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Food Delivery Website And Business Plan Review

Posted by cheinvest on 12/7/2012 at 3:38 PM ET 250 Points

Hello,

First of all I want to thank everyone for giving such a great oportunity to business owners, marketeers etc. Great job your are doing here...

Now, I'll describe you my business a bit.
I have a small sandwich factory Romania and I focused on creating sandwiches named Panini. Italian sandwiches. Why? Because there was nobody in the market offering anything of a decent quality and because I have a passion for italian gourmet.Anyway,
I started working with business, small ones (neighbourhood shop) and big ones( oil stations ). Because I use quality ingredients for my sandwiches they do not come cheap and I did not find too many resellers from the small shops. With the other type of business things went good but I don't have the power to develop a national delivery so I had to stick to my city (2,500,000 population).

I can give a few informations maybe it can help :
- medium salary for city population is 600 eur.
- medium price of a panini for resellers is 1,2 eur.

Now, after a year of working only B2B, I decided to go further with my plan and start selling my self. My plan consists in opening small locations where I could sell what I make in the factory AND in opening a website for online ordering. I started with the less costy, which is the website.
The website is hidden under a small link to avoid linking english keywords to it. I hope it's not a problem. http://tinyurl.com/boz5oxb.

So I started it 3 days ago. I didn't do much of an opening ceremony but I hired someone to take care of the facebook and twitter account and in the same time I started to advertise it on google and facebook. I received a 300-400 clicks from facebook with 20$ and a good CTR and 100 clicks from google with 50$, very good CTR here too.

Anyway, people got online BUT I had only 6 orders in a value of around 100$.

And here is where you, the experts, could give me an advice. Why so less people tried it?

- lack of trust (i m a new presence online)
- website looks bad
- paninis look too small compared with a pizza, shaworma or a pasta and they have the feeling that they won't be satisfied ?

And in the end I have to tell you a few more statistics maybe they can help :
- medium price on a panini on the website 2,10 eur for 200 grams
- medium price of a pizza on delivery sites 300-400 grams 4-6 eur for not even comparable ingredients
- medium price of a shaworma 400-600 grams for 3-4 euros.

I hope I have created an idea about my business and I'm really waiting for some educated opinions.

Thank you very much

Posted by mgoodman on 12/7/2012 at 6:28 PM Accepted

It's very hard to know what the problem is, if there is a problem. From the information you've provided, it looks like you're getting a 1.3% conversion rate (6 conversions out of approximately 450 clicks). That may be the norm for your industry in Romania.

It also looks like you spent $70 and generated sales of $100. If you have a decent gross profit margin, that's not too bad for someone who is new at this. If you don't have a decent gross margin, then perhaps your pricing is the problem. Your prices sound to me like they might be too cheap. If your ingredients are really top quality, why would you sell your product for less per gram than the available alternatives? At 1,2 euros, you're considerably less expensive than the alternatives at 3-6 euros ... suggesting to your site visitors that either your portion size is too small, or your product isn't worth as much as the other options.

Remember that your price is what YOU think your product is worth. If you're telling people that you believe your product is only worth 1,2 euros, then they might believe you and opt for something bigger/better (and more expensive).

There are a dozen other things we might look at in the equation. These are just a couple of things to consider.
Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 12/7/2012 at 7:36 PM Accepted

If what you're selling isn't well known (and would be of interest), you need to build a following. Go to where people gather at lunchtime, and sell your products face-to-face. The ultimate goal is to build your name, to encourage people to order from your site. Also, consider contacting corporations in your region. Do they have a cafeteria? Can you supply them?
Posted by Moriarty on 12/8/2012 at 6:22 AM Accepted

Firstly 6 clicks giving you $100 is a very respectable margin.

My advice is to try and find out what those people clicked on, and find out other likes they have. Getting more of these high spending kinds is the bedrock of your business.

Do you have an email list people can sign up for to get newsletters - this will remind them of how good you were.

As to other cities, you could franchise the idea. Your website would then act as a channel for them.

M xx
Posted by carrie77 on 12/18/2012 at 9:03 AM Moderator

Hi Everyone,

I am closing this question since there hasn't been any activity in 10 days.

Thanks for participating!
Carrie (Moderator)

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