The popularity and cost of each item on the menu has a direct impact on how much revenue your restaurant can bring in, and on whether your patrons will enjoy their dining experiences and keep coming back.

Thankfully, modern cloud point of sale systems and cloud software have made it easier than ever to analyze which parts of your menu are profitable and which parts need work, then test how improvements affect that profitability over time.

Here’s how restaurateurs can use modern restaurant software — which often incorporates POS, inventory management, accounting, and more — to optimize menu profitability.

Analyze Food and Ingredient Costs

The first step in analyzing menu profitability is to get a firm understanding of what your restaurant is spending on food. That requires calculating your Cost of Goods Sold.

As we wrote in our post Bookkeeping 101 for Restaurateurs, CoGS refers to the costs of producing the food and drink served to your customers in a given time period.

You can calculate it by totaling the cost of your existing food inventory and the cost of any inventory purchases during the specified time period, then subtracting the cost of the inventory you have left at the end of the period.

The good news is that if you’re using a cloud-based POS for system restaurants like Touchbistro or Lightspeed Restaurant, these calculations happen automatically. Assessing them is as simple as checking your software reports.

The analytics section of your software will show how much you’ve spent on each type of food, drink, and ingredient for any given time period.

However, you should keep in mind that these costs need to be revisited regularly to account for how food products change in price throughout the year. (A highly profitable menu item in the summer might not also be profitable in the winter, for example.)

In general, at a profitable restaurant, the food costs won’t be too much more than 30% of the restaurant’s total sales. But if you want to improve that ratio, you’ll have to drill down further to analyze the profitability of each dish on the menu.

Calculate Menu Item Profitability

As we’ve mentioned, your software’s inventory features should automatically calculate how much money your restaurant spends on food inventory.

But all of the best POS programs for restaurants can also calculate the food cost for each item on your menu.

Software users can group ingredients together to create menu items, and the software program will calculate the “plate cost” or “recipe cost.”

In fact, this need is so common that some software programs exist that are dedicated specifically to recipe costing.

Calculating the full cost of a menu item may also include calculating the labor cost for that dish or drink, or adding in other ancillary costs, such as a napkin for a cocktail or the dishes for the meal. Some meals are certainly more labor-intensive than others, or demand more specialized cutlery or serving ware, and that might factor into the profitability of each dish. Many POS systems can also track these costs.

Once you have the total plate cost for each menu item, it becomes much clearer which plates are profitable and which are losing money for the restaurant.

Some POS systems, including MarketMan, will actually alert users to unprofitable menu items (instead of waiting for users to find that information themselves).

Of course, losing a little money on some of the menu items might still be a good strategic move if it brings more customers into the restaurant or paves the way for diners to spend more during their visit. For that reason, this article on the Lightspeed Restaurant blog suggests analyzing the popularity of your menu dishes, as well, and grouping dishes in the following way:

Image Source: Lightspeed Restaurant

Troubleshoot Menu Profitability

As the infographic above begins to explain, you have plenty of options when it comes to optimizing the profitability of individual menu items. Here are a few of them:

• Try adjusting the price. Slight tweaks to an item’s price, either up or down, can have a big effect on its profitability and popularity.
• Decrease food costs as much as reasonably possible without sacrificing quality. You can change the menu throughout the year to take advantage of in-season produce, for example, or make sure you’re getting the best deals from your distributors by shopping around and buying in bulk when possible.
  Reduce the portion sizes. Ask servers whether any dishes are being returned to the kitchen with food left behind. Making the meal smaller may boost profitability.
• Try grouping different products together into meals or make them part of special dining experiences. Adding a drink or a side item to the total cost of an entree or reserving certain meals for a specialty menu just might change your customers’ perceived value of what they order.
• Remove the item from the menu. If a certain dish isn’t working despite multiple tweaks, it’s time to remove the item from the menu completely.
  

As you make changes to each menu item’s price and ingredients, you can keep using your cloud POS system’s analytics tools to see whether or not the changes paid off or affected its popularity. If your restaurant has multiple locations, you can even compare menu success from one location to the next within your POS reports to see how regional differences affect the success of various types of dishes.

Once you’ve figured out which menu items are the most profitable, it’s time to promote them as much as you can on your physical menu – or digital menu or website if you’re focused on online ordering. Modern POS systems make it easy to present your dishes in a beautiful way online and just as easy for customers to check out.

Ready to Leverage the Power of a Modern POS?

Menu optimization is just one of many jobs that modern restaurant software can handle quickly and accurately.

Today’s cloud-based software is powerful, but getting it all up and running can be a very distracting task for restaurant owners. In most cases, restaurants benefit from using several types of programs (POS, accounting, marketing, HR scheduling, etc.) and integrating them together to build a comprehensive system. Getting these systems online takes careful research and onboarding time.

Today’s cloud-based software is powerful, but getting it all up and running can be a very distracting task for restaurant owners.

At Cloudscape Technologies, our Dubai-based expert staff is certified in all of the best cloud-based software on the market. By working closely with restaurant owners to understand their unique needs, we can help recommend the best comprehensive software solutions. We even help set up your accounts and offer a Care Package complete with training for new staffers and responsive support for your implementation.

To learn more, contact us at Cloudscape Technologies today.

It can take hours to finally come up with a schedule that respects everyone’s preferences and skill levels — and even then, managers have to contend with last-minute changes and cancellations from staff that can require them to completely rework the schedule.

Even when managers finally come up with a schedule that seems to satisfy employees and keep up with customers’ needs, the timesheet-related headaches don’t end. Managers have to worry about whether they’ve made any mistakes that can get them in trouble with local regulations — such as letting employees skip breaks or work too many hours.

Thankfully, cloud-based software solutions have stepped in to make staff scheduling much easier than it used to be. If your small business isn’t using staff scheduling software yet, here are a few reasons to consider it.

Better Timesheet Management (and Compliance)

You probably already know that modern scheduling apps make it simple for employees to clock in and clock out via touchscreen.

But today’s apps are much “smarter” than the passive stamping mechanisms that used to be the norm for tracking employee time. Scheduling apps can also track an employee’s locations via GPS and use facial recognition to make sure check-ins are authentic. They can also prevent early or off-schedule check-ins, and they can automatically clock staff out after a shift if necessary.

As you can imagine, all of these can save employers plenty of confusion, work, and money.

Because scheduling software apps are run by entire teams specializing in scheduling, they’re well-informed on all the latest changes to employment law and how those changes may affect scheduling requirements. These apps can enforce staff breaks, prevent early returns from breaks, and monitor schedules for things like opens, split shifts, and spread of hours that violate local regulations (or just make life difficult for employees).

