How to Replace Foodhub With Direct Online Ordering

Can Restaurants Replace Foodhub?

Yes. Any restaurant taking orders through Foodhub can build its own direct ordering channel and progressively move customer relationships away from the marketplace. Restaurants that do this typically reduce per-order costs significantly, retain customer data and improve margins on every order.

What Does Foodhub Cost Restaurants?

Foodhub charges restaurants a commission on orders placed through its platform. The exact rate depends on your contract, but restaurants should factor in:

  • Commission on every order placed through the marketplace
  • Payment processing fees
  • The cost of any additional promotional features

The compounding effect is significant. A busy takeaway processing several hundred orders a week pays commission on every single one. Over a year, those payments often amount to enough to fund a direct ordering platform several times over — while still retaining the customers who placed those orders.

Why Restaurants Stay on Foodhub

The argument for staying usually comes down to visibility: Foodhub puts your restaurant in front of customers who do not know you yet.

That is true. Marketplaces generate new customers.

The problem is that those customers belong to Foodhub, not to you. Their email address, phone number and ordering history are held by the marketplace. When they order again, Foodhub earns commission again. You have no ability to contact them directly or reward their loyalty without going through the platform.

The right approach for most restaurants is to use Foodhub as a customer acquisition channel — accept those orders, take the commission hit — while simultaneously converting those customers into direct ordering customers over time.

How to Build a Direct Ordering Channel

Step 1: Choose a Direct Ordering Platform

Choose a platform that gives you a branded ordering website and, ideally, a branded mobile app. The website should be yours — not a subdomain hosted by a third party.

Flipdish builds both. Your restaurant gets a dedicated ordering website and an app in the App Store under your own name. Every customer who downloads your app is your customer, not the platform's.

Step 2: Set Up and Improve Your Menu

Port your Foodhub menu into your direct ordering platform. Most platforms assist with this during onboarding. Use the opportunity to improve your menu structure — cleaner sections, better descriptions, upsell options and well-organised modifiers all improve conversion rates on direct orders.

Step 3: Connect Everything to Your POS

Direct orders should appear in your kitchen automatically, alongside counter orders and any other channels. If your direct ordering platform integrates with your restaurant POS, your team does not need to check a separate screen. One unified queue reduces errors and simplifies kitchen management.

Flipd online ordering connects natively with the Flipdish POS, so all channels — counter, website, app and kiosk — flow into a single kitchen view with no manual steps.

Step 4: Confirm Payment Processing

Direct ordering platforms handle payments through their own infrastructure. Understand the payment processing rates before going live. Flipdish pricing is transparent and available at flipdish.com/pricing-online-ordering.

Step 5: Convert Your Foodhub Customers

The practical challenge is persuading customers who currently find you on Foodhub to order from you directly instead. This requires deliberate effort.

Tactics that work:

  • Packaging inserts. Include a card in every delivery with a direct ordering link or app download QR code. A small discount for a first direct order is usually enough to prompt the switch.
  • In-restaurant signage. QR codes at tables, on menus and at the counter. Make it easy to scan and order.
  • Wi-Fi capture. Collect an email address when customers connect to your in-restaurant Wi-Fi.
  • Social media. Promote direct ordering benefits — exclusive deals, faster checkout, loyalty points — directly to your followers.
  • Staff conversations. Train staff to mention the app at collection or at the counter.

Step 6: Give Customers a Reason to Switch

Customers order through Foodhub because it is familiar. You need to offer something better or different:

  • A loyalty programme that rewards direct orders
  • Exclusive menu items or offers not available through the marketplace
  • A faster checkout experience through a saved profile and payment method
  • Personalised offers based on their actual order history

Flipd includes a loyalty and marketing platform that makes this straightforward to run with minimal manual effort.

Should You Close Your Foodhub Account?

Not immediately, and possibly not at all.

Most restaurants run direct and marketplace channels in parallel, with the direct channel growing over time. As more customers switch, the proportion of orders going through Foodhub shrinks, and so do your commission payments.

Some restaurants eventually close their Foodhub account once direct ordering exceeds the discovery value of the marketplace. Others keep both running permanently. The right answer depends on your specific customer mix and location.

The Business Case in Numbers

A straightforward example: if you pay 15% commission on £80,000 of annual orders through Foodhub, that is £12,000 per year to the marketplace. A direct ordering platform from Flipdish costs a fraction of that. Moving even 50% of those orders direct saves £6,000 annually — and keeps growing as more customers make the switch.

The question for most restaurants is not whether to build a direct channel. It is how fast to do it.

What About New Customer Discovery?

The genuine concern with reducing marketplace dependence is losing new customer discovery from browsing.

This can be offset through:

  • Google ordering through your own website (available via Flipdish integration)
  • Targeted paid social to local audiences
  • Local SEO driving hungry customers to your own ordering page
  • Referrals from existing direct customers
  • Improved Google Maps presence linked to direct ordering

None of these require staying on a marketplace permanently. They simply require attention to your own channels.

Getting Started

To explore how direct ordering with Flipdish would work for your restaurant, visit flipdish.com/online-ordering or speak to the team directly.