having customers from food aggravators
You can distribute pamphlets of your kitchen in the locality of your target audience. This can help you get more direct customers.
h. Poor Marketing
To get more orders, to increase sales, to get known by more people, you have to invest in marketing.
Not marketing on social media platforms
For Example, Faasos is a big player when it comes to digital marketing. In social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, keep on posting ad campaigns because they know people these days spend most of their time using social media apps and they can convert them by showcasing their offers, foods, smart quotes, etc.
Cloud kitchen business models are mostly reliant on third-party food delivering partners. Zomato is one of the oldest and best third-party food delivery partners across India.
Zomato was founded by Pankaj Chaddah and Deepinder Goyal in 2008. It is available in 24 countries and in more than 10,000 cities. The company expanded operations internationally in several countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka, Qatar, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and South Africa.
The current stats say Zomato has nearly 27 million monthly active users. So, partnering with such a food aggregator would help your brand get proper recognition as well as it can reach out to more people.
There are several ways on how you can promote your cloud kitchen in Zomato. Firstly, the food aggregator provides the cloud kitchen the platform for running advertisements of their brand to be on top of the search list. And there is also an organic way that can help your cloud kitchen brand be on top.
Here are some of the hacks that can be used by cloud kitchens to promote their brand on Zomato –
Happy Hours
Analyze the data on which time more orders are being placed during the entire day. Keep that time phase as happy hour and provide exciting deals only for that period. People are always keen on having free foods so, they won’t lose this opportunity to place an order from your cloud kitchen.
Happy hours mostly includes deals such as “buy 2 pizzas get the third pizza free”.
Today’s special
Including a special dish for the day is a good hack to attract more customers to order from your cloud kitchen. Having it included in your menus on weekends would get you, new customers.
People are always curious to try out new things. So, considering this as an opportunity, your cloud kitchen can introduce special dishes on weekends and make them available for that day.
Special Deals
Provide special deals and discounts to your customers once in a while to ensure your old customers order from your cloud kitchen again and again. This would also help you attract new customers to order from you. This is one of the best ways how you can make your food taste to new customers.
Crazy discounts on first orders for new customers and fifth-order for existing customers are some kinds of special deals that you can offer to promote your cloud kitchen.
Stay consistent
Never compromise the quality of food you serve and the service you provide. Staying consistent is the difficult part when you do business. It’s always easy to be on top of your performance in the beginning, but once you be consistent with your service, you won’t lose your customers ever.
Serve the best quality food, with fast preparation time, and provide the best customer service. These qualities will make your cloud kitchen earn good ratings and reviews from customers. Once your ratings are high, your cloud kitchen would automatically be on top of the search list.
Being a cloud kitchen, there are various modes in which you can serve people. Unlike restaurants, you don’t need to handle dine-in customers instead, can work in a hassle-free environment with less staff and a definite space.
For a cloud kitchen, there are multiple ways to target your audience in various forms. These are some of them, that can be done to attract more and more customers.
1. Tie-up with Swiggy/Zomato
Tie-up with food aggregators to be recognized by the local areas. Food aggregator helps in the visibility of your kitchen.
When the kitchens are searched by users for the specific area, your kitchen gets visibility which in turn helps you bring in orders.
The food aggregator covers a 12km radius from the area it is situated.
It shows your kitchen for people near to you as well people residing within 12km from your kitchen. This helps you get more recognition.
2. Direct Order
You can always have your own website or distribute pamphlets to get direct orders. Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads can be run to grab the attention of more people. A personal delivery boy can be hired for delivering direct orders to nearby customers. Reach out to existing customers through Whatsapp and provide crazy offers to make them order directly from you.
Get reviews from your customers on your google page. (This may help you get more orders as people can judge you on basis of those compliments).
Crazy deals attract customers and make them taste your food.
3. Tiffin/Meal box
You can tie-up with corporate offices to provide them lunch/dinner tiffins. Meals can be provided to small scale factories, workshops, etc. With a minimal price tag of 99/- you can even tie-up with sports centres to provide them with healthy meals.
