Recently we launched a game-changing feature called Scheduled Ordering that enables you to take online orders for pick-up and/or delivery from your Rocketspark ecommerce website. Unlike other similar services, Rocketspark doesn't take a transaction or commission fee from you for orders placed through your website—offering a sense of relief for many businesses working hard to get through the recent effects of COVID-19.
This functionality has been tried and tested throughout businesses in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, proving extremely beneficial for florists, restaurants, cafes, takeaway shops, butchers, bakers and more—particularly as these businesses move towards a new-found way of operating.
Alpha Street Kitchen & Bar in Cambridge, New Zealand picked this feature up pretty quickly, and it made a huge difference to their business allowing them to continue to trade during the various government lockdown restrictions and beyond. They’ve also set minimum pickup and delivery wait times on their Rocketspark website by-the-minute for orders—giving their kitchen enough time to process and prepare the order.
Limit online order numbers by time-slot
With Rocketspark’s Scheduled Ordering, you can limit the number of orders placed within a time period—making sure your staff and/or kitchen doesn’t get smashed with a million orders at a time (peak times for example).
Meet your customer’s expectations with minimum wait times
Give flexibility to yourself, your staff and your customers by setting days and times on your Rocketspark website for taking orders online. With our latest update to our Scheduled Ordering feature, you’re now also able to set minimum pickup and delivery wait times by-the-minute for orders.
By setting exact wait time you’ll be giving yourself and your staff enough time to process and prepare your orders. This is particularly good for florists, bakers, restaurants and cafes who require specific timeframes for their artistry.
See examples of how different industries are using Scheduled Ordering here.
Customise Delivery/Pickup checkout message
Another way to effectively manage your customer expectations is by adding a customised Delivery/Pickup message to the checkout process. Your set delivery/pickup checkout messages will appear on checkout, the payment complete page and on the order confirmation email that's sent to your customer.
Simple options for managing orders with Scheduled Ordering
Whether you have an existing POS system or not, it's easy to manage orders through your Rocketspark website with Scheduled Ordering.
OPTION 1: Use an existing POS system
You or a front-of-house staff member can either receive orders into an email inbox you’ve set up in Rocketspark or they can receive new orders through your Rocketspark dashboard (under the Orders section). You or your front-of-house staff member would then enter the order details into your existing POS system, in the same way you’d physically receive an order from a table.
OPTION 2: Bypass an existing POS system
As above in option 1, however, the only difference is that you or your staff member would then either print the orders out or if wanting to review digitally, send the orders to a dedicated computer or iPad placed in a suitable location for the order coordinator to see.
Advanced order management made easy with Zapier Email Parser
If you'd like to do advanced processing of your orders, you can set up Mailparser to make the managing and processing of your Rocketspark store order emails easy. You can then set up or utilise Email Parser by Zapier to send yourself text messages whenever an order has been made from your online store. Depending on the number of orders you expect to receive, Mailparser and Zapier plans range from free to paying.
You can learn more about these options here.
Why choose Rocketspark for taking online orders
We built our Scheduled Ordering feature during the COVID-19 pandemic with the aim to support our customers by providing them with a viable and cost-effective way they could continue operating during and after the lockdown restrictions set out by the government. With this in mind, we don’t take transaction or commission fees from sales through your Rocketspark website—ever.
Being able to help our customers to succeed in business has always been a top priority for us which is why we make sure we’re always available round the clock to provide you with excellent support—it’s included in all our website subscriptions, If you’re building a website yourself, we can help get you up to speed in 30 minutes with an online class. If you’re looking for a designer to help you along the way, we work closely with a network of website designers (our Rocketspark Design Partners) and can match your needs with someone highly experienced in your area.
All Rocketspark plans already include all your website security and 24/7 award-winning customer service. With our Ecommerce plans you also have access to all the latest ecommerce features and integrations, including Scheduled Ordering.
CASE STUDY: We did some math recently with a customer of ours for their NZ-based restaurant where we compared Rocketspark’s built-in Scheduled Ordering (this feature is included in our Ecommerce plans) with an external provider for online ordering.
For example, based on an average order value of $94 with around 20 orders a night, we found that the restaurant would save around $700 per month using only Rocketspark to take orders online.
Online ordering with pickup and delivery options is here to stay
According to Forbes, online ordering is key to retail's post-pandemic future. They’ve found that consumers want/expect to be able to order online, and have the option to pick up the same day—avoiding shipping timeframes and costs. However, at Rocketspark we’ve seen from our customers, that this doesn’t only apply to retailers that sell fashion, flowers or giftware for instance. Restaurants and bakeries have had to get online fast, many adapting their businesses to offer online ordering with takeaway pick up and delivery options, an option they now intend on continuing in the future.
To learn more about how to set up Scheduled Ordering for your Rocketspark online store, head to our Scheduled Ordering help guides. If you'd like to get up to scratch with everything ecommerce in 30 minutes, join an online class or watch on-demand.
