Options for cafes and restaurants to take orders online in New Zealand

Recently there have been a huge influx of new services offering to smooth the way to New Zealand cafes and restaurants who need to star taking online orders. Uber Eats is a well known option but many don’t really need the delivery part of the equation and balk at their high transaction cost. On the other hand new players, hungry for customers, tend to have very competitive offers.

To help owners with their search I have compiled the following list:

Business Notes
chippy.co.nz 5% transaction fee. Simple, clean.
regulrapp.com $29 per month + 2.9% transaction fee. Customers need to install an app to place an order. The reviews on Google Play are not good but they were caused by the opening day rush and have been resolved.
ezq.nz 1% transaction fee + credit card fee, probably 2.9%. Super simple.
synapscommerce.com Free, if you don’t use the online payments functionality. Roughly 5% if you do. Many third party integrations. Has many many options, probably more suited to larger organisations.
heylocal.co.nz 7% transaction fee + 2.9% credit card fee. A bit opaque, it was hard to get a feel for the offering from the publicly available information.
swiftly.nz Free, but online payment functionality that is ‘coming next week’ won’t be free. Nice and simple.
mnyou.co.nz No pricing information available. Customers need to install an app but they seem to have quite a few Auckland businesses on board so customers in Auckland might install it. One review on the app store, and not a good one.
ordrin.co.nz $59 per month, 0% transaction fee. Great integration with Facebook or your existing web site.
onthegoapp.co.nz 8% transaction fee. Customers need to install an app. However this is a slick, mature platform that has been around for a few of years so it supports the whole pipeline & the kinks have probably been ironed out. Not great reviews.
flamingofood.co.nz Delivery by scooter! 25% commission. Quite a few customers in major cities will have the app already. Ok app reviews.
fudo.co.nz Nice simple UX. 8% transaction fee.
delivereasy.co.nz An established marketplace & delivery service in every major city. $8 delivery fee.

These are all New Zealand companies because I have assumed you need a partner who understands the local rapidly changing Covid situation and who will be able to answer the phone in our timezone when things to sideways.

Warnings

  • Most of these are very early stage startups so might be slow during peak times and there could be missing features. You will need to check the entire ordering process very carefully to make sure it fits your business.
  • If they want to survive they will need to respond very quickly to problems so if you don’t feel that responsiveness, move on.
  • Some of these are trying to be marketplaces, where people can browse offerings from multiple vendors, which are notoriously difficult to launch as the chicken and egg problem of having enough sellers to interest customers yet no sellers will join unless there are customers… Be conscious of the benefits and pitfalls of the marketplace business model.
  • There is no way a market the size of New Zealand can support this many startups offering the same thing. About 1/5 of these will survive, or less. Don’t sign any long term contracts and be prepared to change if they vanish.
  • Transaction fees are a simple metric that is easy to evaluate and compare but other factors (business model, usability, uptime, performance under load) are likely to be more important.

Please contact me if you have a New Zealand based service that belongs on this list or to report any inaccuracies in my notes.

Needless to say, I’m available to help any business evaluate their options in more depth, just drop me a line!

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