4. Occasion orders/Catering
You can take orders for small birthday parties, family functions. You can offer them to provide a dish free on ordering for more than 50 people. Catering can be done if you have good manpower. (Catering service for wedding functions/ceremonies can be taken)
5. Subscription
One of the best ways to have a side income flow from the kitchen. Having a subscription system for working professionals, students, help you get a fixed monthly amount. Subscription can be done weekly as well as monthly. They can have an option for a custom menu. (So that they don’t get bored of eating the same thing daily)
I hope this article will help you in understanding the multiple ways you can serve people through your cloud kitchen and help gain more customers. If the blog is worth enough to read, then do give a thumbs up and share it with your mates. And do comment below your feedback!
The new normal for the Food and Beverage Industry is the cloud kitchen model. Although they don’t have their outlets unlike restaurants, still is growing very fast. It is expected, the cloud kitchen market will reach almost USD 2.63 Billion by 2026. This revolutionary model has come to trend and is set to take over dine-in restaurant business models in the near future.
This model is chosen by many Foodpreneurs these days because of its several benefits such as low initial investment, efficient model, profitability, ease of growth, etc. Moreover, when compared with Quick Service Restaurant and Cafeteria business models, this offers a lot more customers even if they don’t have a storefront.
Here are some strategies using which you can expand your cloud kitchen business successfully –
Multi-brand model
The Cloud kitchen model provides the freedom of having multiple brands operating from a single kitchen under one roof. This helps the owner to start multiple brands with the same equipment, same staff, same rent, and serve different cuisines under different brand names.
This model helps the cloud kitchen grow faster as people won’t know that this is being prepared from a single kitchen. So, ultimately, when they start placing orders for different cuisine foods from your brands frequently, you can scale up your brands faster.
For example, Rebel Foods is the parent company for all these brands.
Single niche
Big brands always aim at their expertise. Aiming for a single niche and focussing on that completely would give results faster and help the business model stand out from the rest.
Being a cloud kitchen owner, focus on a single cuisine, may it be only wraps, tandoor items, biriyani, or pizzas. Being specific will obviously save you a lot of money on groceries and equipment as well as can grow faster in the market when compared to a cloud kitchen serving multiple cuisines. People would choose you more often because they know you are serving that single thing which you have your expertise on.
Choosing your customer
Targeting your customer base before starting a cloud kitchen is very important. If you don’t know whom you will be serving the food for, you won’t get a loyal customer base. Choosing your customer is like choosing a category of people, such as students, working professionals, families, hostels, etc.
When you have your target customer set, it is easy for you to scale your business faster. Because you already know whom you are serving your food, so you will target the locations accordingly, which in turn would save you a lot of time and money by not experimenting on serving in different locations.
Targeting customers also helps your cloud kitchen gain loyal customers who would give you frequent orders. Creating a loyal customer base should be one of the first priorities when starting your cloud kitchen. This is a great technique to grow your cloud kitchen business.
Effective Marketing
Marketing is the key factor in growing your business. Targeting the right customers, attracting new customers, everything depends on how you market your brand. If you are saving money on marketing your brand, then you won’t be able to grow your business faster because you are not reaching out to enough people. And if people don’t know your brand, why would they show interest in that.
Running effective advertisements on various social media platforms, choosing the right customers through creative content marketing, having the right website or app where people can know about you would help your customers gain trust for your brand.
These strategies are already used by big brands to grow their businesses. Start implementing these steps from now and build a reliable and successful brand of your cloud kitchen.
Be specific on whom to serve your food. Targeting a specific group can help you get more responses.
You can target small scale startups
A community of staffs from offices can be targeted
b. Serving time
Choose a specific time, when you will serve. Also, that depends upon whom you have targeted.
If office staff, then breakfast can be provided. (mostly office employees do not have time for having breakfast at home)
Also for office staff or any startup companies, lunch can be served.
c. Serving Dish
Now, what are the dishes you would be serving? Again, it depends upon the target chosen.
The menu can be designed according to the group’s interests. Providing them the clarity of what you will serve will make them respond faster.
For Example, Lunchbox from Rebels Food has targeted office staff, students, bachelors who are working from home or having online classes and are unable to prepare food.
Lunch square from Bhubaneswar (our community) has targeted office-going people, with meals, rice combos, and thali.
(https://www.instagram.com/lunch.square/)
d. Package pricing
Price your meals or thali according to whom you are serving. Also, varieties of thali with different pricing structures can be provided.
Apply pricing science while setting the price tag.
Set your price on the dishes served as well.
For Example, Veg Thali – Rs 99/-
Paneer Thali – Rs 129/-
Special Chicken Thali – Rs159/-
e. Building Trust
It is very important to build trust when it comes to B2B. Businesses will only want to opt for your service when they feel it’s safe and secure to work with you.
