1. Great new clients
We’ve been pleased to welcome a whole host of companies to pre-ordering, from across the hospitality industry, both as new clients and those rolling out digital ordering further into their network of outlets. Names you’ll be familiar with include world-famous concert venue Royal Albert Hall, and beloved pasty shop Greggs, and Welsh regional team Dragons Rugby. Adding to the list are new kinds of clients like universities, such as the University of Hull and Bristol-based charity, FRANK Water, which funds safe water and sanitation projects through sales of refillable water bottles, cups and flasks as well as bottled water and other merchandise.
2. International expansion
We pride ourselves on our presence in over 10 countries and this year has seen our client base grow further around the world. In the Nordics we are now working with theatres and events venues Bergen Live, CCC Karlstad and Chateau Neuf in Norway and Scalateatern Karlstad in Sweden. Elsewhere in Europe we started work with AFAS Live in the Netherlands, Bremen Metropol Theater in Germany. We’re looking forward to further global launches in the New Year, which we’re excited about being able to share with you soon.
3. Exciting new partners:
When our clients look at implementing new digital services, they are often looking at multiple providers of specialist technology. This is why partnerships and integrations are a vital part of our business strategy in order to be able to provide the best service possible to our clients. This year we have been pleased to partner with a variety of companies across the industry, as well as implement a range of integrations. Here are just a few and many more can be found on our partner page:
1. Yoyo Wallet: Europe’s fastest growing mobile payment, loyalty and marketing platform
2. Eventopedia: Provider of global event search software, Eventopedia assists venue sales teams in connecting with event planners around the world.
3. Centegra: A provider systems to help clients maximise profits and gain control over every element of their business including EPOS, back office and reporting solutions.
4. Appearing in some great media titles
This year we’ve been pleased to see our name in print and on TV a few times. In August we talked to Forbes with our partner Yoyo about how developments in Fintech are helping UK high street retailers to grow customer footfall and why personalisation is key. In July our CEO Nick Hucker was interviewed on BBC Business Live to talk about “disrupting the disruptors” and recently the interview with our COO Matt Graywod for Business Chief Europe resulted in a lovely ten-page spread. Looking ahead to 2019, Nick has been quoted in The Caterer’s Technology Prospectus 2019 alongside the case study of our client The Shack’s successful implementation of digital ordering.
5. Continuing to disrupt Just Eat
We have been talking for a while about how we are a genuine alternative to Just Eat so it was with great pleasure that we read the Seeking Alpha blog by Karin Henide listing us as a nascent business (together with our US cousin Chownow), ich is putting a downward pressure on the Just Eat ecosystem. Find our more about the article on our blog.
6. Delving into the world of corporate caterers
November saw the successful launch of our corporate catering research in partnership with Yoyo. According to the report, 40% would visit their canteen more if the service was quicker or if they could pre-order food to collect without queuing at all. At the moment, just 17% of workplace canteens offer a pre-ordering service to customers. For more insights, download the report.
7. Investigating the restaurant industry
At a time when many food chains in the UK are struggling, there’s a divide between what consumers want from a place to eat, and what the industry thinks they want. Early this year we conducted research to get to the bottom of this divide. We also wanted to find out what benefits restaurants are getting from digital ordering. Just over half (56%) of the professional respondents, whose businesses let customers order food via a website or mobile app, are being given access to customer data by their technology supplier. Download the research to find out more.
8. Participation in London Tech Week:
During London Tech Week tens if not hundreds of events took place with visitors travelling across the country and across waters to attend. Having enjoyed a fantastic discussion on the integrations and innovations necessary for ordering success with Yoyo Wallet and Centegra, we wrote up the conversation. Click here for a full write-up and get in touch if you have an opinion on the subjects discussed.
9. Sharing our wisdom at Retail Business Technology Expo
The Retail Business Technology Expo (RBTE) was quite a show for us this year. Not only did we get the chance to meet with existing and prospective partners and clients, but we participated in a brilliantly attended panel event as part of the event’s business conference programme along with The Chesterford Group (owner of Churchill’s fish and chips), Dixons Carphone and BT. Read our blog write-up to find out why we’re looking forward to next year’s show!
10. New product features:
We have been hard at work developing our platform and have been regularly introducing new features, as part of our promise to our clients that our platform will be always future-proof. As well as our regular updates that we bring out every fortnight, we wanted to highlight a few of our favourite new developments.
a. Hotline
Hotline is an additional feature of our digital ordering platform. It enables restaurants and cafes to take orders over the phone and enter them into the same system as those taken through a proprietary mobile or web app, provided by Preoday. This ensures that the kitchen receives all orders through the same interface, wherever they have come from, along with all order analytics.
b. ClickThrough:
This innovation directly connects a food outlet’s own Preoday powered ordering technology to a third party app; customers encounter the same seamless pre-order and pay experience, whether they are using the third party, or the food operator’s own platform.
c. Driver Tipping
The facility enables customers to tip their drivers through restaurants’ mobile and online ordering services.
We have a few tricks up our sleeves for next year so watch this space!
2018 has been a good year for Preoday and we look forward to sharing more of our news with you next year
It’s not as catchy as: ‘When is a door not a door?’ (answer, when it’s a jar) but it speaks to the idea that in-car collection, and the technologies that support it, are flexible enough to bend to the needs of a business and its guests.
Delivery can be daunting to the uninitiated, and it might be tempting to sign up with a third-party ordering aggregator that offers the service, such as UberEats, but other options could suit your business and brand better. Here we present three different ‘levels’ of delivery, starting with the most basic – and cheapest method: doing it yourself.