Plus, managers are always notified in real-time when employees check in and out, and they can approve or edit check-ins and check-outs easily from their own devices as they happen, which tends to make reports and payroll more accurate. In fact, managers can see at a glance who’s on shift, who’s running late, and who’s on break at any given moment, which gives them insights into operations that they can’t get with manual time clocks.

Better Staff Communication and Schedule Changes

When staff scheduling happens manually, with a spreadsheet or even with an old-fashioned paper calendar stuck to a bulletin board in the breakroom, there’s lots of room for confusion and error. Employees can misread the calendar, fail to notice updates, or simply forget which hours they are expected to work.

With modern scheduling software, those problems are all but obsolete. From any internet-connected device, staffers can check their schedules remotely, request time off, and easily send each other messages about their schedules. They are immediately notified of any schedule changes and reminded of upcoming shifts.

Gone are the days when employees and managers had to scramble to find updated contact information for people who can fill in for someone missing a shift. For example, Deputy can automatically suggest shift replacements AND start contacting those potential replacements as soon as someone notifies that they’ll be missing a scheduled shift.

In many cases, employees can swap shifts on their own through the software with no need for management to get involved. Imagine what else managers could be doing with all of that saved time!

Integrated Task Management

Modern scheduling software often comes with a task management app built-in (or available as a complimentary service).

Managers can create sets of tasks for each shift, and employees can check them off as they are completed.  With this kind of technology, there’s always a record of which employees did which work. The software can even remind employees to complete certain tasks throughout their shifts.

Managers can group tasks together, create new tasks from templates, and schedule tasks to repeat at certain intervals. They may also be able to add notes or checklists to tasks, which can be helpful for training.

Dynamic views make it easy for managers to see how many tasks still need to be completed for the shift. For example, Deputy users can view all shift tasks on a handy, traffic-light-color-coded dashboard.

Easier, Quicker Scheduling

As we mentioned before, coming up with an employee schedule manually is a difficult task that used to take hours.

That’s why auto-scheduling is one of the biggest selling points of today’s cloud-based scheduling software.

Auto-schedule can factor in sales forecasts, bookings, and expected foot traffic to anticipate staffing needs. (If you have the enterprise version of Deputy, it can even use third-party data to inform how the weather or other major events will affect your staffing needs.)

Because employees’ skills and hourly pay rates are tracked in the software, the software “knows” which employees can work each shift, and can make a schedule prioritizing the lowest cost. These apps can also manage employee time-off requests, so the automated schedules will take those leave requests into account when making schedules, too.

Yet another bonus with auto-scheduling is that there’s less room for accusations of bias or favoritism when a computer is doing the heavy lifting of scheduling.

Easier Payroll

The best scheduling software on the market often integrates directly with the most popular payroll software. That means that each employee’s hours worked, including their regular hours, overtime hours, and even double overtime hours will populate directly in payroll. This makes it easier than ever for managers to cut their employees’ checks — another task that used to take hours.

Better Data and Insights

Even on their own, scheduling software can yield plenty of insights. For example, managers can easily compare their planned schedule to what actually happened (the actual timesheet hours vs. the planned hours), and dive into how much each shift costs.

However, perhaps the most powerful asset of today’s cloud-based scheduling software is its ability to connect to other cloud-based software — and yield tons of helpful insights as a result.

The most powerful asset of today’s cloud-based scheduling software is its ability to connect to other cloud-based software.

Specifically, scheduling software can integrate with POS systems and accounting software, which enables managers to couple financial data and product sales data with employee activity. This means that managers can see how all of those things are related to employees’ skills and activities, and to the staffing budget.

For example, when sales data is overlaid with staff data, you can know if you’re over-scheduling or under-scheduling. You can dive into what specific employees are selling, and how that varies per shift.

And because these machines run on the cloud and are synced up constantly, managers can access this kind of data in real-time. Even if they’re managing multiple stores or restaurant locations, they can see comprehensive data or compare locations to each other.

Starting with Scheduling Software

So, are you ready to try scheduling software at your own restaurant or store? We can help.  In fact, we’ve personally worked with retailers who have saved 7 hours of work each week after implementing scheduling software.

Cloudscape Technologies specializes in empowering retailers and restaurateurs in the Middle East to build cloud-based software solutions. We recommend and implement best-in-market software that takes their businesses to the next level.

We can show you how scheduling software can work with POS, accounting, and payroll systems to make management easier than you had ever imagined. Contact us today to learn more about how we can equip your store or restaurant with the best cloud-based software tools on the market.

Opening a new restaurant location is a big undertaking and requires a lot of research and planning, as we wrote in our post Considering Opening a Second Restaurant Location? Here’s What You Should Know.

But even if you’re not ready to expand anytime soon, choosing software programs that are equipped to handle an eventual expansion is a smart move. Trying to switch your POS, accounting, and inventory software to accommodate your growth in the midst of an expansion is an unnecessary headache — especially because there are so many top-of-the-line, growth-friendly programs on the market today.

Cloud systems, in particular, have plenty of advantages over legacy software or ERP systems, which are usually too complex and expensive for the needs of the average restaurateur. By contrast, with cloud-based software, restaurateurs can get started without any significant upfront costs and can add more features over time.

So, if you’re searching for restaurant software that’s growth-friendly, here are five questions to ask as you evaluate your options:

How easy is it to add a new restaurant location?

This is perhaps the simplest step in evaluating a software program’s ability to handle your restaurant’s operations as you scale up. Even though you’ll only have to add each new location one time, it can be a big undertaking if the task isn’t automated. Some restaurateurs may even find themselves in a period of rapid growth, adding many locations at once. They’ll find the ability to quickly add new locations especially valuable.

In fact, one of our Cloudscape Technologies clients who started with a single location and has since grown to 16 locations in just a few years told us that setting up the tech for a new store used to take a full day — and now it just takes 20 minutes.

The restaurant POS programs on the market make it possible to duplicate everything (menus, hours, inventory, etc.) from your existing location to the new one, then make modifications for each new location as necessary.

Can managers access data from all locations in one place?

We’ve come a long way from the days when transaction records were stored on individual cash registers. With that kind of hardware, data and cash had to be reconciled with the other registers for managers to get a clear idea of how much money they were making.

These days, the best POS software on the market for restaurants makes it easy to not only see how each register and employee is doing in real-time, but how each restaurant location is doing.

Managers should be able to see financial and operational data from multiple restaurant locations in real-time easily, both combined and individually, and see how locations compare to one another for any given metric.

As you’re checking out software options, ask to see samples of dashboards for restaurants with multiple locations.

How are common management tasks handled across multiple locations?

Thanks to modern software, today’s restaurateurs are able to make changes to their restaurants across the board for every location they own.

And because modern software is hosted by professional hosting companies and accessible via the internet, owners and managers can make these changes from anywhere — whether they’re sitting on their couch at home or even across the ocean from their restaurants.