Place a sticker on your food package saying the Chef as well as the delivery boy’s body temperature.
Send sanitizer sachets along with the packages to aware your customers on hygiene.
Print certifications on the package of your licenses. (this shows that you are authentic)
You can record visuals of how the chef is preparing your food by following all the protocols of hygiene. Also, visuals of sanitization of the delivery van can be recorded and posted on your social media handles.
2. Ways To Approach
a. Email Id
Copy this entire code.
Paste it in the google search bar
Google will find all the email ids of HRs of several companies
You can search email ids according to your requirement by just typing their job position within the inverted commas.
Put the same city name where you are searching.
Once you get all the email ids, press ctrl-A and then ctrl-C.
Now, go to emailx.discoveryvip.com and paste it on the email extractor.
Now, click on extract.
Here’s a template of an email body which you can send by filling required details to company HRs as a proposal.
Also to follow up with them, either hire a team or you can use yesware which helps in setting up reminders to send mails again on set time and date to specific HRs.
b. LinkedIn
Approach the company’s HR and send them your proposal or convince them for a one-to-one telephonic call or zoom call.
The same email template can be used as a proposal also.
Find HR groups on LinkedIn and add yourself to them. Post your proposals inside the group.
c. Phone Call
Call HR departments of organizations and offices and aware them of the current situation along with convincing them that you can provide them a safer environment when it comes to food. Tell them that you are concerned for the staff, so you are willing to provide healthy and hygienic food.
A POS system allows your business to accept payments from customers, keep a record of sales, and food inventory. Modern POS systems are completely digital thus making it simpler for the user to perform all these activities at ease. The POS tracks all these reports and keeps them in an organized manner. Some POS systems act as credit card processors as well, they have the feature of card swipe to make a payment.
While buying a POS for your cloud kitchen, you should see whether all these features are included in it –
It should provide daily sales report
It should be able to keep a track of the inventory.
Identify inventory based on serial codes.
Keep track of customer’s purchase history.
Collect basic information about the customer.
Should track the payment history of all the orders placed.
What are the top 5 best POS systems for your Cloud Kitchen?
1. Toast POS
It provides advanced employee management and multiple ordering options. It also provides the user with payroll management and a custom kitchen communication feature. They have started a new feature after this pandemic that enables a customer to place a contactless order by using the phone.
It provides 24×7 customer support without any additional charge for a lifetime. The professional US-based support team guides you through all your problems in simple language.
Charge: $79 per month for each terminal (excluding additional hardware costs)
2. Shopkeep
It can be an option for complete contactless order processing. It is mobile-friendly and is mostly suitable for small cafes and cloud kitchens. It provides its software on a monthly subscription model.
It provides the features of daily report tracking, inventory management, and payment processing. Pricing varies from business to business depending on hardware, licenses, and specific demands.
Charge: Ranges from $69 — $199 per month
3. Lightspeed
Lightspeed Restaurant is arguably one of the most feature-rich POS systems on the market. Lightspeed offers unique events to push certain items or reward hard-working servers. It allows the user to place an order from their mobile to the kitchen from wherever they want.
Key features include menu management, food cost and inventory management, purchase order support, and adjustable floor plans to update the seatings. It offers detailed reports of product management, reports, and sales tracking.
Charge: $69 per month for one POS terminal
4. TouchBistro
It is an iPad POS and integrated payments solution built for restaurant and cloud kitchen owners. With its clean and attractive look, it is the most preferable POS system in the market. TouchBistro’s unique model allows you to run your entire restaurant on an iPad, even with no internet connection.
Key features include ingredient management, report tracking, and processing of multiple payment gateways. It allows the user to integrate the system with several other apps to manage inventory and staff. TouchBistro also integrates with third-party delivery services, customfloor plans, kiosk options, andtableside ordering functions.
Charge: $69.99 per month (free trial available)
5. Square
It is widely known for its mobile-friendly features along with payment processing gateways. It is one of the basic POS systems and can be purchased by someone who is just starting his cloud kitchen. It provides a sleek design and a big display making it easier to use for the user.
Key features are menu management, inventory control, table management, and discounts. You can create and customize your menus in a matter of minutes. You can manage your entire restaurant remotely if required, it provides you to track real-time sales monitoring.
