Buzz
Selling snacks is a lucrative market with low initial investment and high demand, promising substantial profits. Regardless of the food item, having innovative ideas and experiences in selling food online is crucial.
Effective Strategies for Successful Online Snack Business
1. Why should you sell food online?
There are numerous business models available, but selling snacks online is preferred by many for several reasons:
- It requires minimal investment; you don't need to rent a physical space, hire staff, or deal with transportation costs. Just invest in purchasing the raw ingredients.
- If the food is delicious, high-quality, and visually appealing, customers will be drawn to you, ultimately boosting profits.
- Process orders only when customers place them, ensuring you tackle preparation and delivery on demand. This approach eliminates concerns about excess inventory.
2. What to Sell When Venturing into Online Snack Business?
When engaging in online food business, there are typically two scenarios to consider when choosing what to sell:
- Offer dishes you're confident in preparing.
- Provide snacks based on specific customer segments (such as snacks for students, snacks for office workers).
However, regardless of the type of food business you're running, you must ensure and answer the following questions:
- Food quality: Delicious, visually appealing...
- Customer service range: Within how many kilometers
- Service scale: How many orders per day
3. How to Charge Shipping Fees in Online Food Business?
* What's a reasonable shipping fee for customers?
Typically, the shipping fees borne by customers are:
- Bearing 100% of the shipping fee, depending on the region and order, the fee may vary flexibly.
- Sharing 50% of the shipping fee, with you covering the remaining 50%.
For familiar or frequent customers, you might consider assisting with the shipping fees.
* Saving on Shipping Costs
Using fast food delivery apps helps save on shipping costs.
Most customers are usually indifferent to food prices but are concerned about delivery charges. They might spend a few hundred on food but are reluctant to pay 20,000 or 30,000 for shipping; they prefer free shipping or low delivery fees. To attract and retain customers, consider the following ways to calculate affordable shipping fees:
- Utilize food delivery apps such as Ahamove, BAEMIN, Lalamove, NOW, which often offer various promotional programs, including free shipping. Take advantage of these promotions to save on shipping costs. Refer to the Experience of Selling Food on Now here.
- For individual orders, you can post on groups like 'People looking for delivery' or 'Delivery seeking individuals' to hire a delivery person. If you have numerous orders, it's advisable to hire a dedicated delivery person and pay them based on the number of orders they handle.
3. Implementing Promotional Programs in the Online Food Business
One effective way to attract more customers to your store and retain their loyalty is by running promotional programs. Additionally, this approach helps move your inventory. You can apply promotions like combos, a 20% discount on orders, and more.
* Promoting Key Products
Identify the flagship item you sell. Ideally, choose a delicious, high-quality, and standout product from your food offerings to run promotional campaigns. This will not only attract customers but also make them more aware of your flagship product.
* Run Continuous Promotions to Boost Sales
When starting a business, few customers are aware of your menu. To increase awareness and drive more orders and profits, focus on robust promotional campaigns.
Once you've established a certain customer base and your business is running smoothly, consider reducing promotional activities and concentrating them on slower days. Additionally, apart from promoting flagship items, bundle them with other products to introduce more variety to customers.
* Is it Better to Offer a Steep One-Time Discount or Regular Small Discounts?
Both of these promotion methods have their own pros and cons, and their applicability depends on your business situation. Consider different approaches based on your business circumstances.
If you want to stimulate customer orders, opt for a one-time steep discount promotion. However, be cautious, as this may overwhelm your order processing, leading to poor service, order errors, delayed deliveries, or even compromised product quality, resulting in customer loss.
To address this, accept orders within your store's service capacity. If there's a high demand, you can shift deliveries to the next day while maintaining the same promotional offer. This not only ensures excellent customer service but also retains customers.
Additionally, provide discount codes for loyal customers or host Happy Day promotions with modest discounts. This strategy will attract customers and encourage effective order placements.
* When to End a Promotion?
Consider ending a promotional program when your store:
- Operates steadily, is well-known to many customers, and retains sales even without promotions.
- Faces an overloaded business system.
4. Customer Care
Customer care effectively retains customer loyalty.
Customer care is a means to keep customers engaged with your store. Interact with your customers by:
- Inquiring about their dining experience and seeking suggestions for improvement.
- Listening and incorporating customer feedback to adjust your dishes to their tastes.
- Connecting with customers on social media platforms such as Zalo, Facebook, etc., so they are aware of your posts and can place orders.
- Facilitating returns for defective products to maintain customer loyalty.
- Ensuring swift and efficient delivery to customers.
5. Approaching Customers for Online Food Sales
Once you've identified the target audience for your food offerings, such as students, or office workers, research their needs to provide the best service. Besides using promotions, explore additional channels to reach a broader customer base.
* Reaching Customers through Online Food Platforms
In the era of Industry 4.0, the demand for online shopping has surged, leading to the emergence of quality food delivery apps. Many people, who prefer the convenience of ordering online rather than going out or cooking, turn to platforms like NOW, BAEMIN, GrabFood, where the food is delivered to their doorstep. Partnering with these apps makes it easy for you to access customers, effectively increasing orders.
* Engaging Customers through Social Media
Selling Snacks on Social Media
As people's usage of social media continues to grow, it has become an integral part of everyone's daily life. Social media is considered an effective customer outreach channel. To promote your brand, regularly offer promotions, update content on food and appealing images to engage customers.
In addition to exploring popular online snack options, it's crucial to gather insights from experiences in selling food online. This includes understanding customer behavior, implementing promotional programs, and calculating food delivery fees, as these factors determine success in the business.
Currently, there are many online food delivery apps such as GrabFood, NOW, BAEMIN, etc. You can easily partner with these platforms to sell your products online and expand your customer base. If you've recently signed up for BAEMIN and lack experience in selling on this app, refer to the article Experience of Selling Food on BAEMIN for effective usage.