Managers should be able to make changes to menus, or to employee and vendor data, easily across the board. For example, when an employee account is added or removed, it should also be added or removed completely from all locations or just from single locations.

Related post: 5 Mistakes Restaurateurs Make When Choosing a POS System

Managers from any location should be able to access employee details such as contact information, training records, hourly pay rate, evaluation history, and special skills. Employees should indicate which locations they are available to work, and see one schedule for all locations (and not separate schedules for each one).

For their part, managers of any location should be able to access any employee details that could affect their scheduling, such as experience level or age.

How consistent is the customer experience across multiple locations?

Especially if your locations are located within a reasonable distance of each other, your customers may visit various locations throughout their relationship with your company.

If you have a marketing system in place for your customers, they should be able to earn loyalty points and rewards from any location. If you track their activity, they should also be able to view their purchases and dining histories for all locations in the same place. (This is also helpful for managers and marketers trying to get a clearer idea of each customer’s relationship with your restaurant).

A consistent customer experience is also important when it comes to gift cards. Your customers should be able to purchase a gift card online or at any individual restaurant location with confidence that they can use it at any location.

Don’t forget that with growth often comes new ideas about how to diversify your income. If you ever hope to sell a few retail retail products in your restaurants(such as branded apparel and merchandise or signature food and beverage products), your customers should also get a consistent experience for those purchases. That means being able to see retail purchases alongside dining purchases, and being able to use gift cards for retail purchases in addition to dining purchases.

Someday you might also want to be able to sell your signature products online, too — and modern software should be able to handle that easily when the time comes.

Choosing Software Can Be a Challenge

The bottom line is that scalability and growth are an inherent part of a restaurant business. Technology should facilitate that and not impede it.

Technology changes all the time and sifting through various options available to find the right system for your restaurant can be a huge distraction. That’s why more restaurant owners are choosing to leverage the expertise of cloud system experts like those at Cloudscape Technologies.

Scalability and growth are an inherent part of a restaurant business. Technology should facilitate that and not impede it.

Check out our full guide on modern technology systems for restaurants – part 1 and part 2

Cloudscape was built with love in Dubai by retail veterans on a mission: helping inventory-based business owners do more with modern technology. Our team is certified with industry-leading software vendors to make sure that your new cloud-based systems are fully up and running, and that your staff knows exactly how to use them.

We love to help restaurant owners see the enormous time savings that cloud-based software can provide. Click here to get in touch with us.

If so, congratulations are in order. A bustling restaurant with a full dining room and lines of people waiting for reservations can be exciting. You may have always dreamed of expanding your restaurant and watching it grow into even more communities, and your opportunity to do that might be at hand.

The knowledge and experience you gained from opening your restaurant’s first location will make opening another one a bit easier in some ways. But in other ways, each new restaurant is a very unique experience. Its different location and different staff can make it a completely different challenge than your first restaurant. Plus, owners and upper-level managers will have to deal with a new and expanded set of responsibilities.

It pays to be cautious. Too many missteps in opening a second restaurant location can start to affect the success of the original location, either in the form of wasted cash or damage to your restaurant’s brand.

Here’s what you need to know before you consider opening a second restaurant location.

You Need a Business Plan

You should approach your new location as an entirely new business, and plan for it with the same diligence you did with your first restaurant location. As we explained in our post on opening a new restaurant, that means taking the following steps.

• Clarify its place in the market – You can’t locate your new spot too close to the old one, or the locations might compete with one another. But if the new location is in a completely different neighborhood, your clients and culture might change. Will you give the new restaurant location a little bit of its own character, or do you want to replicate the original location exactly? These kinds of questions will affect how you plan your menu and build the rest of your marketing and business plan.
• Nail down the costs. Don’t make any assumptions about the new location when it comes to the costs of things like insurance, staffing, marketing, and construction. A new building can have a vastly different infrastructure with very different expenses. Marketing your new location could possibly be a little easier thanks to brand recognition from your past location — but it all depends on how far apart the locations are and how well-known your original location is. And there may be added complexities when it comes to procuring the food and materials you need to operate in the new location. Be thorough as you make your plan so you can make sure you have the capital required.
• Project revenue and profitability – A new location with a different seating capacity, different food costs, and a different staff will certainly have different revenue and profitability projections. You need to know exactly what your new restaurant needs to succeed financially, independent of your original location.

You Need the Right Team in Place

If your restaurant is doing so well right now that you’re considering expanding, the odds are good that you have a solid team in place at your original restaurant location.

However, you should prepare for the fact that adding a new location can change the dynamics of that team, and in some cases it can even be a blow to morale.

There will necessarily be changes in job responsibilities as your restaurant expands. Owners will be managing a larger staff and have a whole new set of logistical responsibilities to contend with, which means they won’t have the same amount of time and energy to deal with their responsibilities of day-to-day restaurant management.

They may decide to promote someone to handle those responsibilities and assist them, which can shake up existing management structures. Many restaurateurs also decide to move existing employees to the new location so that they can bring some of the original location’s experience and culture.

Depending on how this is handled, this can cause problems. Some staffers may feel neglected or left out if they aren’t asked to be a part of the new location, and others may resent things like a new commute, a new boss, or parking requirements at the new location.

To prevent these kinds of stumbling blocks and keep morale high, let your restaurant team know about plans well in advance and involve them in decisions if possible. Anticipate how moving some of the staff will make the rest of your team feel and try to address those feelings in advance.

You Need Scalable Software Tools

For modern restaurants, the backbone of all restaurant operations is a cloud-based point of sale system. The POS system connects with accounting, inventory, and marketing apps to create a comprehensive web-based system to run the entire restaurant.

The top POS systems on the market today allow restaurateurs to scale up quickly and handle multiple locations easily and centrally.

Your POS system should be able to handle the following when it comes to multiple locations:

• Reports – Managers should be able to see financial and operational data from multiple locations in real-time easily, both combined and individually.
• Staff – Employee accounts should be available in the systems for both restaurant locations. Their skills and personal details, once entered, should be accessible to managers at any location.
• Menus – It should be simple for restaurant owners to duplicate menus for each new restaurant location, but also make menu modifications for new locations as necessary.
• Customer accounts – If you have a marketing system in place for your customers, their loyalty points, rewards, purchases, and dining histories should be consistent for all-new locations.
• Gift cards – Restaurant patrons should be able to purchase a gift card online or at any individual restaurant location with confidence that they can use it at any location.
• Add-ons and integrations – Part of the beauty of modern, cloud-based software is its ability to connect with an ever-growing number of software tools. Restaurateurs are connecting their POS systems to everything from staff scheduling software to web stores to sell their gift cards and branded merchandise online. These apps might not scale as well as the bigger, more robust POS systems that they’re integrated with. That’s something you need to know before you get ready to add a new location.

This may sound a little complicated.

