How to Replace Foodhub With Direct Online Ordering

Can You Replace Foodhub With Direct Ordering?

Yes. Plenty of UK restaurants and takeaways have cut their Foodhub orders right down, and some have dropped it altogether, by setting up their own ordering website and app. The maths behind it isn't complicated.

Foodhub takes commission on every order. Move that order onto your own website or app and you pay a fixed platform fee instead of a cut of the bill. The fee stays the same when you get busier. Commission doesn't. So every order you pull across widens the gap, and a busy Friday stops costing you more just for being busy.

Why Restaurants Leave Foodhub

Foodhub sells itself as the cheaper option next to Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats. If you're paying 25–35% on those, a lower rate looks like a good deal, and compared to them it is.

It's still commission, though. Foodhub takes a slice of every order, and the more you sell through it, the more it takes. Money is the main reason operators want out, but it isn't the only one.

The customer isn't yours. When someone orders through Foodhub, Foodhub has the relationship. It can show that same person offers from other takeaways on your street. You get the order. You don't get a customer list you can do anything with.

You can't talk to them. Someone who orders direct can get a text about your Tuesday deal, a loyalty reward, or a nudge when they haven't ordered in a month. A Foodhub customer gets none of that from you.

You don't control how your menu looks or how promotions work. Marketplaces decide the display format and the promo mechanics, and sometimes they have a say on pricing too. On your own site, you decide.

Your visibility depends on someone else's algorithm. Your ranking on Foodhub can move without warning and nobody has to tell you why. Nobody can push you down your own website.

What You Need to Replace Foodhub

Three things. A website or app where customers order straight from you. A way to get those orders into the kitchen - a tablet, a standalone terminal, or a POS that takes online orders directly. And a plan to get your Foodhub regulars to change a habit they've had for years.

The first two are the easy part. The third is where the work is.

Direct Ordering Systems

Flipdish does direct ordering for restaurants and takeaways: a commission-free ordering website, a branded mobile app, and self-service kiosks if you want them.

Orders from your Flipdish website or app go straight to the kitchen. No extra tablet on the counter, nobody re-typing orders. If you already have a Flipdish POS, or switch to one, online orders land in the same queue as counter orders. That gets rid of the most common reason orders come out wrong or late, which is someone copying an order from one screen to another in the middle of a rush.

Get the menu right before you launch. Copy it across carefully and use the same item names your regulars already know from Foodhub. Add the modifiers people actually use - no onions, extra cheese, large chips instead of regular. If a customer can't find their usual order on your site in about ten seconds, they'll go back to the app they know. Check your delivery zones and minimum order value too, and make sure they match what your drivers can really cover on a Friday night, not on a quiet Monday.

Then place a few test orders yourself. Do at least one on a phone, since that's how most people will order, and follow each one through to the kitchen and out the door.

Pricing is worth thinking about early. Some operators set their direct prices a little below their Foodhub prices, so regulars have a reason to order direct every time and not just the first time. Read your Foodhub agreement before you do this, in case it says anything about pricing across channels.

How to Move Customers Off Foodhub

People order on Foodhub because they're used to it and it's already on their phone. Ordering direct has to be just as easy, and they need a reason to bother.

Start with the people who already order from you. They like your food. They just need pointing at your own channel.

Put the link everywhere

Your direct ordering link should be on receipts, bags, boxes, counter signage, your Instagram and Facebook bios, and your Google Business Profile. The Google one gets missed a lot. Plenty of people search a takeaway by name and tap whatever ordering link comes up first, so check that it's yours and not a marketplace listing. A QR code on the counter or on a menu flyer saves people typing a URL with greasy fingers.

Give them a reason to try it

A discount or free item on the first direct order is the quickest way to get someone to try it. Set it up in Flipdish's loyalty and marketing tools so the coupon applies automatically. Staff don't have to remember codes and customers don't have to type anything in. It doesn't need to be big. Free chips or a free side is often enough to get someone to switch once.

