Independent Restaurants Turn Their Focus to eCommerce Integration

In an effort to compete with larger players in the space, small restaurants are looking to boost their eCommerce presence, PYMNTS Intelligence has found.

By the Numbers

Findings from the study “Main Street Health Q3 2023: Leading Payment Processors’ Satisfy SMBs, but Less Popular Providers are Vulnerable,” created in collaboration with Enigma, which drew from a survey of more than 500 small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) on the main streets of the United States, revealed that eCommerce is top of mind for many companies in the hospitality space.

In fact, roughly two-thirds of those in the food, entertainment and accommodations sector said that they believe that it is highly important for payment processors to offer eCommerce integration.

The Data in Context

eCommerce is a key concern for many restaurateurs.

“Hospitality truly transcends the four walls of a restaurant,” Chandler Stroud, vice president of B2B marketing at Resy, told PYMNTS in an August interview. “And restaurants have become incredibly focused on how they can use the guest information they’re securing from the various technologies they’re using to uplevel the hospitality they’re offering.”

Technology providers have been noting independents’ desire to equip themselves with competitive eCommerce capabilities.

For instance, last month, Oracle’s tech giant restaurants arm announced the launch of a new restaurant management platform targeted toward independent eateries, marketing the solution as “affordable” and simple to implement. The platform includes online ordering, POS and payment and workstation capabilities, among other features.

Restaurant point of sale (POS) technology provider Toast reported on a spring earnings call that small independent restaurants use tech to gain more visibility into pricing, while larger chains seek the ability to easily access data insights across locations.

“In the small SMB space, we’re optimizing pricing and packaging to meet the needs of that customer segment and leveraging an eCommerce sales motion and self-service onboarding to efficiently grow in this segment,” Toast Chairman and CEO Chris Comparato said at the time.