However, don’t be fooled into thinking that your restaurant requires an expensive, complicated ERP system to handle these software needs as you grow.

Every restaurant owner should be keeping a close eye on overhead costs, and ERP systems often require a large upfront investment. Plus, in many cases, ERP systems are bulky and unnecessary for your needs.

In comparison, modern POS software is nimble and scalable, and you can buy more as your business grows. Just because a software program is bigger or more expensive doesn’t mean it’s better.

If you’re concerned about the ability of your existing software to scale with your restaurant, we hope you contact us at Cloudscape Technologies.

We specialize in empowering restaurateurs to install and implement the best cloud-based solutions on the market today. We even install the software on-site and support you through onboarding. Our goal is to empower restaurant owners to continue focusing on the work of growing their restaurants while we handle the huge project of getting your software completely up and running.

Click here to learn more about our services for restaurants.

It’s a stressful time for small business owners and employees, to say the least — and perhaps especially so for retailers and restaurateurs.

Many employers are wondering whether they’ll be able to make ends meet under these new restrictions — and possibly for the long-term throughout a pandemic-related recession.

However, there are plenty of tactics that small business owners can use to protect themselves against sudden stoppages and slowdowns in their customer flow and revenue. Although this pandemic is unprecedented in many ways, small business owners have been facing sudden obstacles and hurdles to their businesses as long as they’ve been around.

The key is to expect downturns, recessions, and business interruptions and have a plan to respond when they do arise. Here are a few things small business owners can do to build their resiliency.

Build Up Your Cash Reserve

This McKinsey article analyzed which types of retail businesses were best able to weather the Great Recession of 2007-2009 and noted that the companies that did best started saving more at the first sign of a downturn: “Resilience unlocked more cash, and sooner, than other retailers. Having this war chest enabled them to navigate the downturn successfully.”

Having a cash reserve is a smart move for any type of business. Of course, it can prove to be essential in the face of emergencies, but even if it never becomes necessary, it still provides a sense of peace of mind that can enable entrepreneurs to operate more successfully.

Although it may be a little late in this pandemic to start building up a big cash reserve, in general, good advice is to save about 6 to 12 months of your business expenses. You can keep the money in an account that prioritizes easy access over financial gains in the form of interest.

Quoted in this American Express article, entrepreneurial studies expert Susan Scherreik notes that some business owners set up several cash reserve accounts, each devoted to a particular situation, such as unexpected illness or even vacation.

“Bank savings accounts, money market accounts, CDs, and low-risk, short-term, high-quality municipal bond funds are good choices for savings that may have to be tapped immediately,” Scherreik says.

In order to increase available cash, other tactics that so-called “resilience” studied in the article used were divesting of nonessential resources to increase cash flow prior to a recession and decreasing as much overhead as possible to increase cash flow.

Another best practice for keeping your cash flow as healthy as possible is: Keep a close eye on your receivables. In this CNBC column, entrepreneur Brian Moran shares a few lessons he learned from losing a small business during “The Great Recession.”

He sums it up this way: “If you don’t collect receivables in a timely manner, you run the risk of “net 30” becoming “net 60″ or even “net … whenever I can get a check from the insurance company.”

Stay Aware of New Opportunities in the Changing Market

Recessions are generally seen as business obstacles, and they can indeed be devastating to small businesses.

However, as the market changes, new and exciting opportunities can also come your way — and leveraging them can give you serious advantages both during and after a recession.

For example, assets such as new property or equipment may become much more affordable in a downturn. You may also find that the changing market landscape has opened up your product or service to valuable new markets.

In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, for example, many restaurateurs and retailers are seizing the opportunity to move their businesses online for the first time, or make major improvements to online sales and delivery infrastructure. This has allowed them to expand the number of people they can sell to, reaching audiences outside their immediate local area and even throughout the world.

Another example of seizing new market opportunities: Some restaurants have created new products specifically for people spending more time at home with families, such as build-your-own-pizza kits and cupcake decoration kits.

By investing in omnichannel sales tools and pivoting to provide products and services that better meet customer needs, these small business owners may be able to enjoy a diversified income stream for years to come.

Continue to Invest in Marketing And Advertising

An intuitive sense might suggest that marketing and advertising expenses should also be cut along with the other non-essential expenses as a recession approaches.

However, as long as you keep a clear grasp on what your customers need and continue to adapt your services to meet those needs, marketing and advertising can be the very thing that keeps your business afloat during difficult times.

This Harvard Business Review review article suggests taking “a scalpel rather than a cleaver” to the marketing budget, focusing on marketing tactics that are easier to measure.

In a downturn, you’ll need to keep the long-term position of your brand in mind while also adapting to short-term needs to boost sales. For example, a luxury brand shouldn’t try to transform itself into a commodity in the face of general stress about the economy. But they can still develop campaigns that reflect their customers’ changing budgets.

How Cloudscape Can Help

Our team at Cloudscape is standing by to help our clients during these difficult times for your business. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us for support. You can use this form to submit a request, or email us at support@cloudscape.ae.

We are offering hourly packages at a reduced rate to support your business and help your team through technical matters. We are also offering a complimentary 14-day care package subscription for all of our customers’ support needs during this time.

This is a challenging time for small businesses, but it also presents a great opportunity to promote your business online. Today’s modern cloud-based software makes it easier than ever to sell via a web store and other online channels, such as through social media. This is especially helpful during times when your customers may be unable to visit your store in person.

This is a challenging time for small businesses, but it also presents a great opportunity to promote your business online.

If you’re considering upgrading your software programs, we would love to help. We work with restaurant and store owners to find and implement the combinations of cloud-based software that best fit their businesses. Simply fill in this support form and we will be in touch ASAP.

Establish Your Place in the Market

Everyone needs to eat, but we all have different tastes, budget levels, schedules, and even aesthetic preferences. If you try to appeal to too many groups in your restaurant, you’ll likely end up alienating most of them.

How To Develop A Restaurant Staffing Plan

Your staff is one of the most important ingredients for restaurant success, so you need to get it right.

To get a strong foothold in the dining market and stand out from competitors, carve out a clear market niche for your restaurant right away.

You might already have an idea of what kind of food you want to serve, what kind of atmosphere you want to create, and what kind of schedule you want to run.

But your focus should start with analyzing the type of person you expect to be a regular patron. Customer personas can help you get detailed about your ideal customers’ habits, lifestyles, and budgets.

Thinking about these factors and researching who lives and works in the vicinity of your potential restaurant will affect what kind of menu, aesthetic, and procedures you develop.

For example, if you’re interested in opening a breakfast and lunch spot, locating in a business district might mean you’re best off trying to attract the corporate crowd, who might prioritize speed, efficiency, and convenience. You might not need to worry about keeping the prices as affordable as your competitors as long as you deliver superior service and quality.

