Stepping into the aftermath of COVID-19, many F&B retailers have adopted multiple strategies to satisfy the needs of customers. Coupling that with the existence of food delivery powerhouses like GRAB and FOODPANDA, it is either adapting to the trend or losing out the advantage! However, just taking the step to adapt your business to the trends is not enough, the secret ingredient to unlock that sweet sweet revenue can be found in the most important thing in the 20th century - Data. At this point, you might be wondering how data can help your F&B business? Or maybe you already know the importance of data from the thousand’s of news you are constantly bombarded with, but have no clue where to begin or how to kickstart this effort? Well, let’s take a step further by identifying the secrets of data and the area where you can begin looking into your business to boost your sales!
Pssst … The Secret For F&B Sales is …
Identifying both your best and worst sellers!
Introducing menu items as limited offers!
Implementing strategies according to your analytics!
Identifying Both Your Best And Worst Sellers!
The first step in optimizing our sales starts from our menu! How many of us here know which product on the menu is the best seller? Everyone? Well what about your top 5 worst sellers? Optimizing is not just about focusing on optimizing the best, but also removing the not so popular items or items not welcomed by your customer base! Take my recent experience with this friendly F&B boss as an example.
His restaurant has been our family favorite restaurant for years, but recently he’s been stressed. He shared with us that his business is recently barely able to breakeven, he would often complain about having tons of leftover ingredients, burning through his cash and deciding to incorporate these ingredients as an additional side dish to popular dishes. As time went on, he finally decided to remove some of the dishes on his menu to cut costs. As it turns out that was all he needed to do to earn profits! It turns out the reason why he had this leftover ingredient issue was because he only focused on his best sellers and left the other menu options untouched, even if it was contributing to his losses.
He proceeded to stock up more of his best seller ingredients according to his business data and remove investing in less popular ingredients. We are very happy for him, but more importantly, we learnt that more is not always better. We may want to provide a wide selection for our customers, but it may not be worthwhile. So as data helps us to identify what we can focus on, it also helps us identify what we should abandon in order to achieve higher sales. So, are you aware of your worst sellers now?
Introducing Menu Items As Limited Offers!
Now that we begin cutting away the less popular items and dishes, the question remains, how do we know what to replace our slightly emptier menu now? Well, data analytics has you covered as well. Ever heard of limited offer products? Pretty sure we are clear with Limited Time Offer (LTO) products such as McDonald’s Prosperity Burger. However, this is actually one tactic to introduce a new menu option and for us to analyze before deciding to make it into a permanent menu option!
Let’s take Wendy’s as an example, they have launched multiple LTO products as a means to test the market as well as gain higher revenue, among the two most welcomed LTO would be Wendy’s S’ Awesome Bacon Cheeseburger and Wendy’s Pretzel Bacon Cheeseburger. Although both were easily customers’ all time favorites, eventually Wendy’s decided to make their S’ Awesome Bacon Cheeseburger as a permanent menu item!
Although both the products had lots of passionate customers, the impact they bring about are vastly different. By solely relying on customer reviews, we may not be able to differentiate between which products are beneficial to our business when made permanent and which products are better off as LTOs. Through data, we have the freedom to test new products and understand which strategy for the product helps us get the most sales in the long run.
Implementing Strategies According To Your Analytics
Similar to the LTO strategy as a means of finding permanent menu items or seasonal items that can drive sales, data allows us to find out what other strategies’ works best for our business. For example, do you know which of your products does best during which festivities or which period? Do you know your business’ peak hours and non-peak hours? All this information can actually provide you with an idea of the strategies suited for you once the data has been analyzed!
For example, a friend of mine owns a F&B business. They recently began opening other franchise shops around Klang Valley and the reason for their success comes from the power of data analytics. As they first started the business, it proved to be a challenge for them as their peak hours only come at night between 6 - 9pm. They wanted to extend their peak hours and to turn their non peak hours into peak hours too. So what were some of the strategies they used? They realized their customers really enjoyed their hot n cold dessert series, so they decided to introduce off peak hour prices and promotions to attract nearby university students. Furthermore, through the power of data, they realized that Tuesday’s were one of their worst performing days, so they released a Tiramisu Tuesday Deal that helped to attract more customers. I used to be able to talk to him whenever I head over on Tuesday but now every day is peak day for them! They pushed tons of promotions and tons of set lunches as well as typical strategies, but without the help of data, they never knew which strategy was the most effective and tailored to their business!
As such, the key to increasing your F&B sales really lies in the power of data analytics. From reducing loss and focusing on best sellers to implementing strategies that can help your business long term and keep your business busy even during non-peak hours, data analytics helps you understand your business better and keeps you informed to make effective yet strategic decisions! Data truly is king!
As we understand data is powerful, the process of analyzing data can be tedious and hard. Not to mention the struggle to filter and differentiate between important data and irrelevant ones! Well if that’s your main concern, Fret not as we are able to provide you with the necessary tools and services to assist you in data analytics! Interested? Check out our solutions to take an in-depth look at how you can increase and optimize your F&B sales today!