With one venue you pick an ordering system on what it costs and how the ordering page looks. With multiple locations, what weighs heavier is what can differ per location, who gets the guest data, and how much work one change costs when you want it applied everywhere. None of those three shows up in a price comparison, and all three come back in the five criteria.

For a group the choice comes down to five criteria. They apply to every provider, SOUS included, and you can check all of them in a demo.

What do you ask yourself before you start comparing?

How many of your orders currently come from guests who have ordered with you before? If you don’t know, that is your first job; the vendor choice comes after. That number determines what a channel of your own earns you: with a lot of repeat orders it makes money right away, and when almost all your orders come from new guests, a platform is at this point still doing work that the commission covers.

Do you want delivery, pickup only, or both? Pickup only is a fundamentally simpler system than delivery, because delivery brings couriers, delivery zones and delivery times with it, and systems differ most on exactly those.

What has to be able to differ per location? Prices, opening hours, menu, delivery zone. Put that on paper before you request a demo, so you can use that half hour to check whether the system handles it.

The five criteria that make the difference for a group

1. What can differ per location, and what do you set once centrally?

Why this matters: this criterion determines how much manual work every change costs you once you have five locations. If every price change has to be done by hand five times, you pay the difference back in hours.

What to look for: a shared base with exceptions per location. One menu as the starting point, and on top of that your own prices, opening hours and availability per location.

Warning sign: a vendor who presents “every location gets its own account” as the solution. That is five separate systems with one invoice.

2. Who gets the guest data?

Why this matters: this decides whether you can bring a guest back yourself, or whether you have to wait and see if they come by again. With delivery platforms the name, email address and order history stay with the platform, so you cannot send anything to a guest who has ordered the same thing four times.

What to look for: that the data from direct orders lands with you, that it can be exported, and that you can look at it across locations.

Warning sign: data that stays in their dashboard, with no way to export it. You are then effectively renting your own customer list from your vendor.

3. What does an order cost you in total?

Why this matters: a low monthly fee with a percentage per order gets expensive as soon as your volume rises. A higher monthly fee without commission gets cheaper per order.

What to look for: the total cost on your own numbers. Take your real orders per month and your average order value, and put the subscription, the commission and the transaction costs side by side. With SOUS Commerce Launch and Grow the commission on direct orders is 0% and you only pay the transaction costs of the payment itself.

Warning sign: a percentage that “depends on your volume” with no rate on paper.

4. How do guests end up on your own ordering page?

Why this matters: an ordering system brings in no orders when nobody finds the page. A platform arrives with its own visitors, while you have to get people to your own ordering page.

What to look for: whether the details of every location are correct on Google, Maps and in what ChatGPT says about you, and whether the system does something about that or leaves it to you. SOUS Spotlight distributes listings per location to 45-plus platforms and search engines.

Warning sign: a vendor who says visibility is “not their job”. Then it is your job, and you have to free up time or budget for it.

5. What happens when you stop?

Why this matters: you are not choosing for good, and what you can take with you when you leave determines how much freedom you keep.

What to look for: can you export your menu, your guest data and your order history, and how long does the contract run per location?

Warning sign: a contract term per location that ties you down for years again with every new opening.

The questions you ask a vendor

A demo in which the vendor picks the route turns into a presentation. With these six questions you decide what gets shown in the system.

1. Show me how I change one price for three of my five locations. Ask them to do it in the system while you watch.

2. Which guest data do I get, and can I export it? Ask for a sample file.

3. What do I pay in total on 800 orders a month at an average of €40? Transaction costs included.

4. What happens when a location closes temporarily or gets different opening hours?

5. What does this system do when a guest has ordered before? Their answer tells you whether it really does something with retention or only passes orders through.

6. What goes wrong for customers who switch to your system, and what do you do about it? A vendor without a concrete answer here has no experience with switchers, or is not telling you.

Mistakes that get made often

Choosing on the ordering page. That is what you see in a demo, and on that point providers sit close together. What is behind it determines what the system does for you.

Comparing on monthly price without counting the commission. At a few hundred orders a month, the difference between 0% and 14% is bigger than the entire subscription.

Forgetting about visibility. An ordering page of your own that nobody visits brings in nothing, and you only notice that after two months.

Switching everything at once. Start with one location and keep the platform running alongside it, then roll out once that first one is solid.

When is the right moment?

The moment to switch depends mostly on how many of your orders are repeat orders.

When almost every order comes from a guest you would never have found without a platform, that platform is at this point doing work that the commission covers. As soon as the share of repeat orders grows, that tips over: you are then paying a percentage on guests you already have. So measure first how many of your orders are returning, per location, and choose your system for the situation you will be in a year from now.

For a group that tipping point arrives sooner than for one venue, because the percentage and the double work both scale with every location. That is the point where an own ordering channel through SOUS Commerce brings in more than it costs.

Frequently asked questions

At how many locations does managing each location separately start to matter?

From two, because every change becomes double work from that moment. At five or more locations this criterion weighs the heaviest of all.

Can I use an ordering system alongside a delivery platform?

Yes, and for most venues that is also the most sensible route. The platform brings in new guests and your own channel catches the repeat orders.

Do I need a new website?

No. SOUS Commerce works with your existing website, or stands next to it as a separate ordering page that is linked from your own channels.

How long does setting it up take?

That varies per venue and depends mostly on how complete your menu and your listings already are. Brut172 went live nationwide in one day.

What if I already have an ordering system?

Then the question is what you expect from it on top of that. Passing orders through is something every system does; the difference is that you know who ordered and can reach that guest again.