Once someone has ordered direct, you have their details and you can contact them again. That's the whole point.

Get staff saying it

Every phone order and every counter sale is a chance to mention it. "Order through our app next time - you'll get loyalty points on every order." Pick one line and get everyone to use it, every time. If it's left to whoever happens to remember, it won't get said on the busy nights, and the busy nights are when you have the most customers in front of you.

Phone orders are a good one to target. Someone who rings up is already ordering direct, they're just doing it the slow way. Tell them about the app while you've got them on the line.

Use your packaging

A sticker or stamp with your URL on bags and boxes costs pennies per order and ends up on the kitchen table of every delivery customer, Foodhub ones included. It's the most direct advertising you've got. A small flyer in the bag with the first-order offer on it does the same job with a bit more room to explain.

Run a loyalty programme

The discount gets the first order. Loyalty is what keeps the next ten. Flipdish's loyalty system rewards customers for ordering direct, and they can't earn those rewards on a marketplace. After a while, ordering through Foodhub means leaving points on the table, and regulars notice that.

Use the customer list

Once people are ordering direct, actually contact them. A message when someone hasn't ordered in a few weeks. An offer on a quiet Tuesday or Wednesday night. A heads-up when you add something new to the menu. None of this is possible with Foodhub customers, and it's how direct customers keep ordering.

How Long Does It Take?

Most restaurants see real movement within three to six months of steady effort. How fast depends on how hard you push it, whether you use a first-order incentive, how much of your volume comes from regulars (they're the easiest to switch), and whether you run a loyalty programme.

Restaurants that do the full set - receipt inserts, packaging stickers, social posts and a first-order discount - typically get direct orders to 20–30% of their delivery volume within the first few months.

Track it every week. Two numbers: direct orders and Foodhub orders. Work out the direct share and watch the trend, not individual weeks, since a wet Saturday or a football match will throw any single week off. If the share stops climbing, go back and check the basics. Are the stickers still going on the bags? Is the counter sign still up? Are staff still mentioning the app on the phone? These things slip quietly.

The Financial Case

Take a takeaway doing 150 Foodhub orders a week at an average order value of £22. That's £3,300 a week going through Foodhub.

If Foodhub's effective take rate is 12–15%, that's £396–£495 a week in fees. Over a year, roughly £20,500 to £25,700.

With Flipdish direct ordering, you pay a fixed monthly platform fee regardless of how many orders come through. Once enough of your orders are direct, the platform costs a fraction of what commission would have.

You don't need to move everything to see it. Say you move a third of those orders, 50 a week. At 12%, that's £132 a week you're no longer paying in commission, or about £6,900 a year. At 15%, it's £165 a week and nearly £8,600 a year. And that's a third.

Count the costs on your side honestly. The first-order discount costs you something, but only once per customer. Commission comes off every single order, forever. Stickers and flyers are cheap. Card processing on direct orders and the platform fee itself go in the sum too - see the pricing page linked below for how Flipdish charges.

What you do with the difference is up to you. Put it back into the business, spend it on your own marketing, or just keep it as margin.

Running Foodhub Alongside Direct Ordering

You don't have to close your Foodhub account to build a direct channel. Most restaurants run both for a while, moving customers across gradually and keeping their marketplace visibility in the meantime.

This makes sense. Foodhub may still bring you some people who've never ordered from you before. Fine - pay the commission on that first order, then use the sticker on the bag and the first-order offer to get the second order through your own site.

Flipdish works alongside Foodhub without any problem. As your direct orders grow, you'll have real figures to decide whether Foodhub still pays its way. You might keep it on as a source of new customers. You might turn it off. Either way you're deciding from your own numbers.

Getting Started

Flipdish online ordering gives UK takeaways and restaurants a branded ordering website, a mobile app, loyalty tools and full integration with the Flipdish POS, all on one platform.

Flipdish's team has moved operators off Foodhub before and can help with setup, what to tell your customers, and how to get them switching. See Flipdish pricing for online ordering for the cost model.