Charge: There are no monthly charges to use the basic version. You’ll only pay the standard 2.6% + $0.10 transaction fee for accepting in-person payments. The plus version costs $60 per month.
A POS system helps to save a lot of time by tracking and managing several reports and processing payments. Each and every cloud kitchen, restaurant, cafe, etc should have its POS system to stay organized and reduce manpower. I hope this article will help you understand Point-of-sales systems and the various software and its features.
Most of the restaurant and cloud kitchen owners do not put their effort into retaining their existing customers. Retaining existing customers benefits you the most in several ways. They get you more customers, they order from you frequently, they help promote your brand, etc.
Always focussing on earning profits won’t make a brand grow. In order to franchise your brand, you have to make your brand big and to do so various strategic techniques are required. Retaining existing customers is one of them. Building long-term relationships with your customers will make them loyal to you.
This article includes some major points on how you can retain your old customers and help your brand grow as well as earn profits.
Loyalty Reward
As they have now become part of your loyal family, start making them feel royal. Every customer gets overwhelmed when they get specially treated by a brand they adore.
Serve them with unique dishes that are not included in the menu.
Offer them crazy deals and discounts on weekend orders.
Provide free delivery twice if they order more than 5 times in a month.
These things will encourage them to order from you frequently and they will engage and involve themselves more when it comes to your brand. Also, don’t be a stick magnet, this can irritate a customer. Be consistent to interact, this will attract them to you.
Social Media Engagement
In this digital era, there’s no better way than creating engagement with your customers through various social media platforms. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, all these platforms help you to reach your customer and make them involved in your virtual events.
Create virtual content from your kitchen like images of your dishes, videos of preparation of those dishes, videos of safety measures being taken to maintain a hygiene environment within the kitchen, new dishes announcements, weekend contests, etc. Post content frequently and mark a place in your customer’s mind. Reply to the comments of your customers, and tag their feedbacks in Instagram stories.
SMS
Customers vary from age to age. The 20th century is addicted to social media but what about 90s people? Aren’t they customers too? How will they get updates on special deals from your kitchen?
SMS is the source that can be used to reach those customers. And also they are very attentive when the notification tone rings up in their phone. So, Send all your deals, offers, event updates through SMS to them and make them be your loyal customer.
Track Feedbacks
Customer feedback should be tracked thoroughly. Feedbacks act like gold in your services. Start requesting your customer to give feedback on your food, on google, on your Instagram, and Facebook posts. Feedbacks also help in a high rating of your restaurant or cloud kitchen which in turn can attract more customers.
Feedbacks also help you to improve your services where the customers think you lag behind. Listening to your customer should be your biggest part of being an owner of a brand. You can make them fill a form digitally through SMS asking for feedback.
Customer Service
Treating and serving your customers with utmost happiness will lead you to their hearts. Food is something that either makes a person happy or turns him off. So, serving the best quality food with proper hygiene and manners would impress a customer to a high extent.
Serving food fast with less waiting duration, and responding politely to all of their feedback results in customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction means the best service is provided to the customer.
While it is important to acquire new customers too, retaining your current customers is an easy and smart option. Try focussing more on your existing customer, they will give you new customers regularly. I hope this article will help you with how you can make your existing customers order from you again and again.
Social media marketing has become one of the best marketing techniques in this digital generation. Social media platforms have become the hangout place for 90% of the people, no matter which age group you want to target, which locality you want to target, which gender you want to target, everything is possible through social media marketing.
Using social media helps you build brand awareness, increase your customer base, and connect with current customers. It allows you to target your specific audience and grab their attention towards your service. It helps your brand to reach millions of customers worldwide.
Being a cloud kitchen owner, you have to be very creative while designing your feed. It showcases your brand value. You have to be authentic about visual posts, stories, writing captions, using proper hashtags, etc.
Here are some 2021 trendy social media marketing tips to boost your cloud kitchen sales –
Interactive –
Your brand’s presence will grow only when you start interacting with your audience through several contests, posts, stories, etc. Do QnA rounds on weekends to know what are dishes your customers like from your cloud kitchen, organize online contests on special occasions and reward your customers.
When you interact with your customers, it makes the bond familiar and helps you to make them order from you again and again. Post creative content on your social media pages wishing your customers on special occasions.
