E-Commerce: Every Food Distributor’s Secret Weapon

Foodservice is stuck in the Stone Age. It’s one of the only industries where buyers and distributors still rely on phone calls and fax machines to fulfill orders. Although the archaic process is time-consuming, prone to error, and extremely inefficient, few distributors have capitalized on the opportunity to digitize.

However, the tides are changing. Restaurants, hotels, and other buyers are digitizing food order management to optimize employee time, increase transparency, and boost customer satisfaction. As demand for digitization rises, distributors have a choice. They can refuse to change and ultimately sink, or they can offer a digital experience and swim.

Procurement in foodservice: A broken process

Foodservice distributors and buyers have a toxic relationship. Important order requests are conducted via back-and-forth phone calls, and sometimes even voicemail. Distributors rarely have methods to recall a buyer’s previous order, their preferences, or any personalized insights. Buyers have no visibility into new products, item information, or potential shortages or delays. And to make matters worse, mistakes -- which happen about 10-25% of the time, according to insiders – frequently go unnoticed thanks to limited transparency and a lack of a digital ledger.

The effects of this broken process are serious. Distributor salespeople get bogged down in manually taking orders – leaving no time for identifying upsell opportunities, strengthening customer relationships, and more. Revenue is impacted without any ability for buyers to browse digital catalogs, discover new items, and receive recommendations. A lack of online invoicing means payments often must be chased.

For restaurants, the inability to easily communicate with sales representatives hurts visibility into order confirmations and updates, shipment tracking, delivery estimates, and more. This can result in unexpected order delays, last-minute out-of-stock notifications, and other costly disruptions. Plus, it’s challenging to innovate a menu and provide new offerings when shopping for ingredients is such a time-consuming process.

Restaurant operators – who often wear many hats – simply need an easier, better way of placing orders from their smartphones. Distributors greatly benefit from a change, too. Thankfully leading distributors are entering the world of e-commerce and differentiating their businesses with a new approach for eager buyers.

Going digital: E-Commerce as the solution

Foodservice e-commerce platforms enable distributors to sell products in an online catalog via a mobile app or website. They’re able to make recommendations based on a buyer’s previous order, offer similar items when something is out of stock, and identify opportunities for upselling. The added capabilities are felt on the bottom line: by going digital, distributors are able to boost revenue by up to 18%. With payments made easy, invoices are paid faster and more efficiently.

Plus, online ordering means sales reps can spend less time playing telephone tag and more time developing strong customer relationships. Digitization can save over 14 hours per week per sales rep. Imagine what your team could accomplish with that time. To strengthen loyalty even more, foodservice e-commerce reduces the mistakes associated with manual ordering by 54%.

With e-commerce, buyers can complete orders with a few swipes on their smartphones. They can easily discover new items and recommendations, access previous orders, receive order reminders, and complete the ordering process with a single shopping cart for multiple locations. They’re empowered with a new level of transparency and can monitor the real-time status of their orders, payments, and deliveries. Real-time communication is made easy, and costly disruptions are prevented.

By centralizing orders, communications, and payments, e-commerce creates a sophisticated, user-friendly shopping experience that helps distributors and buyers alike save time, boost revenue, and drive customer satisfaction like never before.

E-commerce: Separating leaders from laggards

It's time to move away from manual ordering. Embracing e-commerce helps distributors ditch outdated, error-prone manual processes and enter a future where real-time insights, enhanced communication, and strategic selling drive tangible results.

The future of foodservice lies in the hands of those willing to innovate and adapt. Let’s close the chapter on Stone Aged operations and digitize for the better.