Kuala Lumpur, 1 April 2022 – According to a study done on food ordering trends by cloud-based retail management software company Web Bytes Sdn Bhd, the pandemic has caused a seismic shift for the food and beverage (F&B) industry where food deliveries and takeaways now exceed dine-ins even post lockdown, by contributing a whopping 85 percent of total food and beverage (F&B) orders for the last three months of 2021.
Based on aggregated data gathered over the one year period of 2021 from Web Bytes’ Point of Sale (POS) system, Xilnex on a random sampling of 1,100 F&B brand outlets, including fast-food restaurants, chain eateries and bubble tea shops; takeaway orders and food deliveries saw a sharp jump of 90 percent in May last year when the lockdown began, and the momentum continued even after the lockdown was lifted. Dine-ins on the other hand, did not resume to pre-lockdown levels and continued to see a downward trend and contributed to only 10 percent of total F&B orders from October to December 2021.
Ooi Boon Sheng, CEO of Web Bytes Sdn Bhd said, “Although Covid-19 standard operating procedures for eateries have gradually eased, dine-in sales are still far from being back to pre-pandemic levels. The data gathered from our F&B customers’ transactions shows that consumers in Malaysia have adapted their lifestyle and are getting increasingly used to takeaways and food deliveries. This information is vital to help F&B operators make informed decisions on how to better manage their business and adopt strategies and tactics to cater to this new customer behavior”.
He stressed the importance of F&B businesses leveraging analytics and embracing proactive retailing with data-driven POS - having POS systems that go beyond handling day-to-day transactions and providing operational data, to one that can provide real-time analytics - to drive proactive and not reactive decision making, which is important to the continuity of today’s F&B businesses.
Online food ordering has also seen an explosive growth since the pandemic began, and consumers are becoming increasingly savvy with scanning a QR code or accessing a web link for their food orders. Close to 50 percent of Web Bytes’ F&B customers now use Xilnex LiveOrder where all food orders and payments are transacted digitally, regardless of whether for dine-ins, takeaways or deliveries.
“The pandemic has accelerated the urgency for F&B businesses to adopt an omni-channel approach, to allow their customers multiple ways to order and make payments, whether in-premise by scanning a QR code, or online or through third party food delivery apps. It is imperative that they deploy omni-channel and integrated POS systems that can help them streamline their operations and provide a seamless and consistent experience to their customers as well as maximize efficiency of their staff”, added Ooi.
For the past few years, Web Bytes has expanded its Xilnex POS solutions for F&B businesses to include mobile POS, self-ordering kiosks, and mobile loyalty applications. Early this year, it also introduced iPad-based POS (iOS POS) to cater towards F&B kiosks and micro-F&B SMEs. Xilnex POS solutions are used by F&B brands such as Tealive, Marrybrown, La Juceria, BMS Organics Café and Texas Fried Chicken, and has an estimated total of 16,000 deployments in the F&B space.
