Just-Eat has ruined many restaurants I’ve worked with in Colchester and further afield in Essex, as well as causing significant damage to others that are still struggling to recover. There are several other stories outside of Colchester of restaurant owners who have been driven to ruin by relying on Just-Eat to keep their businesses afloat. Here are five compelling reasons why you should try to avoid using Just-Eat as a company. At the end of this blog, I’ll include a link to a free guide I’ve created to help restaurants and takeaways make more money and prosper, which I hope will be useful to you! There are no sign-up forms or mailing lists! If you are thinking about using Just-Eat to bring customers into your restaurant, here are 5 reasons to consider avoiding them
1: Just-Eat is not your ally, it’s your competitor:
If you already have Just-Eat and you search for your company on Google when your restaurant is operating, you’ll notice that Just-Eat is paying to rank above your business for your business’ name during your business hours. The Business Name is a Keyword that is specific to your business. So why is this important?
In most cases, your website will receive traffic from people who are directly searching for your restaurant. If a customer wants to order from their neighbourhood burger joint, they will normally type the name of the burger place into their computer’s search bar or Google. This means that when Google loads the search results, the burger place will show up. If the business does NOT have Just-Eat, there will be no advert there from Just-Eat above their website, and if they are with Just-Eat, then Just-Eat will be paying to appear higher in search results than this business.
This is a huge problem when it is applied to you. If you have your own ordering system, this means that Just-Eat will be directly competing with you for consumers in an environment where you should be able to get them for free, and they will only be paying a few pennies each time they take their large commission. This is known as consumer fraud, and it is one of the most devious acts they do to companies. Every business I’ve worked with has seen a significant drop in website traffic and revenue since Just-Eat arrived on the scene. Just-Eat, of course will claim to bring all of these customers to you, and this will be provable via analytics, however, they are directly taking your traffic, a huge chunk of the profit and they’re only paying pennies for it. It’s a nice racket for sure!
2: Just-Eat maintains a high level of product uniformity within your brand:
This becomes a huge problem, forcing restaurants to raise their prices across the board to ensure that businesses can still make a profit. Most companies will usually offset the costs of using Just-Eat against their tax. Just-Eat creates problems when it guarantees that their website is kept at the same price levels as the restaurant’s prices outside of Just-Eat. In a service like Just-Eat, a £10.00 pizza will usually be increased to anything like £12.00 or £13.00 to cover the commission. If you’re working with Just-Eat, you’ll have to raise your prices everywhere, including your business website, which can push customers away, particularly if the quality of your food doesn’t improve!
3: Just-Eat’s financial pressure often pushes companies to use panic tactics:
Just-Eat has a history of indirectly applying financial pressure to companies to make quality sacrifices, from forcing restaurants and takeaways to give massive discounts on the Just-Eat websites and over the phone orders to lowering the quality of their goods. Not only that, but they also push menu expansion in several companies, when business owners feel forced to expand their menus to survive.
I’ve seen many restaurants expanding their menus to appeal to a broader audience. As most businesspeople are aware, this creates major issues for perishable products. If you’re running a Thai restaurant, it’s easier to specialise entirely in a small niche and have higher-quality food than to add Pork Pies, Full English Breakfasts, and Beefburgers. To save food from spoiling and taking up too much room in the cupboards, you can focus on dishes that can be made with the same ingredients. Create new dishes out of variations of the foods that sell the least, and you’ll have a better chance of selling them. Whether or not you use Just-Eat, this technique will be far more effective.
4: Just-Eat uses stock photos on it’s website:
False images and stock photos can damage your brand. I see three pizza places and two Chinese restaurants with the same food photos when I scroll through Just-Eat. When it comes to restaurant marketing, images are extremely relevant. If I, as a consumer, do not receive food that resembles the images you provide, I will be dissatisfied with your business. If something looks fantastic, perfect, and delicious, but all I get is two pieces of undercooked chicken served in a stale bap, I’m less likely to be satisfied than if the original standards I saw in the images were poor.
I know exactly what I’m getting when I order a cheap £7.00 for 20 chicken wings. I’m getting a salty, unsatisfactory product that’s going to make me regret it in a few hours. I’m more likely to leave a negative review as a customer if I see great-looking wings in their photo which will disappoint me when the sad, salty wings arrive. With worse photos, I won’t expect the world and neither will your customers. Customers actually value business honesty, and prefer real pictures! Negative reviews from false images will eventually destroy your company. Honest visual marketing is crucial, so strive to use your own pictures wherever possible.
5: Just-Eat has a bad reputation for delivering poor service and dealing with customers, which may also hurt your restaurant’s reputation.
You will not be able to successfully settle customer conflicts unless you consciously understand how their system operates. Due to a high level of miscommunication between the company and Just-Eat and a lack of understanding of their processes several of my customers have previously experienced issues caused by the system. One has to wonder why a company with a good track record in customer service has such terrible feedback on Trustpilot and other similar websites?
Here’s a link to my free guide that will help your restaurant business succeed! I hope it is as beneficial to you as it has been to the vast majority of the people with whom I have served.
I’ve now collaborated with over 70 restaurants who have had major issues dealing with Just-Eat, and I’ve got several emails thanking me for the work I’ve done in my guides. I hope you find it as beneficial as the people whose companies I’ve assisted. I wish you the best of luck. I keep my guide up to date on a daily basis in order to provide a steady stream of useful knowledge for restaurants. So keep coming here! One last point! Just-Eat was costing one of the companies I worked for over £2000.00 a month. Instead of making less money from their existing clients, they might have seen a huge and long-term rise in business if they had spent more money on Facebook advertising. Just an idea!
