Just-Eat has destroyed several companies I have worked with in Colchester, as well as damaging several that really struggled to recover. Outside of Colchester there are many more examples of people who have been driven to ruin by using Just-Eat to try and keep their business alive. Here are 5 great reasons that you shouldn’t be using Just-Eat as a business. After you get to the end of this article, I will be supplying a link to a free guide I have set up to help restaurants and takeaways make more money and thrive, which I hope will be helpful to you! No sign ups and no mailing lists!
1: Just-Eat is competing with you for your business. In Google Ads, you will find every day that when you look for your business on Google, Just-Eat is paying to rank above your business for your business name. The Business Name is a Keyword that directly applies to your company. What does this mean?
In most cases, your business website will normally be getting traffic with people specifically looking for you. If a customer orders from their local burger place for example, usually they will type the name of the business into their search bar on their computer or Google if they are not a Just-Eat user, and sometimes even if they are! If you have your own ordering system, they will be directly competing with you for customers in an area where you should get them for free, and they are paying only a few pennies each time they take their huge commission. This is customer theft and it’s one of the most insidious things they do with businesses. Every company I have worked with, without fail has noticed a high decrease in website traffic and website sales once Just-Eat has entered the scene.
2: Just-Eat enforces a tight uniformity with their products, and forces places to drive up their prices. Most businesses would normally offset their prices with a company like Just-Eat so that the commission didn’t have such a serious impact on their business, but Just-Eat ensures that they are on the same price levels as the prices the company uses. A £10.00 pizza would normally be increased to something like £12.00 or £13.00 on a service like Just-Eat so the commission wasn’t bad, whereas it would remain £10.00 on the website for the customers. If you are working with Just-Eat, you will have to put up your prices everywhere, which can be something that drives away customers, especially if there is no quality increase.
3: Just-Eat forces desperation tactics by businesses. From forcing restaurants and takeaways to offer huge discounts on their websites and telephone orders, to reducing the quality of their products, Just-Eat has a history of making businesses sacrifice quality. Not only this, they also force expansion of the menu in a lot of businesses.
I have seen some companies adding more and more to their menu to cover a wider audience. This comes with huge problems for perishable goods, as most business people will know. It’s better to specialise completely in a small niche and provide a better quality of food than adding Jellied Eels, Full English Breakfasts and Halibut if you are running a Thai restaurant. You want to specialise in dishes that can be made from the same ingredients to stop food from spoiling and taking up too much space in the cupboards. Ideally make new dishes from combinations of the foods that sell the least, so you can increase the chances of selling them instead. This technique will work much better whether or not you work with Just-Eat.
4: Just-Eat uses stock images that can damage your reputation. When I scroll through Just-Eat, I can see three pizza places and two chineses with the same images for food. Images are really important when it comes to restaurant marketing. If I as a customer do not receive food that looks like the images you are supplying, then I am not going to be happy with you as a company. If something looks amazing, beautiful and delicious and I’m given two pieces of undercooked chicken served in a sheet of greaseproof paper, I am less likely to be happy than if I had low expectations. When I order a cheap £7.00 for 20 chicken wings, I know exactly what I’m getting. I’m getting a salty poor product. If I see great looking wings in their picture compared to the sad, salty wings that arrive, I will be more likely to leave a bad review as a customer. Over time, these bad reviews can kill your business. Honest visual marketing is key, so always try and use your own images.
5: Just-Eat has a poor service record for providing services and dealing with customers which can damage your restaurant’s reputation. Due to a large amount of miscommunication between the business and Just-Eat and a lack of understanding of their systems, you may not be able to effectively resolve customer disputes unless you actively understand how their system works. Ask yourself, why would a company with an effective customer service record have reviews like this: Click here to check out trustpilot reviews on Just-Eat. You can look up other Just-Eat branches in the world on Trustpilot.
Here is a link to my free guide that will help your business and takeaways thrive! I hope it helps you as much as it has helped the majority of people I have worked with.
Click here for the free guide!
I have worked with over 70 companies now which have experienced huge problems working with Just-Eat and received many emails thanking me for the work I have provided in my guides. I hope that you will find it as useful as the people who’s businesses I have helped. I hope that you will do well. I update my guide regularly to try and provide a constant stream of different information to help businesses. So keep checking in! One final thing! One company I worked with was spending over £2000.00 a month on Just-Eat. If they’d put that money into Facebook ads, they’d have seen a massive and permanent increase in business rather than making less money out of the customers they currently have. Just a thought!
Have a wonderful day, and stay safe!
