Would you like to take orders on your restaurant’s website? Did you know that Square Online has an online ordering system built for restaurants, with menu syncing, curbside pickup, delivery and order tracking?
With Square Online, you can take orders through your website, with no monthly fees or commissions. You can create an online ordering page featuring your menu items that is fully built for mobile and includes fast and secure checkout, including Square Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay. Your customers can choose to place orders for curbside pickup or delivery. Delivery can be fulfilled via your own staff or on-demand via DoorDash or Postmates without paying marketplace commissions. Online orders instantly display in Square’s Order Manager or restaurant point of sale system and relay to your kitchen printers so there’s no disruption to your standard order process. Square Online also offers self-serve ordering which allows restaurants to print QR codes by table to allow for customers to order and pay from their mobile device and wait for your staff to deliver orders to the table.
As a restaurant owner, you’re always looking for ways to streamline your business. Food and drink businesses saw a 189% increase in sales with Square Online. To help you, take a look at our Square Online review.
Could this be your restaurant’s next online ordering system?
What is Square Online?
This software allows you to take orders on your restaurant website with options of no or minimal monthly fees or commissions.
With Square Online, you can start taking food orders as soon as you get your information entered. What’s more, if you use any Square Point of Sale System, you can import your menu items right into Square Online. This helps you streamline your ordering in a seamless fashion.
Your ordering page is also mobile friendly and user friendly.
In addition, you can offer your customers pickup and delivery options on your website. You can also offer in-person and curbside pickup. The options are up to you. You simply have to add them.
During the pandemic, these ordering options help keep your customers and your staff safe. As you’re limiting in-person contact, self-serve ordering online not only improves safety, but it enhances ordering accuracy. Customers skip the middleman, and they are empowered because they can order on their own.
How Much Does Square Online Cost?
You can always begin with their free plan. It offers you everything you need to try out the software and start selling online. You can sign up and then choose the plan that works for your restaurant at a later time.
Their Free Plan is just that, free. You pay 2.9%, plus 30 cents per transaction. You can sell an unlimited number of items, offer pickup or delivery, and enjoy automatic inventory, item, and order sync with the Square point of Sale System. You also have access to the Instagram integration.
The next plan is the Professional Plan and costs $12/month, and you pay 2.9%, plus 30 cents per transaction. You get all the features in the free plan, plus you can publish to your own custom domain. As a bonus, you can get rid of all Square branding and ads. If you don’t have a domain, you get one for free for a year.
The Performance Plan is $26/month, and you pay 2.9%, plus 30 cents per transaction. You get all of the Professional Plan features, plus you can post customer reviews on your site and recover lost sales with abandoned cart emails.
The Premium Plan includes all of the above, you pay $52/month, and you now pay only 2.6%, plus 30 cents per transaction. The big savings here are in the processing rate.
What are the Key Features?
There are quite a few Square features that benefit restaurants. You must have a Square Online site to use these features.
- Contact free self-serve ordering: in addition to offering online ordering on your website, you can offer QR codes for in-person ordering or dining for your customers. They can place orders in your restaurant, at the table, in their parking space, at a kiosk, or from anywhere they have access to your QR code. When they use the QR code with their phone, they can place their order and pay, all from their mobile phone as the order is sent to your kitchen, seamlessly. The QR codes can be configured by table number so that your staff knows where to deliver the order. This is free for your customers and costs you the regular processing fees per payment transaction.
- On-demand delivery: You can have DoorDash or Postmates deliver orders without having to pay marketplace commissions. When your customer orders from your online ordering page for delivery, the order gets immediately sent to the delivery service and a courier will be sent to your restaurant to pick up the order. Your customer will get text messages with delivery updates. On-demand delivery only costs restaurants $1.50 per order with no marketplace commissions. The customer does pay the delivery fee (usually between $6-8), or you can choose to absorb it yourself. Your customers get text alerts from Square Online with the delivery updates.
- Pickup: This allows your customers to order and pay online and easily pick their items up from your restaurant. You can also offer curbside pickup, so customers don’t have to leave the safety and comfort of their own vehicles. They just need to reply “here” when they arrive.
- In-house delivery: You also have the option of using your own delivery team. You set the estimated delivery time and fees as well as a minimum delivery order value. Again, you can set text alerts to customers to update their order status. You pay just fifty cents to use this feature.
- Integrates with Square: Square Online will easily work with other Square offerings like loyalty, marketing, gift cards, customer directory, reporting, team management and of course Square Point Of Sale and Square for Restaurants.
A Few Extra Square Online Features
If you’re looking for a few bonus features, Square gives them to you. You can:
- Let your customers place orders to be picked up at a future date and time. This ensures you lose less orders because customers can place the order when they think about it. There isn’t a time lapse that might send them to the competition.
- Offer time-based menus by updating your menus for breakfast hours, etc.
- Limit the number of orders you can accept in a specified time period. This helps you provide exceptional customer service.
- Include tipping so your staff earns something for online ordering.
- Customize your page layout, and it’s already set up specifically for restaurants.
- Allow orders at multiple locations.
- Let your customers save their payment information for fast checkout with Square Pay as well as use Apple Pay and Google Pay.
How Do You Set It Up?
You can set up your professional website with your online menu very easily and start accepting Square payments.
Simply visit this page to set up your online ordering page. After you’ve signed up, visit the Square dashboard, and click “get started for free.”
You can then choose to import your menu items and categories or begin creating them from scratch.
A quick tip: by default, the system is set to shipping. Be sure to update each item before you start accepting orders. Your choices are pickup in your restaurant or delivery. If you ship items, you also have this option.
Don’t forget if you use a third-party for delivery, you will also incur their fees in addition to your Square Online costs.
Reporting is simple in Square Online as well, and you can use the dashboard to mark orders as delivered, picked up, or shipped.
Is Square Online the Right Choice for Your Restaurant?
Square Online can simplify your life. If you use the point of sale system in your restaurant and Square Online on your restaurant’s website, you can keep track of orders and inventory seamlessly.
The setup is also quick and easy, and the costs are palatable.
For everything Square Online offers, it’s hard to beat this restaurant eCommerce system for pricing and features. It’s convenient, easy, and offers many integrations to suit your needs.
