Dive Brief:
- Grubhub is partnering with Deliverect, an online ordering platform that works with over 12,000 restaurants in 30 markets, to integrate orders on the third-party delivery app directly into restaurant point-of-sale-systems. The integration makes it easier for operators to sync and manage menus directly from their POS.
- Deliverect CEO Zhong Xu said in a statement that Deliverect's tools provide restaurants with insights into best-performing menu items, and can help operators reduce food waste.
- Deliverect already integrates Uber Eats, Deliveroo, DoorDash and other providers into restaurant POS systems, and raised $65 million in April after processing 30 million delivery orders.
Dive Insight:
POS integration is a simple way to achieve operational efficiencies, which are critical as restaurants juggle increased off-premise business and labor scarcity. Such integration can help restaurateurs manage delivery operations during peak times, slow periods, and unexpected surges.
In a statement, Jay Dai, owner of New Jersey-based Sumi Ramen, said the integration of Grubhub and Deliverect has reduced the restaurant's error rate to zero.
Connecting delivery apps to POS systems has become more common. Chowly and DoorDash integrated their ordering systems in 2019, for example. Meanwhile, Olo has teamed up with Caviar, Seamless, DoorDash, Uber Eats and Grubhub for POS integration. Olo's Grubhub partnership was announced in August. Toast's POS offers direct integration with DoorDash, Caviar, Grubhub, Postmates and Uber Eats.
Such partnerships streamline more than just delivery orders. DoorDash and Uber Eats also partner with payment processing solution Shift4 Payments for POS integration, for example, while Omnivore's solution, which includes menu management through a restaurant's POS, is available across the big three delivery providers. ItsaCheckmate recently began converting orders from Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub into a common format so they're consistent with in-house tickets.
Prior to such integrations, delivery orders would come through disparate tablets, which could clutter up restaurants' front counters and require employees to manually key orders into the POS. Once COVID-19 drove delivery orders up by triple digits, such haphazard arrangements became untenable.
Other restaurant functions, like payment processing and menu management, have also historically been managed through disparate technology solutions, which creates inefficiencies. Integrating such functions through a restaurant's one-stop POS can streamline restaurant management systems and free up time for staff to do other tasks — a key perk amid the industry's labor shortage.