If you’re locating in an entertainment district, your ideal customer might be more likely to come in for a leisurely weekend brunch or a family celebration. This type of restaurant might need to focus more on aesthetics, decor, and details to create an environment ideal for patrons who want to relax.‍

Nail Down the Costs

Once you’ve started to clarify your restaurant’s market fit, it’s time to get a handle on the resources that will be necessary to bring your vision to life — and how much each of those resources will cost.

Here are some of the major expenses in opening a new restaurant.

Rent and Utilities

Begin by researching potential neighborhoods. Look for ones that fit your prospective brand, appeal to your ideal customers, and have a favorable competitive landscape (not too many competitors in the immediate area). Then make educated guesses about what a space with your desired square footage would cost in rent and utilities each month.

Equipment & Technology

Your restaurant will need industrial kitchen equipment, furniture, utensils and dishes, and a POS system complete with a cash register.

Construction and Decor

Most restaurant owners must pay to redevelop their space before it opens. Although you won’t know how much is necessary until you narrow down your search for a space to specific sites, you can assume that some cash should be budgeted for these changes. You’ll also need to put the finishing touches on your space with art, flowers, embellishments, and other decor upgrades.

Staffing

Hiring needs (managers, chefs, cooks, servers, bartenders, hosts, bussers, and dishwashers) will vary with your restaurant’s size and niche. Research what the competitive pay rates are in your area and be prepared to beat them to land the best talent. Include the costs of any benefits and paid time off. Other than your on-site staff, you’ll also need what this RestoHub article calls a“restaurant expert team” that directly helps management run the big picture of the restaurant. This team can include an accountant, a lawyer, architects, and restaurant industry consultants and specialists.

Legal Fees and Taxes

Restaurants need to make sure they’re in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations, including hiring and wages, food safety, and permits and licenses (such as a liquor license). Getting your restaurant compliant with all zoning and property laws will require hiring attorneys and paying fees to local municipalities.

Marketing

You’ll have to account for a few different marketing expenses: The initial marketing push leading up to the grand opening (and the expenses of a grand opening celebration), and then ongoing monthly marketing efforts. Monthly marketing costs may include everything from the cost of your email marketing and CRM programs, to the costs of online reservation systems, ads, and promotional discounts. You may want to consult with an expert to assess just how much marketing you’ll need to do, as needs will vary widely based on your location and restaurant type.

Insurance

Insurance requirements will vary based on where you live and your restaurant needs. Restaurants often require several policies (such as liability insurance, property insurance, and worker’s compensation insurance),and some policies require deposits upfront. Research all of these costs early in your planning process to understand how they will affect your bottom line.

Project Sales and Profitability

Once you have a basic understanding of your potential restaurant’s estimated costs, you can start to estimate how much money your restaurant could make. Well-researched sales projections will help to build a solid roadmap for profitability.

To estimate your sales, you’ll need to know several things:

• How many customers can fit into your restaurant
• What percentage of the restaurant will be full at any given time
• Average meal time
• Average generated per customer, per meal
• How long your restaurant will stay open each day

To keep your guesses as accurate as possible, you can hire a consultant and look into the numbers for similar restaurants in the same area.

Restaurant expert David S. Peters also suggests “budgeting for 3-4% in comps so your employees can compensate guests and reward them at their own discretion.”

Once you have your sales projections, you can take a harder look at your numbers and see if you can expect to operate at a profit.

Here’s one simple way to break it down: About 75 percent of your projected sales should go toward major expenses (real estate, labor, and the costs of the food and drinks you’ll be preparing), and 15 percent of your projected sales will go toward the other expenses we listed above (marketing, permits and fees, software, equipment, etc.), leaving the rest for profits (source).

Of course, these numbers are just guesses. Projections should be adjusted and recalculated frequently as you nail down the details about your location and opening expenses, and then again once you open to account for new realities. But establishing these financial goals right away will put you on the right track.

To get the financial reports you’ll need to assess your restaurant’s ongoing financial health, make sure to select a robust, web-based POS system. A good POS system puts these reports at your fingertips in real time and can help to manage your entire business, from inventory to customer relationships.

If you’d like personalized help implementing a POS system for your new restaurant, we hope you contact us at Cloudscape Technologies. We specialize in helping restaurateurs find solutions that deliver the value they never thought possible. We even install the software on-site and support you through onboarding. Request a free consultation today.

Bookkeeping is probably not one of the things that attracted you to restaurant ownership. But without diligent bookkeeping, you put your entire operation at risk.

It can be overwhelming to think about tracking all of the important financial aspects of your restaurant’s operations. But you don’t have to spend hours crunching numbers each day to get info that will yield powerful insights into how to improve your restaurant.

Bookkeeping vs. Accounting

First, let’s clarify the difference between the terms “bookkeeping” and “accounting.” Although the two terms are often used interchangeably, bookkeeping technically refers to keeping organized records of each relevant financial transaction related to your business. Accounting is taking a big-picture look at all of those transactions and applying the data to get insights into your business.

As you probably already know, bookkeeping for small restaurants is much easier than it used to be. We’re long past the days of pen-and-paper ledgers. But we’re also now past the days when transaction data lived on individual cash registers, waiting to be reconciled with the rest of the data that can give the big picture of restaurant health.

With the right kind of the web-connected point of sale software, all transactions are tracked automatically and bookkeeping essentially handles itself. These POS systems can track more than purchases. They also track the costs and counts of your inventory and the individual ingredients required for each item on your menu.

Cloud-based POS systems take functionality even further by integrating seamlessly with cloud-based accounting software. In many cases, these programs bring the insights you need with just a few clicks.

Related: 5 Mistakes Restaurateurs Make When Choosing a POS System

One of the most confusing parts of learning accounting and bookkeeping is understanding all of the technical accounting terms that professionals use to describe your finances.

But you don’t have to understand all of the lingo right away.

Let’s start by identifying some of the metrics that will provide the biggest and most important insights for your business.

Knowing What it Takes to Stay Profitable

Making sure you have enough money to pay your bills should always be a top priority. The easiest way to do that is to figure out ahead of time how much money your restaurant needs to bring in on a given day, week or month in order to cover its expenses.

In accounting, the point at which you’re making enough money to cover those expenses before profits are called your breakeven point.

To figure it out, you’ll need to add up all of your expenses, then figure out how much revenue you’ll need to bring in to cover them.

Then, at the end of each business day, you can take a look at the daily sales report and get a sense of whether you’re on track or not.

Of course, you want to do more than just break even. You also need to maintain a healthy profit margin. For that, you need to look past revenue and keep a close eye on what you’re spending.

Keeping Costs in Check

There are many costs that go into restaurant operations, but the most dangerous ones are the ones that fluctuate. So-called “overhead costs” like rent and energy are worth watching, too, and can make it really hard to stay profitable for the long term. However, at least you can count on overhead costs to stay relatively consistent and plan for them accordingly.