Description Of The Social Media Page –
Only opening the social media pages of your cloud kitchen brand on various social media platforms is not enough. The customer’s first priority is to know who are you and your description should be such that it grabs the attention of your customer and would definitely make them order from your cloud kitchen. Keep it simple yet informative. Long descriptions turn off the customer.
Considering the example of Faasos, it is so clear and to the point. First, two lines say what it sells, next comes the current discount it is providing, third is the link of its website from where the customer can order.
Facebook and Google Ads –
Facebook Ads is one of the best ways to target your specific audience. More than 2 billion people use this social media platform. It provides you the freedom of choosing the age group, gender, locality so that you can only run the ads on a specific targeted audience.
Google Ads is also a good marketing technique when you want to showcase your cloud kitchen to a large audience. Whenever you run a google ad for your cloud kitchen, it will show on the top of the search list when any of the customers is searching for a cloud kitchen using a keyword related to your brand.
Monitoring Social Media –
Many business owners only open their brand’s social media pages just to showcase their product without going through the real statistics. The main aim of being present on the social media platform is to reach out to more people through your creative content and excellent service.
Analyzing the statistics on what’s the engagement rate of your posts, is it reaching enough audience, how many impressions are being created, etc helps your brand grow on the social media platform. There are many social media tools that provide you the insights of the same.
Re-share Customer Feedback –
Encourage your audience to get involved in your posts and virtual contests. Ask them to tag your social media page and drop a review on their page. Highlight those contents in your feed to make the customer feel how much you care about their opinion.
Ask your customer to use your cloud kitchen’s hashtag to gain more attention from people. Share user-friendly content and tag them in your post.
Most people tie-up their cloud kitchen with the food aggregators in order to boost their sales up by getting visible on Zomato and Swiggy. Yes, it is true.
But do you know how to consistently be visible on the Zomato top kitchen list?
Here are some tips to increase your visibility on such platforms…
1. Advertisements
You can use the food aggregators platform to advertise your cloud kitchen.
Zomato/Swiggy showcase these kitchens at the top and recommend users to buy from them. Often when people are searching for a particular cuisine and your ad pops up fulfilling their demand would help you make a sale right away.
Try to position your ads carefully by taking the help of professionals.
2. Food delivery
The faster the delivery, the higher the visibility.
Delivery time is also displayed under each kitchen to aware the customer of the duration it takes to prepare and deliver them. This also helps in increasing the possibility for a kitchen to stay on top as people always like to buy from them who delivers them in less time.
3. Discounts/Schemes
Offer special discounts on weekends to rank higher.
Discounts such as 30% off on orders above 299/- or claim your free dish on a cart price of 350/- These kinds of offers attracts a customer to buy from your kitchen and at the same time you can benefit by selling more to a customer as well as being top in the listing on Swiggy/Zomato.
Also apart from special deals and discounts, you can participate in various schemes which are introduced from these platforms. This can also help you stay under specific scheme categories and gain more visibility.
4. Description
Sometimes a description of the food item creates a difference.
Having a good description of the food item helps the people understand what they are going to get served.
It also helps them gain clarity and trust to buy from you which in turn helps you make a sale. The more you gain orders, the more attention you will get from Zomato and Swiggy. This also helps you to increase your visibility.
5. Reviews/Ratings
By serving your customers good quality food, you can gain good ratings. The higher rating kitchens are displayed on top.
Also, reviews from customers help your kitchen to show up on top. So, try to impress your customers with good food and gain as many reviews as possible.
To get good reviews, focus on the taste of your food and the packaging of your food.
I hope this article will help you to make your kitchen visible on top of Zomato and Swiggy. If the blog is worth enough to read, then do give a thumbs up and share it with your mates. And do comment below your feedback!
In India, two well-known food aggregators are currently in the game and those are Zomato and Swiggy.
Zomato started in 2008 and from then it has marked its spot in the market. Zomato is present in over 10,000 cities across the globe with over 1.4m active restaurants on our platform. So, trusting a food delivery partner of such a kind is easy.
Zomato charges a commission of 17%-26% on all orders placed through Zomato. In order to be consistently at the top of the search, you can do advertisements on Zomato platforms.
The most important documents required to tie up with food aggregators are –
PAN card details
GST details
FSSAI license
GST number
Permanent address
Cloud kitchen owners can tie up their kitchen with Zomato by following the steps below –
Visit Zomato.com and scroll down till the end of the page. At the footer, you will find a tag called “Add a restaurant”.
After clicking on that, a form will appear asking for the basic details. Fill it up.
