How to Move Your Regulars from Marketplace Apps to Your Own Channel

The goal is not to leave the marketplaces tomorrow. The goal is for the customers who already love your food to stop costing you 30% every time they order it. Those people aren't discovering you on the app; they search for you by name. They would happily order direct. They just need to know it exists.

Here is the playbook that works, in the order that works.

1. Have somewhere to send them

Before anything else, your own ordering needs to be genuinely good: your menu with photos, saved addresses, online payment, accurate timings. If the direct experience is worse than the app, nothing else on this list matters. (This is what RestApp online ordering is for: your site, your apps, 0% commission.)

2. Put the message where your food already goes

Every marketplace order you hand to a courier is a delivery to a proven customer. Use it: a card in the bag: "Order direct at yourname.com, get 10% off your first order." The marketplace charged you for this customer once; there's no rule saying they get to charge you forever.

3. Make the first direct order irresistible, not the tenth

One strong first-order incentive beats a permanent small discount. You are buying a habit change; pay for it once. After that, the saved addresses, the loyalty points and the slightly faster checkout keep the habit for you.

4. Fix your Google profile

When someone searches your restaurant's name, your own ordering link should be the first thing they can tap, not the marketplace's ad above it. Claim the profile, set the ordering link, add the menu link. Twenty minutes, permanent effect.

5. Tell people at the counter

Staff mentioning "you can order ahead on our site" at handover, a QR on the receipt, a sign by the till. Unsophisticated and effective.

6. Let loyalty do the compounding

Points only work on the direct channel; the marketplaces will never run your loyalty programme for you. Every reward redeemed is a customer who now has a reason to never go back to the app.

Expect the shift to take months, not weeks, and measure it monthly: direct orders as a share of total online orders. Most operators who run this playbook consistently see the regulars move first, which is exactly right, because the regulars are where the commission hurts most.