The biggest variable costs in the restaurant business, of course, are food and labor. By assessing and adjusting these costs, you can make big improvements in profitability. Food and labor are also often the areas where accounting errors are more likely, so it pays to monitor them more closely.

The term “cost of goods sold” (CoGS) is used in accounting to refer to the costs of producing the food and drink served to your customers in a given time period.

You can calculate it by adding together the cost of your existing inventory and the cost of any inventory purchases during that period, then subtracting the cost of the inventory you have left at the end of the specified time period.

Knowing your CoGS is a good first step, but the figure doesn’t lend a ton of insights into profitability on its own.

Most restaurateurs combine CoGS with the labor costs over the same time period, the total of which is referred to as “prime cost.” By monitoring how the prime cost compares to the total sales for the same period, you can get a better sense of how effectively you’re spending your money.

In general, a restaurant’s prime cost tends to be about 60% of sales, with the rest going to things like overhead costs, operating costs, or cash reserves.

However, this number can vary depending on your restaurant’s type and goals.

Other Helpful Financial Indicators

In order to get the data you need to calculate CoGS, prime cost, breakeven points, and other profitability measures, you’ll need to keep careful records of your money as it’s spent and as it’s received.

Again, the right POS software makes most of this very easy. Any software program with a flexible reporting system will get you quick access to these KPIs. You can limit data to various time periods and isolate factors to get even more insights.

For example, if the prime cost starts to take up a bigger percentage of total sales than you’d like, there are plenty of options for how to troubleshoot the issue.

For example, you may choose to look at the following:

• the cost of food compared to the revenue it’s bringing in (food cost ratio), or the beverage cost ratio

• the profitability of each type of meal on your menu

• the average revenue per ticket or per table

• the dates or times your restaurant is regularly overstaffed (tighter scheduling could save on labor costs)

A good point of sale program that was designed for restaurants, such as Lightspeed Restaurant or Touchbistro, can help you find these insights easily.

Choosing Expert Partners

Finally, it’s worth noting that although you can’t opt out of your accounting and finances completely, you can certainly outsource a lot of it.

There are many professionals who specialize in bookkeeping who would love to help you out. They are available as freelancers, part-timers, and agencies to provide any level of service you need.

In general, it’s a smart move to outsource any type of work that you don’t want to focus on personally — or that someone else can do more quickly and efficiently. After all, anything that distracts you from running your business comes with a high cost.

Similarly, if you’re still searching for the perfect point of sale system — one that can handle all the bookkeeping features we mentioned in this article — that’s also a big and complicated job, too. And just like bookkeeping, there are professionals available to help with the task so that it doesn’t distract from your other work.

Contact us at Cloudscape Technologies to learn more about how our expert staff makes it painless to choose and onboard with the best cloud-based software on the market. We love working with restaurant owners and have systems and processes designed specifically for the industry.

What to Read Next:

Restaurant  POS Showdown: Touchbistro vs. Lightspeed

5 Clever Marketing Ideas to Promote Your Restaurant

Getting Ready to Open a Restaurant? Do These Things First

But as the social, cultural and digital media landscape changes, there is an increasing number of options open to restaurant owners when it comes to promoting their bistros, bars, coffee shops, and even food trucks.

Some of the tools are available are coming in the form of participation in new tech tools and apps, and others are just ways to hop on to cultural trends that may be increasingly appealing to your customers.

Read on and see if any of the following marketing techniques could work for your restaurant.

Buying Hyper-Targeted Ads

If you’re still purchasing print ads or billboards, it’s time to consider some more modern — and cost-effective — techniques.

Unlike traditional advertising options, ads on social media sites like Facebook allow users to target ads down to very specific details. You can target by any combination of the following factors:

• Geographically – You can select how many miles away from your city the ad should be shown.
• By age group – Depending on your brand, your ads might be more effective if you narrow down the age of the people seeing them.
• By income level – You might choose to focus on higher-income groups if you run an upscale, gourmet restaurant, for example.
• By interest – Some users may have expressed an interest in the culture or food that your restaurant specializes in. You can also opt to show the ads to the fans of other Facebook pages, or the fans of pages that are related to your own.
• By birthday – It’s common to celebrate birthdays with a special meal, so offering your fans a special discount for their birthday can be an effective tactic.
• Time of day – Unlike a print ad, digital ads allow you to pay only for the times of day the ads are the most effective. For example, a food truck might run ads at lunch time advertising its location. Dinner-focused restaurants might do some data analysis to find when people tend to make reservations or dinner decisions and see if it helps to run ads at those times.

You can try different factors and combinations of targeting to track how effective each type of ad is. No more spending thousands of dollars on an ad in hopes that it brings people through your doors.

Investing in Branded To-Go Containers

If you regularly send your customers out of your restaurant with their food and drinks, you might be missing out on an easy opportunity for visibility if you’re using standard, blank to-go containers.

For example, this Lightspeed blog post mentioned an example of a cafe that uses to-go cups printed with an image of its iconic indoor plants.

You customers will often carry around their cups with them as they go about their day, which makes them a great way to get visibility. Ordering unique to-go cups unique is something that can fit into the marketing budget relatively easily, and that can make each dining experience a little more unique.

Leveraging the Power of Dining Apps

Keeping up with the landscape of new apps designed to connect people with dining experiences can be a little overwhelming. However, many of them can pay off in big ways for your restaurant.

In particular, the apps that are designed to help a group of friends choose a restaurant or to connect people who want to share a meal with other foodies (such as Suppr or FoodFriends) can drive revenue by attracting groups of diners.

There are also new apps that cater specifically to individual diners, or more specifically, people who want to get some work done while they enjoy their meal or drink. Some apps, such as Croissant, allow coffee shops to opt-in to let customers reserve seats for a nominal fee. Other upscale restaurants have signed on with companies like Dropdesk to convert their spaces to flexible drop-in workplaces during the day when they would otherwise be closed.

Of course, many restaurants are also choosing to make some of their menu items available for delivery through apps such as Grubhub.

Listing your restaurants on these apps can provide a revenue boost by opening up your restaurant to new audiences who are looking for new things. Even if app users don’t end up reserving a table or ordering food, it can still drive awareness of your restaurant. Once people notice your listing and note what you offer and where you’re located, they could be more likely to become customers in the future.

Promoting Private Parties

Speaking of expanding into new markets, you may find that another great way to get the word out about your restaurant is to position it as a private event venue, in addition to a dining destination.

You might not have thought about your restaurant as having the potential to host events like wedding receptions or anniversary parties. But there are probably plenty of people who would love the unique ambiance of your restaurant for their special event if you plan it the right way and make a few easy modifications.

