Are Online Ordering Services Killing Your Restaurant?

The Internet has touched every part of our lives, and how we eat is no exception. Indeed, being an industry already primed for the “Uber for Everything” Era ever since Domino’s first guaranteed 30-minute delivery windows, it’s no wonder the restaurant industry has embraced the on-demand economy and the rise of online ordering apps.

Restaurateurs are scrambling to purchase technology that enables customers to order food online. Can you blame them? Three years ago, more people still ordered food by telephone than online. Now, more than half of restaurants’ takeout orders originate online. Soon, restaurants that don’t allow customers to order online will be unable to compete and—ultimately—survive.

However, in their haste to find such a solution, many a restaurateur makes a grave, and sometimes fatal, mistake. Enticed by promises of enjoying such online ordering capabilities, along with a vastly wider audience and minimal barriers to entry, they sign up to list their…