Once all the details have been filled in by you, click on the “Add restaurant” button.
These are some of the basic details asked by them in the form.
a) Restaurant name
b) State/City
c) Contact details
d) Owner details
e) Restaurant status
f) Type of cuisine
g) Operational timings
h) Restaurant personal credentials(website link, email id, contact details)
I) Mode of payments
5. Your kitchen listing is now completed.
6. A Zomato sales representative will contact you to verify all your documents before making your kitchen live in Zomato.
Swiggy is India’s largest and highest-valued online food ordering and delivery platform. It was started in 2014 and has been a great competitor to other food aggregators such as Zomato. Swiggy has a presence in over 500 cities, and 140,000 restaurants on its platform, and 2.1 lakh active delivery partners.
Swiggy charges a commission of 18%-23% on all orders placed through Swiggy. It also provides restaurant owners the platform to advertise their restaurant and be on top of the user’s search list.
Cloud kitchen owners can tie-up their kitchen with Swiggy by following the steps below.
Visit Swiggy.com and scroll down to the footer of the page and click on the option of “Partner with Us”.
A form will appear on the screen after clicking the option. Fill in the details appropriately.
The questions asked would be very basic. It includes –
a) Name of your restaurant/cloud kitchen
b) State
c) Pincode
d) Owner details
e) Contact details
4. Once the filling process is completed, click on the submit button.
5. Documents regarding your restaurant/cloud kitchen will be asked in the next step.
Soft copies of FSSAI, GST, and Trade license should be attached.
You would require pictures of your restaurant/cloud kitchen. Pictures of the kitchen, dining, and packaging examples should be there in jpeg format.
Additional information such as website link(if any), type of cuisine, mode of payments, restaurant details is asked to fill up.
6. Some original copies are also required to partner with Swiggy.
a) Menu
b) Cancelled cheque or passbook
c) Takeaway bill
7. A Swiggy sales representative will contact you to verify all your documents before making your kitchen live in Swiggy. Your kitchen would go live within approximately 15 days of registration.
8. After completing all these processes, a confirmation from Swiggy will be received by you. Once the confirmation is received, your kitchen is live. You can start accepting orders now!
I hope this article will help you in partnering your restaurant/cloud kitchen with food aggregators such as Zomato and Swiggy. If the blog is worth enough to read, then do give a thumbs up and share it with your mates. And do comment below your feedback!
For the past two years, if we see the records of the Food and Beverage industry, it is not that good. Restaurants, cafeterias, bakery shops, everything has come to standstill as people in this era live in this digital world where they want everything at their doorstep.
Cloud kitchen is a means of the kitchen where people do not have to visit the place to have their food. Cloud kitchens are fast becoming the go-to business model for many food businesses. They can simply order and enjoy it in their homes.
Now, which seemed better? Going to a restaurant, burning petrol, wasting time on traffic, and paying extra service tax or order from home and sit back and relax?
So, the answer to whether it is profitable in India is a definite YES!
Over the years, cloud kitchens have emerged as the popular investment choice for both established as well as new restaurateurs for opening a food business. Starting from restaurant owners, caterers, bakery shop owners, everyone is shifting their businesses to cloud kitchens.
What are the reasons that make it profitable?
a. Efficient
Can change location whenever you want
Being a ghost kitchen, none of your customers neither visits your kitchen nor see your kitchen. So, if you are having some trouble in the existing place and want to shift it to the next street, you can do that easily.
Investment is low
Investment in interiors, furniture, decorations, managers, staff, security, big space for dine-in, high-end equipment can be saved when starting a cloud kitchen.
A minimum of 180sqft to 350sqft is required to start a cloud kitchen with one chef and one assistant and no fancy interiors or furniture. So, the investment for starting a cloud kitchen is less.
Flexible timings
For a cloud kitchen, there’s no specific timing to be followed. Unlike restaurants, which have their time limit to get closed by 12 am, cloud kitchens can run up to 2 am late.
b. Starting of multiple brands
Under the same roof, more than one cloud kitchen brand can be operated. As none of your customers visits your kitchen, they are also not aware of two different brands serving them food from the same cloud kitchen. One highly skilled chef can prepare at least two different cuisines and each cuisine food can be considered as one brand.
