50% of Online Shoppers Abandon Their Cart. What’s Making Them So Flaky?

Host Barbara Castiglia talks the latest restaurant technology with Zuppler’s Founder and CEO, Shiva Srinivasan. Zuppler, an online ordering management company, serves primarily independent restaurants and some chains, focusing on ensuring the company’s brand is maintained throughout the online ordering process.

Initially, Zuppler started as a portal, similar to a Grubhub, but as more competition came into the industry, they pivoted to focusing on the customer experience by working in the background of a restaurant’s website, creating an integrated approach with a strong focus on marketing. Since more than 50% of customers abandon their cart when an ordering link takes them to a third-party website, their business model has proved lucrative by increasing revenue potential 50-60%.

“It’s really important to highlight the restaurant’s brand… it should be one single experience for the user,” Srinivasan explained. “It should not feel like they’re going to an external site or linking somewhere else.”

Srinivasan also commented on how restaurants can remain competitive online, such as featuring high-quality menu item images, utilizing data to strategically upsell, and deploying marketing campaigns. Ultimately, Srinivasan encouraged more data utilization.

While the restaurant industry was traditionally slow to adopt technology to capture this data and increase automation, COVID-19 quickly flipped that trend. During the pandemic, Zuppler was bombarded with online ordering needs since restaurants needed to pivot rapidly. Zuppler, while not prepared for the huge rush, responded gracefully with the new incoming business.

“We knew that we had to do something to help, and it was not the time to think about making money and building the business. So right off the bat, we gave 6 months free for all our restaurants to help them through the pandemic,” Srinivasan said.

Srinivasan also touched on other trending topics, such as ghost kitchens and staffing issues. He ended the talk relaying the importance of how technology, automation and integrations can contribute to a business’s success, and Zuppler has the solutions for filling those gaps.