Your own ordering website or the delivery apps? The sums for an NZ shop

If a delivery app sends you a statement every week, you probably know the feeling: the orders look healthy and the payout looks smaller than it should. Sooner or later most owners ask whether they should take orders on their own website instead.

The honest answer is a sum, not a slogan, and you can do it with your own statement and a calculator in about ten minutes. This guide walks through it for a New Zealand takeaway, butcher, bakery, café or restaurant. Every number in the worked example is made up to show the method, so swap in your own as you go.

What the commission actually costs you

Marketplace apps charge a commission on each order, usually a percentage of the order value. The rate depends on the app, your agreement, and often on whether the order is delivered or picked up. Don’t go by what you remember signing. Pull up your latest statement and find the rate that is actually being taken.

Then work out what one typical order costs you:

1. Your average order value. Your statement or your till will tell you. For the example, say $40.
2. Your commission rate. If your app commission is somewhere around 25% to 30%, that is $10 to $12 of a $40 order.
3. Any other fees. Some statements add charges for promotions, marketing or payment on top of the commission. Add them in; they are part of what the order costs you.

Multiply that per-order figure by your monthly app orders and you have the headline number. It is often bigger than people expect. It is the right place to start, but it is not yet your saving, because your own site has costs too.

What your own ordering site costs

There are three kinds of cost, and it helps to keep them apart.

• A one-off build. Someone designs the site, loads your menu, and connects ordering and payments. Prices vary a lot between builders. As one reference point, Salix’s ordering package, The Counter, starts from $7,500 NZD, and a quote can come in above that once your menu and workflow are scoped.
• A fixed monthly fee. Hosting, backups, security updates and keeping payments working. At Salix that is $95 a month, required while the site is hosted with us, with an optional care retainer from $250 a month if you want changes made for you. Other providers set this up differently. What matters is that it is a fixed figure, not a cut of every order.
• Card processing. When a customer pays online, the card processor takes a fee on the transaction. You already pay fees like this whenever someone taps a card at the counter, so it is not a new kind of cost, but it does come off every order you move. Check your processor’s rate and put it in the sum.

Add your domain name renewal as well. It is small, but it is real.

The break-even sum, step by step

The key idea: you are not replacing all your app orders. You are moving some of them, mainly the orders from people who already know you and would happily order direct if you made it easy. So the sum is about moved orders.

1. Saving per moved order = the commission and fees on that order, minus the card fee you pay on your own site.
2. Monthly saving = saving per moved order × moved orders per month.
3. What is left each month = monthly saving minus your fixed monthly fee.
4. Months to cover the build = build cost ÷ what is left each month.

Only count orders that would otherwise have gone through the app. A regular who used to walk in and now orders online instead saves you nothing on commission.

A worked example (illustrative numbers only)

These figures are invented to show how the sum behaves. They are not a quote, a forecast, or a promise about what your shop will save.

• Average order: $40
• Commission: 28%, so $11.20 per order
• Card fee on your own site: say $1 per order (use your processor’s real rate)
• Saving per moved order: $11.20 minus $1, so $10.20
• Fixed monthly fee: $95
• Build: $7,500

Here is how the answer changes with the number of orders you move each month:

The pattern matters more than any single figure. At a handful of moved orders a month, the fixed fee eats almost the whole saving and the build never pays for itself. At three or more a day, it starts to look very different. Once the build is covered, what is left each month stays with you. Run the sum with your own statement before you talk to anyone who sells websites, including us.

What the apps do that your own site does not

None of this makes the apps the enemy. They do two things your own website mostly cannot.

• They bring you new customers. People scrolling for dinner who have never heard of you. Your own site won’t appear in an app’s list of nearby food.
• They bring drivers. Unless you run your own delivery, with the staff, cars and insurance that involves, your own site is for pickup and click and collect.

Your own site mostly serves people who already know your name. So for many shops the honest answer is both: keep the apps for discovery and delivery, and move your regulars to your own ordering for pickup.

How to move your regulars across

The customers worth moving are the ones who already come back. Make ordering direct the easy option:

• A card in the bag. “Order direct for pickup next time”, with your web address and a QR code. Check that your app agreement doesn’t restrict what goes in the bag first.
• A QR code on the counter. By the till, on the menu board, and in the window.
• Your Google Business Profile. Where Google offers an order link for your type of business, point it at your own site, so people searching your name land on your ordering rather than an app’s.
• A small reason to switch. A stamp card or a discount code for direct orders costs you far less than the commission on the same order.

When your own site is not worth it yet

Sometimes the right answer is “not yet”, and it is better to know that before you spend money.

• Your app volume is low. If only a few app orders come in each week, the monthly fee can swallow most of the saving, as the first row of the table shows.
• Your app orders are mostly strangers wanting delivery. If few of them are regulars who could pick up, there is not much to move.
• The kitchen is already at capacity. Another order channel at peak time is a problem, not a win, until the workflow can take it.
• You don’t have a website at all yet. A simple site that gets you found, with your hours, menu and location, may be the better first step. Ordering can come later.

Where to go from here

If the sum works for your shop, Salix builds ordering sites for independent shops in your own name: customers pick a pickup time that fits your opening hours, pay by card into your own Stripe account, and the order lands on your kitchen screen. Istanbul Halal Meats and Kofte Kofte are two we have built. The shops page has the packages, prices and the questions owners usually ask. If you are not sure the numbers stack up, send us your rough figures and we will tell you straight, even if the answer is to stay on the apps for now.