Here's How to Get More ezCater Orders

There are many ways to grow your catering business. Getting more repeat orders and new clients makes for a healthy flow of business. With ezCater, it can be easy to scale your business, get exposed to new customers, and have a steady revenue stream from the third party platform. In this blog, we will discuss how to get more ezCater orders and grow your business.

How to get more ezCater orders: Understand ezCater

Before we hop into the strategies how to get more ezCater orders, it's important you understand what ezCater really is.

ezCater isn't just an app that sends you catering orders; they are a marketplace. This is important to recognize because you are competing againts hundreds of other options. Customers can filter by cuisine type, budget, ratings and reviews, and lead times to get the option that fits them the best. In order to compete, you need to be able to fit within the majority of customers criteria while still being able to operate within your own capabilities.

Let's dive in.

1. The lower lead time the better!

If you can do a lower lead time, let's say 12 to 24 hours, then you are in good shape to get majority of orders. The lower the better! If you need 2 to 3 days advance notice of orders, then you will cut yourself off of quite a few clients. This is because people tend to order last minute, so if you can find a way to pull off those last minute, emergency orders, then you will be ahead of the pack!

2. Competitively price your menu!

This can take some work on your end, but you need to look at your competitors. You are competing against everybody listed on ezCater when a customer searches for a meal in your city.

Start with a search for your cuisine, look at the menus of the top listed competitors, and try to be somewhere with the range of what they are pricing their items at. If they are pulling it off at that price, then there might be a way for you to as well!

3. Communicate with the client

Communication is key. Touchpoints before and after a meal can go a long way to make sure their experience with you went well.

This can also lead to a great number of repeat orders in the future. I go in-depth into a practice I found that worked, and I created a guide called How to Convert Marketplace Customers to Direct Ordering and Boost Your Profits. I highly recommending checking it out as it will help you get repeat business at a lower cost.

4. Use the marketing programs in ezManage: Rewards and Preferred Partner Program

ezCater offers some marketing tools that can benefit you. The Rewards is a way to offer up more commission so that the customer gains rewards on their order. This is attractive to clients because they earn more points on an order, so they like seeing caterers taht have 5x rewards for them.

Preferred Partner Program is basically advertising. You can "bid" for higher placement by giving 2% - 20% commission. The higher you bid, the more you will appear and get orders. You also give up that much commission on top of what you already pay to ezCater.

If you aren't getting many orders, I would recommend giving more to the Rewards and the PPP. That way you can get more new clients in the door. You can always scale it back down after you have some repeat business.

5. Diversify your offerings

Every caterer prefers to do trays and family style catering. The offices, however, prefer to order boxed meals. It creates less waste and is easier on admins. If you are not offering both options, you are losing out on both sides.

Also, you should consider creating alternative menus. If you can offer another cuisine or another theme, I highly recommend creating a new concept to get listed. This can be a second listing that appears to customers and doubles your chances for orders. If you have a second listing, a customer may order you twice the amount you were being ordered before, resulting in more orders at a higher frequency.

Get more ezCater orders today!

Overall, you have options to gain more orders on ezCater. Try out some different methods, but make sure to not stretch yourself to thin. The most important thing is to provide incredible service and delicious food, and if you can do that, the orders will flow.

Cater on!