This year has been an eventful one to say the least, we witnessed a pandemic and watched it slowly bring down businesses to its knees, especially the hospitality industry. But as restaurants looked in the face of adversity, many of them saw opportunity - the chance to digitize their business. And soon, it became clear that online ordering systems weren’t optional but essential.
A fundamental part of these online ordering systems are the digital menus itself, and it is of utmost importance to carefully create them in a manner so as to maximize customer purchases or to influence their decision in a way that is more profitable for the restaurant. 

Check out these 5 easy changes you can make to your menu today to increase profitability:

1. Mark the most profitable items as recommended or favourite!

Before customers look any further, ensure your high-margin items are placed at the top or been clearly marked as recommended or favourite. There has been enough research to show that customers make up at least half their minds to order something on the basis of the recommendation, even before looking at the item itself.

2. Ensure you add item descriptions!

In a bid to stand-out from competition or to be as authentic as possible, restaurants often give items on their menu name rather unique names and often overlook the fact that customers aren’t always as well informed as they expect. If customers can’t tell from the names what they should expect, they’re going to be in two minds before ordering. Hence it is essential to add descriptions to your items, so as to enable customers to envision what they’re ordering.

3. Ensure you add item images!

It is an undeniable fact that eyes eat before the mouths do. While item descriptions help customers to only envision what they should expect, images exactly show them that! It has been proven that items with images are sold much higher than those without.

4. Order categories, and items within them strategically!

In case you have multiple item categories, or multiple items within categories, it is key to understand that the first, second and last categories or items will sell the most. Thus, place your priority - high margin categories or items - in these spots.

5. Don’t leave customers spoilt for choice!

You may think you should have everything on your menu that your customer can think of, but the truth is that most customers don’t know what they want. And, if you add too many options to the menu, you are doing more harm than good, you are only adding to the confusion of your customers. So much, that they may get overwhelmed and not order the items you would want to promote or worse they would not order at all. Apart from that, fewer menu items mean less money in inventory sitting on your shelves, less waste, less labor and overall more consistent food. Having too much on your menu can cost you a lot of money. Hence, keep an ample but a concise menu.

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What’s the best part? You can make the above changes from the Hashtag Loyalty dashboard itself. Simply check out our knowledge base to see how you can do so: https://thrivenow.myfaqprime.com/questions/business-dashboard/menu-management

Take any or all of these actions and you will see results like lowered food costs and increased sales!