For Example, Rebel foods being the parent company of Faasos, lunch box, sweet truth, etc operates all these brands from the same cloud kitchen.
c. Better profit margin
Compared to restaurants, cloud kitchens tend to earn more margin as various additional costs such as interior designing, waiters, managers, high electricity bills, is saved. As the operational cost is reduced, direct profit is earned except for the essentials.
The higher rent can be saved that is required for a restaurant to accommodate many people for the dine-in purposes.
d. Menu and pricing experimentation
Cloud kitchens can experiment with new dishes at times by introducing those items as special deals. Also, existing items can be discontinued from the menu when it is not being ordered by people.
Similarly, the pricing of certain dishes that are frequently ordered can be increased to make more margins. The less selling dishes can be priced low or can be served as combos with high-priced dishes.
e. Market opportunity
An avg person orders food online 3–4 times a week. The online food delivery industry is booming in this generation. Cloud kitchens are said to grow 5 times in these 5 years by researchers. The home delivery option has gained a lot of momentum than dine out restaurants.
Cloud kitchens have a better future as compared to restaurants, cafeterias, and bakery shops. People can start their cloud kitchens with the less initial investment and even from their homes, unlike restaurants.
I hope this article will help you in understanding the practical reasons how cloud kitchens are considered as profitable in India. If the blog is worth enough to read, then do give a thumbs up and share it with your mates. And do comment below your feedback!
Wondering to invest in cloud kitchen? But not sure whether it’s a good idea?
Let me tell you how cloud kitchens are going to grow in the next 5 years. It would take 10 mins of yours to decide whether investing in cloud kitchens in 2020 is a good idea or not.
Considering the current scenario of the food and beverage industry and specifically the online food service, cloud kitchens have taken all the attention and increased the value for the online food ordering process. It has been one of the profitable food businesses for people having low funds. It is a less risky, high-demand food business in this 2020 era.
In 2020, the pandemic has devastated many industries, including restaurants and cafes. Business owners of these sectors are now converting their restaurants into cloud kitchens. After this pandemic, people are most concerned about safety and hygiene. Cloud kitchen offers them their desired food on their doorsteps.
Also, in this advanced technological generation, people like everything to be on their doorstep without them putting any effort. So, investing in a cloud kitchen can be a great option during this time.
Some best reasons to invest in a cloud kitchen in 2020 –
Low Investment
Unlike restaurants, you don’t require a large space or fancy locality to open your cloud kitchen. It can be opened even on the backside of your apartment or a small space near your garage. Cloud kitchen has virtual customers whom they serve via online food delivering service or food aggregators. So, no need to have attractive interiors with shiny furniture. Cloud kitchens only require a skilled chef and a manager. As dine-in services are not there, so no need to hire staff for food serving purposes.
Cloud kitchen can save up to 50% of the revenue one needs to open a restaurant or cafe.
Safer Environment
After this pandemic, hygiene and safety are one’s most priority. Providing your customers a safer environment by running a cloud kitchen is easier than running a restaurant. Having fewer people in the kitchen makes the contact between each other minimal thus making the environment safe. This benefits both the staff and the customer from being in the possibility of any health hazard.
Scalable
Cloud kitchen offers you the freedom of running multiple brands from a single kitchen. In this case, you can easily scale your chains of brands. You don’t need to buy separate places to operate for different brands by paying hefty rental amounts, instead you can operate all your brands from a single location, single kitchen, and same staff saving a huge amount of money.
Also, opening multiple brand outlets in various states and cities is easy because the investment will be the same as in the beginning.
Trust
People these days are trusting the cloud kitchen models more than restaurants and cafes. Whether it is a restaurant owner having more than 10 years of experience or a beginner who wants to start a business in the food and beverage industry, the first option for them has become the Cloud kitchen model for its several benefits.
This model offers easy operation, low expenses, and more efficiency. People trust this model because it assures the ROI faster than setting up any restaurant or cafe.
Profitable
While running a cloud kitchen, your costs get reduced to half when compared with running a restaurant or cafe. Low rent, fewer employees, low utility bills, and customer satisfaction make this a profitable model.
These days, cloud kitchen is an on-demand business and if you build your brand properly, it can be franchisable. Franchises can make you earn good profits.
If you are thinking of investing in a cloud kitchen in 2020, I would say this is one of the wisest decisions you have taken. Researchers say cloud kitchens will grow 5 times in the coming 5 years, so make your decision faster before any delays. I hope you liked the article and would start investing in cloud kitchens soon.
