Live data from Hacker News

Restaurant website traffic now 40% mobile

happytables.com

1–10 of 26 posts

Re: Restaurant website traffic now 40% mobile

#4
This is an interesting market that you are targeting, but I'm curious what your revenue looks like. It looks like you are banking on people upgrading to a premium account to make money, but to me it seems like you are giving away fully functional websites for free. You are giving so much away that there really isn't an incentive to upgrade.

> There is no setup fee or minimum term (even for our free plan).

>Can I stay on the free plan forever? Definitely. If you operate a small business or are simply growing, we want to support you. Our premium features are aligned to those of a larger restaurant, so once you’re more established you’ll have the ability to upgrade, but it’s all up to you!

and you don't put ads on the restaurant's site either, so there is no revenue coming in to you on that end. Maybe I missed something when I was digging around?

Re: Restaurant website traffic now 40% mobile

#5
I don't get why many restaurant owners don't bother putting a decent website online. If they actually do have a website, most of the time it's outdated, ugly, doesn't offer any useful information (such as opening hours, specials or a menu) or is just completely unusable. I'm not even getting started on any 'fancy' stuff such as usability on mobile devices or online reservation.

I know a few restaurateurs and they simply don't care, even more so than other types of small brick-and-mortar shops. First, they operate on very thin margins and most of the time simply can't or don't want to afford extra services such as a website. Moreover, most of their first-time customers still get there by word-of-mouth. It's as if most of the sector marketing-wise is still pretty much stuck in the early nineties.

Re: Restaurant website traffic now 40% mobile

#7
post #4

This is an interesting market that you are targeting, but I'm curious what your revenue looks like. It looks like you are banking on people upgrading to a premium account to make money, but to me it seems like you are giving away fully functional websites for free. You are giving so much away that there really isn't an incentive to upgrade. > There is no setup fee or minimum term (even for our free plan). >Can I stay…

I don't believe you are. It's unfortunate because there needs to be more innovation/competition in the space.

Re: Restaurant website traffic now 40% mobile

#8
post #5

I don't get why many restaurant owners don't bother putting a decent website online. If they actually do have a website, most of the time it's outdated, ugly, doesn't offer any useful information (such as opening hours, specials or a menu) or is just completely unusable. I'm not even getting started on any 'fancy' stuff such as usability on mobile devices or online reservation. I know a few restaurateurs and they sim…

As much as getting a website up and running for a small business seems so easy for the median reader of this site, the reality is different. Restaurant owners don't know how to do it. Regardless of the software you put in front of them, they probably won't come up with a good result and chances are that if they select the software themselves it will be a poor choice.

The internet is full of bad advice and the phone book is full of bad consultants. It's actually quite hard to be a good consultant to this kind of business. They're hard to work with and aren't willing to spend very much.

Re: Restaurant website traffic now 40% mobile

#9
i am frustrated by the number of restaurant websites that simply _don't work_ on iOS at all. Like you can't even look at a menu or figure out the hours.

Of all the websites I look at, restaurant ones are the most likely to fail horribly on mobile.

I guess it's because restaurant owners/managers 'buy' a website from a small contractor, and what they look for and are willing to pay for is something that looks 'pretty' -- lots of flash, lots of big graphics, etc.

Re: Restaurant website traffic now 40% mobile

#10
post #8
post #5

I don't get why many restaurant owners don't bother putting a decent website online. If they actually do have a website, most of the time it's outdated, ugly, doesn't offer any useful information (such as opening hours, specials or a menu) or is just completely unusable. I'm not even getting started on any 'fancy' stuff such as usability on mobile devices or online reservation. I know a few restaurateurs and they sim…

As much as getting a website up and running for a small business seems so easy for the median reader of this site, the reality is different. Restaurant owners don't know how to do it. Regardless of the software you put in front of them, they probably won't come up with a good result and chances are that if they select the software themselves it will be a poor choice. The internet is full of bad advice and the phone b…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN