Picture this. It’s a Friday night, you’re absolutely exhausted and have zero desire to rummage through your fridge and attempt to rustle up something decent to eat. Your favourite local restaurant is closed due to lockdown restrictions. You don’t even have any baked beans in the cupboard to make a speedy plate of beans on toast. So you make a snap decision: you’ll order something from a delivery app on your phone.

Sound familiar? Even if this isn’t your personal reality, it’s the reality of many Brits who have found themselves becoming users of food delivery apps—over 24.8 million Brits to be exact, as of 2020.

For a restaurant, tapping in (pun intended) to the app-loving demographic could mean big business. Whilst pandemic-induced temporary closures explain why so many people have become converted to ordering takeaways in the last year, don’t assume that these users are going to give up their beloved delivery apps as soon as restaurants are able to open up their doors again from the 12th of April. When 1000 people were asked whether or not their food delivery habits were likely to change as a result of the pandemic, the majority of people believed that they would be spending the same amount of money on takeaways regardless, so this new way of dining is certainly here to stay.

As well as targeting the huge number of people who are already happily using delivery apps, setting one up can lead to a boost in your restaurant’s orders due to the psychological impact that a successful app can have on a customer’s spending habits. Every small aspect of an app can influence whether or not a customer decides to part ways with their precious money, right down to things as fundamental as the colour scheme—if you’re looking to make people hungry, go with colours that they subconsciously associate with food, like red, green or yellow. It’s a given that apps need to be well designed; if an app is clunky or hard to use, a user is unlikely to click on it again, and will most likely delete it. MyEPOS Order lets you set up a high-quality delivery app with ease, so you can focus on the important stuff—the content—rather than worrying about the user interface.

Appearances aside, there are many reasons why customers tend to spend more when using an app to order food. Viewing a restaurant’s full menu in an app means you’re more likely to make a large order, because you can browse the options at your leisure as well as keep adding to your order without having to memorise it to recite to a waiter. Many people who order takeaways over the phone will have a regular order, which they may not ever deviate from, but seeing the entirety of a menu will encourage them to branch out and try something new that they otherwise wouldn’t have. This is where pictures and descriptions come in too: if a customer can see the name of a dish but doesn’t have the faintest idea what it is, they’ll probably steer clear of it. But if the name of the dish is accompanied by an appetising picture and description, they just might be tempted. Apps also give restaurants a great chance to upsell dishes, as a customer is far more likely to thoughtlessly click on a button to add extras to their meal on an app than they are to vocally request extras when ordering in person or over the phone.

But what if you’ve already got a perfectly effective website where customers can place their orders? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but in 2021 a desktop site just won’t cut it for food deliveries. Mobile internet usage is consistently rising, whilst desktop internet usage continues to fall. Data recorded in 2020 shows that mobile devices now account for 50.88% of all internet traffic, which is a monumental rise compared to 2010, when desktop computers still accounted for 97% of global web traffic. Not only do people spend more time on their phones, but this results in them spending more money too. The chief marketing officer of US delivery app Eat24 has described how there is more revenue from app users than desktop users, and app users also place orders more frequently. It’s clear to see that food delivery apps are the way forward, and there is new prime real estate for your restaurant: a coveted spot on the phone screens of potential customers.