UK Food Wholesalers: Take Restaurant Orders Online, Your Way

For many wholesalers in the UK the evening goes the same way. Service ends, the head chef counts the walk-in, and the orders start: a voicemail, a WhatsApp photo of a notebook, an email with half the quantities missing. Somebody in the office types it all in before the pickers start. When that person is off sick, the morning goes wrong.

Why kitchens want to order online

Chefs don’t mind ordering. What they mind is ringing at 11 pm and hearing a voicemail, then not knowing until the van turns up whether the order got through. A page they can open on their phone, with their usual products, their prices and a clear “order by 8 pm for tomorrow”, takes that worry away. They get an email the moment you have it, and another when it is on its way.

For you the win is quieter evenings and fewer mistakes. An order typed by the customer is an order nobody has to read back. The ones that still come by phone go into the same list, so the pickers work from one place.

Your own page, or a marketplace

There are two ways to get your customers ordering online. You can join a marketplace app that chefs already use for several suppliers, or you can give them your own ordering page. Both work; they suit different businesses.

• A marketplace can bring you new accounts. In return your products sit next to everyone else’s, and the app — not you — owns the chef’s habit.
• Your own page carries your name and only your products. Each account sees its own prices, its own delivery days and your cut-off. You decide who is invited.

If most of your trade is regular accounts you already know, your own page is usually the better fit. That is what Supligo gives you: an address like supligo.com/s/your-company, and one email that invites every customer with their own link. No app for them to download.

VAT, product by product

Food wholesale is where VAT gets fiddly. Most food is zero-rated, but crisps, confectionery, soft drinks and hot food are standard-rated, and a single order can hold both. In Supligo you choose each product’s VAT class once — Supligo suggests one, you decide — and every order works out its VAT line by line. Your customer sees the same totals you do.

Your accountant has the last word on how each product is classed. Once the classes are right, they stay right on every order.

Starting with ten customers

Don’t move everyone on a Monday. Pick ten accounts who already order regularly and are comfortable on their phones. Import them from a spreadsheet, check their prices, set your cut-off and delivery days, and send the invitation. Keep taking phone orders from everyone else — they go into the same list.

After two weeks, look at who is ordering online and who isn’t. The ones who are will tell the others. You can see how it works for your own business on our online ordering page, and the prices in pounds are on the pricing page — with 30 days free to try it.