Back to basics: How to improve profitability

Increasing profits is a sign of growth and positive development in any business. If your restaurant has been experiencing something of a plateau with revenues, or you’re looking for new ways to boost income, there is one solution that can have a wide impact: ePOS. Much more than just a system for supporting more efficient ordering, there are many ways in which adopting ePOS can help to significantly improve profitability too.

Getting to know your menu

If you’ve got your menu right then you’ll be able to optimise profitability thanks to the right dishes and range of options for customers. EPOS has a crucial role to play in this, as it will show you how well your existing menu is performing and, so, the changes that could be made to generate improvements. For example, you’ll be able to see which dishes customers buy most and those where you could create variations to potentially improve sales.

Making pricing more responsive

An ePOS system provides a wealth of data that can be crucial when it comes to defining pricing strategy. For example, you’ll be able to analyse this data, tracking sales to see best selling dishes, correlate how your promotions and marketing campaigns perform, as well as identifying the highest price point at which your best dishes sell well. Integrating this data into your pricing approach will enable you to set an agile strategy that is responsive to how customers are responding in real time.

Implementing upselling

Upselling is a gentle way to help boost your business’ revenues without customers feeling as if they are being heavily marketed to. The data generated by ePOS has a crucial role to play in this. For example, you’ll be able to see which dishes are often ordered together – your wait staff can then make suggestions to customers to pair these dishes to increase the order per table.

Using data to track trends

The data generated by ePOS can be fed into many different parts of the business to help reduce costs and boost profits. Data insights can be gleaned on everything, from your peak hours to the dishes on the menu that don’t sell well. There are many cost savings that can be made with these insights, for example streamlining the menu to remove spend on ingredients for unpopular dishes or refining staff scheduling to ensure you have cover for peak periods but aren’t over staffing at other times.

Tracking and eliminating waste

Waste of every type is the enemy of any restaurant business. It is the fastest way to reduce profits and means that you’re out of touch with how your restaurant operates. There are many ways that an ePOS system can help you to reduce waste right across the business. For example, you’ll be able to see where customers are ordering food but not eating it – in which case it may be a good idea to switch to smaller portion sizes – as well as the ingredients your kitchen is wasting during prep.

If you’re looking for ways to increase profitability, an investment in ePOS is a great first step towards achieving this.