In the competitive landscape of catering and grocery businesses, efficiency is paramount.
This feature article delves into practical solutions tailored to caterers and grocers to streamline operations and improve overall performance.
In an industry where time is money and precision is key, we explore tools and strategies to help you excel ⎯ . Let's get to business:
First, let's understand the way the configuration of this new feature works.
To find the configuration for your stores, you must first activate the Catering Delivery and Pickup feature; it's done inside Settings > Basic Settings > Order Type Settings.
Once these are active, you'll see the settings inside your Store under the Preorders and load times.
VERY IMPORTANT FOR THIS TO WORK
Make sure to active the menu you want to set as catering.
Explanation one by one:
Catering Delivery & Pickup settings.
Pre-order time: This is the minimum time the customer has to place the order in the future from the present time. This advance notice allows the business to prepare and organize the order effectively.
Lead times per order type: This is the time for the next order to be placed by the lead. For example, if it's set as 30 mins, the next available time for the order is current time + 30 mins.
Slot times: With this, you create the slots separated by the minutes you configure and also combine the time range, for example, if the time range is 30 mins and the slot interval is 15 mins. Then the options would be 9:00 - 9:30, 9:15 - 9:45, 9:30 - 10:00, etc.
Time Range: This sets the length of the slots; if this is set as 60 minutes, the slots are from the opening time 1 hour each, for example, 9:00 - 10:00 - 11:00, and so on.
Minimum days to preorder per order type: You can set how many days to give your customers before they can place a pre-order to your store; if you set 4 days from the day in the course, the system will allow them to place the order in 4 days.
Maximum days: Configure how many days in the future customers can order from your catering options; if it is set as 15 days, they can place an order a maximum of 15 days ahead.
Now that everything is explained here, you can continue with a real example of a catering store.
Selecting the catering delivery type
As you can see, both catering types are listed.
Stores available
The stores that are available according to the customer search will show; please select one.
View catering products available.
Select any of the events available in the stores; this layout can change according to your business from the ordering dashboard.
View product details
As a superadmin, you can add as many images as needed for your item to encourage the customers to order them.
View product options.
Ensure you configure your catering options so the customers see what you are offering and pick the right options.
Checkout, review, and place order.
Here, you can see the preorder availability according to what's configured in your backend; as you can see, it's made with 30-minute slots, and for days in the future, if the time and day are not available, it'll show unavailability for customers to place the order.
Order placed.
That's it. The order is now placed for the day and time requested by the user.
Backend or Administration area for this catering option.
The orders placed will show in the orders manager just like any other; the difference is the Order type. As this is a "Catering Pickup" order, now you can identify them and prepare the catering for your customers!
Make the most of the best catering tools for your online business.
Do not hesitate to contact us for any doubts.