As this writer for the Toast POS blog explains: “I’ve worked at two separate restaurants that have hosted wedding receptions. The first was a small plates restaurant with an artsy vibe, and the other was a hipster bowling alley that served organic pizza and drinks. Both times, I walked into the restaurant I worked in, but it felt different. The small plates restaurant was transformed into a large opening space, while the other was suddenly bright and airy.”

Your restaurant might have special meaning to a couple who met at your restaurant or who spends a lot of time there. If you let them customize the decor and the menu just a bit, it can make for a memorable event.

In exchange, you’ll get a significant income boost, as well as access to an entirely new market. Listing your restaurant in wedding publications and directories can open up a whole new level of awareness of your restaurant.

Engaging Your Employees

Many restaurants overlook one of the most powerful marketing tools they already have at their disposal: Their workforce.

Odds are, much of your restaurant’s staff is very familiar with social media and uses it on personal devices frequently. Most of your staffers already have a built-in network of local friends and family following them, all of which could be potential customers.

As this FastCompany article notes, you can emulate companies such as Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, and Zappos, which all actively encourage their employees to use social media to post about their experiences at work in a creative, helpful way.

This isn’t as easy as just mentioning that you encourage your employees to share online or even crafting a unique hashtag for your restaurant. You’ll need a clear social media policy (which is a good move in general, regardless of your planned marketing tactics). You’ll also want to provide some training or plenty of examples of appropriate social media use.

Of course, any social media participation by employees must be completely voluntary, so an engaged and enthusiastic workforce is required for this tactic to be effective.

However, in many cases, employees should be happy to share about their work and your restaurant. After all, the more customers that patronize your restaurant, the more tips they can collect.

Regardless of the marketing tactics that you use to get the word out about your restaurant, make sure to track the success of each campaign. Keeping a close eye on the data will help you understand which methods are the most likely to attract attention, and then convert that attention into paying customers.

One way to make sure this happens is to use a POS system that’s integrated directly with your customer management software. When you can track leads and sales within the same system, it’s much easier to see whether you’re spending your marketing budget wisely.

If you’re wondering which tools can handle this job and the best way to integrate them, please contact us at Cloudscape Technologies. We specialize in empowering business owners in their search for the most powerful cloud-based SaaS tools on the market. Modern restaurateurs can take advantage of POS systems that connect not just with marketing programs, but also with accounting programs, inventory management programs, and even employee management systems to create completely efficient and comprehensive restaurant management systems.

Please book a free demonstration today to learn how we can help you select and implement the right tools to empower your business.

But with all the choices that restaurateurs must make to bring their visions to life, there’s an important one that doesn’t always get the attention it deserves: The decision on which point of sale system to use.

Your staff relies on the POS system all day, every day. Your front-of-house staff can use it to check-in customers, take orders, and manage customer flow. Your back-of-house staff can use it to manage inventory, run financial reports, and get a solid understanding of how the business is running. And the way the system looks and feels can make a significant impression on your customers, especially if they’re using it for self-check-out.

The days of simple cash registers are long gone. POS systems that might seem similar at first glance can have very different implications for your restaurant.

To make sure you choose the right POS system for your restaurant, avoid the following mistakes.

Rushing the Selection Process

There is a lot of point-of-sale software options on the market these days. There are even plenty of restaurant-specific software programs to choose from.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that some owners would rather opt for the simplest system or the first one that seems to do an adequate job, skipping the hours and hours it takes to comb through features and compare programs. After all, restaurant owners already have a lot of demands on their time.

However, this isn’t a decision that you should make quickly. A POS is typically a long-term commitment. You may tell yourself that you can always upgrade your POS later once the restaurant gets more profitable, but in reality, it’s not that simple.

First of all, changing point of sale systems can be a big chore once your staff is already trained.

But perhaps more importantly, waiting until you’re more profitable to get a better POS system can be self-defeating because the POS system is possibly the perfect tool to help you make that future profitability a reality.

The features that your POS offers can add a ton of value, as we’ll discuss next.

Focusing on Cost Instead of Value

Restaurateurs, like all new small business owners, are right to make sure that every purchase is a wise one, especially when it comes to overhead costs and long-term financial commitments.

Point of sale systems and their accompanying equipment can be expensive, so many new restaurant owners automatically choose the system with the lowest price tag. But that’s not the best approach.

Think of it this way: You wouldn’t just buy the cheapest produce for your menu, sight unseen. You understand that you get what you pay for, and that investing in poor quality ingredients will result in more financial losses over time.

Take that same mindset as you search for a point of sale system. Investing in quality often pays off, but it’s certainly possible to overpay (such as by choosing a system with bells and whistles you don’t actually need).

Instead of focusing on the price points for each system and worrying about how each POS candidate will fit into the existing budget, try to think about the value each system will bring to your restaurant.

For example, will the marketing integrations in the point of sale system help you land more leads or attract more returning customers? You might be able to put a dollar value estimate on that.

Will the fact that the point of sale system ties in seamlessly with a specialized inventory system saves your staff time, or even mean that you have to hire fewer people? That’s also a dollar value that can offset the system’s costs.

Similarly, if certain features don’t really apply to your restaurant or add much value (for example, a seating chart feature won’t be necessary for a fast-casual style restaurant), you can eliminate that option more easily.

Rushing to Install Traditional Software

Some restaurant owners still assume that traditional, locally installed software is simpler or more affordable than modern, cloud-based software-as-a-service.

Sure, sometimes it might be. And research is required for you to understand which type of system will work for you.

However, you shouldn’t discount SaaS model software until you’ve really looked into it. These software options continue to grow, and the regular technology updates and live customer service that’s typically included in the monthly cost can be well worth any extra expense.

Not Getting Staff Buy-In

It make sense for restaurant owners or managers to make the final decision on the point of sale systems.

They’re the ones who need to make sure that the program has all of the features the restaurant needs on both the front-end and the back end. They’re also the ones controlling the purse strings, and making sure that any given program aligns with the restaurant’s long-term goals.

But if the owner or manager decides on the point of sale system unilaterally, they’ll have missed out on a huge opportunity to leverage the knowledge and opinions of those who will actually be using it all day long.

Want to pick a POS that your restaurant staff will love? ASK them what features they want to see before you choose.

Your staff likely has lots of industry experience and a deep understanding of what your restaurant’s needs are. Getting their opinions about what features your point of sale system should have can be very valuable.

Make sure to involve them as early in the selection process as possible. They are likely to appreciate the chance to weigh in. If they feel like their voices have been heard and considered, they will also feel more invested in the program’s success.

Failing to Thoroughly Test POS Options

Don’t just read the marketing materials and listen to the sales rep’s pitch before you commit to a POS system. Try the systems for yourself, if possible, by taking advantage of a free trial. If that’s not possible, at least get a detailed demo and take a look at how the system is used at a restaurant similar to your own.

