Restaurants urged to invest in mobile-enabled websites to boost sales

That's according to research carried out by the Centre for Retail Research (CRR), who predict that restaurant and entertainment businesses are missing out on 26 per cent of mobile sales because their websites aren't properly enabled for mobile. 

Last year 28 per cent of online restaurant and takeaway food sales were ordered on mobile devices and with that figure expected to rise to 63 per cent by 2017 as consumers become more reliant on smartphones and tablets to help carry out daily tasks, businesses are being urged to invest in mobile enabled websites and mobile payment services as well as develop apps in order to maximise profits. 

Claire Davenport, managing director at VoucherCodes.co.uk which commissioned the research, said: ​“Mobile represents a huge opportunity for the leisure and entertainment industries, however our research has found that it is not a priority for many businesses within these sectors."

Loyalty and pre-ordering ​

The Mad to Miss Mobile report, which surveyed 1,000 consumers and 100 major retailers, found that the most highly-ranked functions for mobile in retail were loyalty card systems (40 per cent) and payment (36 per cent). Thirty-five per cent of customers also expressed a preference to download an app that would allow them to pre-order food and drink. 

Offering a mobile-enabled website was found to be more important than having a dedicated app, although 70 per cent of restaurants surveyed did offer the latter. 

"Having a weak app has been shown to be less important than not enabling websites properly for mobile, which can be disastrous for profits – losing businesses over a quarter of potential mobile sales. However businesses should still be considering how to make apps work for them," said Davenport. 

"​It’s vital that companies sit up and take notice of where payments are headed, and invest in their mobile offers to make sure they aren’t falling at the final hurdle.”