Description
Lunchbox's Marketplace is the first of its kind; an exclusively designed Lunchbox online ordering product that allows customers to order from multiple brands and menus for delivery or pickup.
NOTE: The Marketplace feature is Web and App ready!
The Marketplace is mostly used by large restaurant and hospitality groups that are operating multiple brands, ghost kitchens, and virtual kitchen companies that are in one location.
Details
There are so many reasons to enhance the visibility of your business by taking advantage of the Marketplace Feature. Learn about the flexibility and advantages of the Marketplace by using the Marketplace Admin Dashboard Training Deck.
Benefits of Using the Marketplace Feature
Here are a number of benefits that come from implementing Marketplace to your business:
Own the End-to-End Experience: Control the entire ordering experience with your portfolio of brands from the discovery down to delivering the food.
Multiple-Unit Ordering: The Marketplace feature is the first product that creates a proprietary marketplace for your brands to service your customers!
Operational Impact: We can pull in items directly from your POS, unlike having to rely on third parties for that ability!
Convenience: Guests have the ability to toggle their favorite brands simply; this is done by selecting them before clicking Order Now on a kitchen.
Upsells and Loyalty Options: Upsells are available from multiple brands along with multi-brand loyalty options!
Omnichannel Rewards: Guests will be able to earn and redeem their loyalty across all of the multiple brands' digital ordering products.
Built For Experimentation: Launch new, experimental brands quickly and effectively across your digital products.
One Ordering Platform: Allows for a cluster of restaurant groups the opportunity to create a true virtual marketplace or virtual food hall under the umbrella of one ordering platform.
Multiple Locations, One Platform: Customers can order from multiple restaurant groups for pick up or delivery on one platform.
Marketing Options: Marketing can be done at the marketplace level to promote restaurant groups included in their portfolio.
Ghost Kitchen/Virtual Kitchen Support: Supports Ghost and Virtual kitchen concepts.
Marketplace vs Traditional Product Offerings
Here are some wins that Lunchbox's Marketplace feature has over Traditional product offerings:
Users can select a variety of different cuisine types as opposed to being limited to one menu.
The setup process applies to all of your kitchens, menus, etc. instead of having multiple delivery processes for each.
The Reporting feature for all brands lives in the Lunchbox Admin Dashboard instead of being spread across several third-party platforms.
Limitations
Packing Instructions:
Traditionally, packing instructions are created and attached to one brand group but can be presented across all menus. This was posing an issue where it looked as though utensils were showing up from a completely different brand, even if you didn’t order from there.
The only way to create packing instructions that are brand agnostic requires a new menu to be created (similar to marketplace drinks).
Limitations:
The design is flawed on Web/App and shows a circle as part of a menu option. Also shows in the list of menus based on location.
Ideal solution v1:
Be able to create utensils in a similar format to upsells
Brand / Location / Restaurant Group Hours:
How Do Hours Work?
Hours for the App and Web UI are set from the kitchen location or physical location via the Lunchbox Admin Dashboard. These changes enable the UI to change from pre-order to open but orders cannot pass through. Hours will need to be then adjusted on the Location + Restaurant Group to allow for ordering times or opening times to change (e.g., "we can allow for them to only be available at 11am, when the rest of the locations open at 8.”).
Hours for the Marketplace are visible on the Location but not via Brand in the Admin Dashboard.
Holiday Hours:
Holiday hours are not available for Marketplace locations; to close locations, we must do so manually.
Menu reordering:
Menu reordering must be done on the backend as Restaurant Groups need to be removed, then added.
Reporting:
Reporting via the Admin Dashboard is only shown on the Restaurant Group page, not on individual brands themselves. When looking at sales data, only aggregate information on the restaurant group level or location level is accessible. The dashboard for the brand itself shows up as null.
Brand Level & Item Level Prep Times:
Prep times are currently determined by the kitchen location. (e.g., a coffee and a burger appear into the POS at the same time and the customer, unfortunately, receives the same prep-time.)
POS Dependencies:
Most Ghost Kitchen / Virtual Concepts create their own POS/KDS systems versus a traditional POS. This requires virtual concepts to be connected with our cloudPOS (LunchboxPOS) to transact and process orders on their behalf via Lunchbox.
Lunchbox does not support Marketplaces with Restaurant Groups that are utilizing different POS systems.
Reordering of Menus / Icons:
Reordering of Restaurant Group menus on ordering pages cannot be done by setting priority in the Admin Dashboard and needs to be created via the Backend Engineering Team.
Menu Sync:
There are multi-location price differences on the same item, so menu sync has to be performed for all of the brands under the same Marketplace; it cannot happen once for all brands under the same Marketplace.
Item Level Promo Codes:
If you are building out item-level promo codes for Marketplace, you must pull in the GUID and Item from each of the menus of the active location for this to apply. As promos for items are still matched to menus, the item for each location but be highlighted under the discount to proceed and apply the promo.
Payouts:
Lunchbox only supports payouts to the bank account of the Marketplace Operator, who determines how much of each payout each restaurant group receives
Scan to Pay:
Scan to Pay does not work with Marketplace because the POS validates the guest account on the brand level and not on the Marketplace level where all of the guest's information resides.
FAQ
What is Marketplace?
The Marketplace is the most unique product offering for Lunchbox. It is the first-ever online ordering product that allows customers to order from multiple brands (and menus) for delivery and pick-up. Marketplace leverages both Web and/or App for this experience and is most used by large restaurant and hospitality groups operating multiple brands, or ghost kitchens and virtual kitchen companies in one location.
Why is this product beneficial to our partners?
Ghost Kitchens, Virtual Kitchens, and Restaurateurs are pouring a significant amount of time, development, and resources into operating virtual kitchens, but are not able to allow for multiple-unit ordering. This is the first product that creates a proprietary marketplace for their brands.
What's our Value Proposition?
Allows multi-brand, multi-unit brands the opportunity to create a true virtual marketplace or virtual food hall within their own brands.
Customers have the ability to order from multiple brands for pick-up and delivery on one order, not multiple carts and/ order multiple orders.
Marketing can be done through a specific brand or Restaurant Group as a whole.
Why is this beneficial operationally?
All items are pulled into the POS system; by being able to order across brands, there is a reduction in tickets and orders from multiple brands can be placed with one patron on one ticket. Unlike relying on third parties, we can pull items in directly from POS, or use our POS agnostic plan which our team can build for them.
Why is this beneficial financially?
There is a higher ticket amount likely and upsells improve the likelihood of increasing the basket size and throughput.
How does loyalty work with so many brands?
Loyalty for Marketplaces will be based on the entire cart in which all brands would participate. Once bank-based loyalty is live, customers will be able to redeem easier on a brand basis, however, each brand could participate by selecting their specific redemption reward.