QR ordering or a website: which one first

QR ordering and an ordering website solve different problems. A QR code on the table helps the people already sitting in your café. A website helps people who are not in your café yet, at home, at work, deciding what to eat. Which one to start with depends almost entirely on where your orders come from today.

Start with one week of numbers

Before deciding anything, count a normal week. For each order, note one of these:

• Dine-in, ordered at the table or counter and eaten there.
• Takeaway, walked in or phoned, collected.
• Your own delivery, phoned or on WhatsApp, delivered by you.
• Zomato and Swiggy.

If your till records where each order came from, this is one report. If not, a tally on paper for seven days is enough. Then read the answer below.

When QR comes first

QR ordering at the table is the right first step if:

• Most of your money is dine-in. A café where people sit, order a second coffee and stay an hour.
• The rush is the problem. At peak, guests wait to catch someone's eye, and orders get missed or taken twice.
• You are short of floor staff, or want your staff making and serving rather than writing orders down.
• Second orders matter. A guest who can order another round from their phone orders it. One who has to wave often does not bother.

What QR needs: a code on every table that opens your menu in the browser with no app to install, staff who know an order will arrive on the kitchen screen, and a week of patience while regulars get used to it. The practical details are inQR code ordering for cafés.

When a website comes first

Your own ordering website is the right first step if:

• Delivery and takeaway are a large share of your orders, especially through Zomato and Swiggy.
• You take orders on the phone or WhatsApp today, with someone writing them down and things getting missed.
• You have regulars who order every week. They already know you and would order direct if it were as easy as the app.
• You have somewhere to put the link: an Instagram following, a Google listing people use, a bag you can put a card in.

What a website needs: the link everywhere your customers already look, a reason for the second order to come direct (it is easier, their address is saved, there is something in it for them), and the patience to measure for 90 days rather than one weekend. What the platforms take from each order, and so what each moved order is worth, is inwhat Zomato and Swiggy really take.

What neither one needs

Neither needs new hardware. QR ordering needs printed codes on the tables and a screen in the kitchen you probably already have: a tablet, a laptop or the counter computer. A website needs nothing in the shop at all. Neither needs your customers to install anything, and neither should take a cut of the order. If a quote for either one includes a tablet you have to buy, a per-order fee, or an app your guests must download, ask why before you sign.

Two common mistakes

Starting with an app. Nobody installs an app for a first order. An app makes sense once you have regulars asking for it. Before that, a website does the same job with nothing to download, and tells you who comes back.

Putting a QR on the table and a website in the bio, then never checking. Both work slowly, through habit. Set a number to check at 30, 60 and 90 days, or you will judge them on the first weekend, which tells you nothing.

What to measure

• QR: the share of dine-in orders placed by QR, the average order value of QR orders against counter orders, and how many tables order a second time.
• Website: orders a week, how many come from repeat customers, and how many of those customers used to order through an aggregator.
• Both: the number of customers you can now name. That number is the one that grows the business.

When to do both

A café-restaurant with a busy floor and a delivery business does not have to choose. One menu behind both means one set of prices, one kitchen screen and one customer record. Someone who ordered at home on Tuesday and at the table on Saturday is the same customer, with one history. If you are doing both, start them on the same day rather than one after the other, so your staff learn one new way of working, not two.

What it costs with Retova

QR ordering and your own ordering websiteare ₹899 a month each on Essential, and ₹1,399 on Pro, which adds rewards, coupons, reviews and stock. Both together are ₹1,399 on Essential and ₹2,199 on Pro. There is no commission on any order, and payments go to your own UPI. Every price is on thepricing page.