5 Tips on How Restaurants Can Leverage Customer Data to Boost Sales

• when they usually order, 
• their favourite dishes and drinks, 
• how much they spend on average when they order from your restaurant, etc. 

1. Identify your bestsellers & adapt your menu for delivery

Remember: delivery orders are usually less profitable than dine-in orders for various reasons. For instance, dine-in customers tend to order more high-margin products, like alcohol. Delivery costs also eat into a restaurant’s margins, whether you pay for an in-house delivery driver or work with a delivery partner like Stuart and pay a fixed delivery fee.

To make delivery more profitable, restaurants should create a delivery-only menu to focus on their bestsellers and most profitable items. With access to customer data, you can analyse which products customers order more often and bring attention to them through various tactics–this includes improving product descriptions, the menu’s visual design, or creating dedicated combo meals that include these bestsellers.

2. Use delivery to test an area for a new restaurant opening

Offering delivery to your customers is an intelligent way to increase sales and help you find the right area to open a new restaurant. Instead of immediately opening a brick-and-mortar spot, you can test demand in a specific area through delivery. 

Avoid the high rent of opening a place in the city centre and explore growth opportunities without putting your business at risk. Your customer data can tell you where most of your customers live and where a new brick-and-mortar restaurant can potentially succeed. 

3. Waive delivery fees & track demand level to drive direct orders

The battle for customer loyalty in food delivery is intensifying, and recent data reveals a significant shift in consumer preferences. While third-party marketplaces have historically dominated, the tide is turning, making direct ordering a prime opportunity for restaurants.

According to the NCR Voyix 2025 Customer Experience Report, a notable majority of customers now prefer to order delivery directly from a restaurant's own app or website. This marks a clear evolution from previous years:

• 58% of customers now prefer direct ordering channels (restaurant’s app or website), a significant increase from just 43% in 2021.
• Specifically, 29% prefer ordering via a restaurant’s app, and another 29% prefer using the restaurant’s website.
• Only 15% would rather call the restaurant directly.

This shift is driven by compelling reasons, as customers increasingly value:

• Convenience (65%)
• Ease of customisation (50%)
• The ability to earn loyalty points (36%)
• Lower perceived costs, as direct orders often avoid third-party fees and higher menu prices.

While 66% of consumers still use third-party apps monthly, more than half (56%) state they are likely or somewhat likely to order directly from a restaurant if the user experience is good. This willingness is further fueled by the fact that 67% of consumers are at least sometimes deterred by third-party app fees.

To truly capitalise on this growing preference for direct channels, restaurants must be proactive. The most effective strategy to increase your market share and cultivate direct ordering habits is to strategically waive delivery fees and offer compelling promotional offers. Remember, repetition is key to creating this habit. One-time deals are unlikely to reverse years of marketplace dominance; consistent value is what builds long-term customer loyalty. With the customer data you collect from your direct channels, you can precisely track the evolution of these habits, allowing you to fine-tune your offers and adapt your strategy for maximum impact.

4. Push in-app notifications at the right time

Marketplaces dominate the food delivery market because they offer customers a significant level of convenience with their user-friendly mobile apps. Customers can easily browse and order from a large selection of restaurants and cuisine in just a few clicks. 

Marketplaces need customers to order food at least once a week to generate profits. To encourage customers to order more often, they use data and push mobile notifications around the time users usually place orders. Whether the notifications offer promo deals or entice customers with delicious menu options, they can help increase order volumes. 

For restaurants with their own branded mobile app, they can use the same tactics to attract customers. First, they need to use customer data to determine when their customers usually place orders, then push notifications when their clientele will most likely start to feel hungry.

“We really want our own digital channels to be the preferred channels for our guests. (...) We just know and we continue to see it, when we bring a guest into our digital ecosystem, we see higher frequency, we see higher checks.”

– Katie Fogertey, Shake Shack CFO, at the ICR Conference

A study by MoEngage reveals that 40% of users interact with push notifications within an hour of receiving them, showing that restaurants have a unique opportunity to attract customers to their own sales channel through intelligent digital communication. 

5. Measure the impact of your marketing campaigns

Finally, customer data can help restaurants measure the impact of their marketing campaigns on their sales. This is particularly important for offline marketing campaigns that offer limited insights.

Indeed, marketing campaigns such as flyer distribution, restaurant displays, or public billboards offer little-to-no options to measure their impact. But by cross-checking places where marketing campaigns have been rolled out with data about sales volumes, restaurants can get a clearer picture of what worked and what didn’t.

Drive your business forward with Stuart

Are you a restaurant owner looking to thrive in a challenging economy? Selling your delivery orders through your own digital channel is vital to maximising profits per order, but that’s only one aspect of long-term benefits for your business. 

By taking back control of your customer data, you can expand further. The more insights you get about your customers, the more you can improve their ordering experience. In the end, that amounts to greater loyalty, with customers repeating orders and potentially of a higher value. 

Are you ready to learn more about the long-term benefits of owning your delivery channel and customer data? Stuart is here to help–talk to our team now and learn what our delivery solutions can do for your business.