It might help to have each level of your staff take a look at the software. Managers might love the accounting features and the at-a-glance financial reports, but do the hosts like how they can check in new guests? Can servers input their orders quickly and easily? Have you had your back-of-house staff take a look at the system’s inventory management features?

Don’t miss this download: 3 Cool Inventory Management Features Perfect for Restaurants

You should see all of these features firsthand before you make a commitment, and run through some of the scenarios that you’ll be dealing with each day at your restaurant.

Make sure you’re absolutely clear on what equipment will work with the POS software. Test each piece of hardware as soon as you can to make sure it works without a hitch.

One other thing to test is the live customer support. Restaurants are often busiest outside of normal business hours. A glitch or an outage during the dinner rush could get much worse if there’s not reliable customer support available at that time. Try calling a potential POS’s support lines to get a sense of what you can expect when you really need it.

Want to learn more about the software options available to your restaurant? Please contact us at Cloudscape Technologies. We have partnered with top-of-the-line cloud-based software providers to empower restaurant owners with the software solutions they need. Request a free consultation today.

So, perhaps it’s not surprising that the people in charge of making purchases on behalf of businesses are beginning to expect the same kind of experience. They expect shopping to be streamlined, personalized, and convenient.

Business-to-business companies that are able to provide this kind of frictionless purchasing experience for their customers will naturally have an edge over their competitors. This may be especially true in the crowded food and beverage manufacturing industry. Food manufacturers that are able to put their products up for sale online quickly and effectively can boost revenue and clarify their place in the market.

Here are a few ways the best food manufacturers are adapting to the world of eCommerce.

Dynamic Pricing and Quicker Quotes

Setting prices for products is never a simple process, but it can get even more complicated for food and beverage manufacturers.

These businesses must adjust prices in real-time to account for shifts in supply and demand and supply chain interruptions. This means making pricing adjustments in response to factors such as disease outbreaks, import suspensions, disasters, and weather events.

This constant analysis has traditionally made for a cumbersome process, as industry consultant Fabio Freitas writes in this Manufacturing.net article. In the traditional pricing model, all deals are required to go through an extensive approval process that relies on intuition and lacks transparency. There’s usually a time-consuming negotiation process as companies strive to protect their profit margins. This traditional model is not suited to the fast-paced style of the digital age. These days, a delay in a quote or in getting products up for sale can mean big losses. The column even references a survey of manufacturing leaders that found that “fair pricing and quote turnaround time were two of the most common points of frustration for their customers.” Price negotiations were cited as a major culprit in slow turnarounds and order fulfillment.

Food manufacturers need to be able to “price at market speed,” Freitas writes, by leveraging what he calls “dynamic pricing software” that uses algorithms and machine-guided learning. These programs can help company leaders inform pricing decisions quickly and spot patterns that can help with strategic decision-making.

Selling Directly to Consumers Online

Many food manufacturers still rely on relationships with retailers for the majority of their sales.

However, this may be changing as more consumers get comfortable with ordering food and beverages directly online. Food manufacturers that fail to give consumers a chance to buy directly from a user-friendly web store could be missing out on a big revenue boost.

As we mentioned in our post on providing a totally integrated shopping experience for your customers, today’s cloud-based POS systems can connect directly and seamlessly with your website. These POS systems integrate in-store sales, online sales, and wholesale orders into the same system, which makes it much easier to manage inventory and analyze data across all sales channels.

You can also use your web store to sell other retail products, such as branded apparel and accessories, to diversify sales. A web store also makes it much easier to showcase and link to special products to boost their sales.

For example, London-based craft beer seller Hop Burns Black explains on the Vend blog that their POS system actually boosts sales by allowing them to upload new products to the site more quickly than competitors, taking advantage of their fans’ desires to get the best beers right away.

As Hop Burns Black co-owner Jen Ferguson notes, “Hardcore beer fans don’t want to wait to get their hands on the newest must-have beers.”

A professional online store can also be a great way to give other potential partners and retailers an introduction to your brand. Interested parties can browse through your products, look at pictures, and check out customer reviews, which can go a long way toward convincing them to buy before they’ve even tasted your product.

Creating a Personalized Experience

Many of the digital tools that consumers love today to leverage data to make personalized suggestions for individual consumers.

We’ve grown used to Netflix’s suggested shows based on our viewing patterns, for example, and Amazon’s recommended products based on what we’ve purchased.

Food and beverage manufacturers can give their consumers a similar experience by working to target their products to individual consumers.

Many cloud-based point-of-sale systems can do this within your web store with product recommendation apps.

But creating a personalized experience is also important for your wholesale customers and retail customers. Sometimes, this personalization is done the old-fashioned way, without the use of digital tools.

This Shopify guide on how to start a food business gives a great example of such personalization in McClure’s, a specialty pickle business.

McClure’s staff worked to develop personal relationships with retailers and incentivized them to get invested in its mission with direct interaction. They interact with retail partners directly to create menu pairings and plan events that focus around a combination of the retailer’s other products and their own. Food and beverage manufacturers can make similar efforts with restaurants and farmers’ markets, working to create win-win arrangements that boost sales for everyone.

As Freitas wrote, customers aren’t just buying a food product. They’re looking for manufacturers that will be pleasant to work with, that will make their own jobs easier, and that will drive their own profitability. By doing everything you can to help them drive that profitability, you create valuable relationships that last for the long term.

Telling a Story to Stand Out

There are plenty of food products on the market today, in every conceivable category. As more and more food and beverage manufacturers develop their online presence, you need a way to stand out in a crowded marketplace.

One way to do that is by cultivating a “story” for your brand and your products, then telling that story effectively online.

Focus on what makes your products different, better, or more interesting than your competitors. Make sure that the advantages are clear to your website visitors and that your company’s unique personality stands out.

Your brand story could explore where the ingredients in your products are sourced, where your special recipes come from, and how your owners developed their passion.

Then, give customers a way to connect with that story by following you on social media or through email.

How to Choose a Software System to Power Your Manufacturing Business

Your cloud-based POS system will be the cornerstone of your company’s eCommerce strategy. Choosing one that’s equipped with the right tools can make or break your company’s efforts to stay relevant in a quickly changing digital landscape.

You’ll need a system that enables you to do the following things:

• Sell wholesale and retail from one seamless system
• Sell in-person and online from one seamless system
• Observe important trends and data across all channels
• Upload and manage products
• Market your products beautifully
• Connect to your audience online

There are many powerful tools that food and beverage manufacturers can use to accomplish these goals.

If you want to learn more about all of the options available to you, we’d love to hear from you at Cloudscape Technologies. Our mission is to empower business owners in their pursuit of the very best cloud-based business software. We partner with the industry’s top solution providers to get businesses like yours up and running with their new systems quickly and smoothly.

Contact us today to learn more.