When it comes to creating a WordPress food delivery website, things can get pretty complicated. Your restaurant or cafe is likely in need of an easy-to-use ordering system and a very specific delivery and collection setup. 

Basically, you need a system that you set up quickly and customize to your needs with little fuss. Which is why we’ll be showing you how to set up a food delivery website and customize the delivery/collection to suit your business needs.

How to prepare your online store for food delivery

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of managing food delivery and collection, we first need to get your site set up and ready to take orders.

To do this, you’ll need to have WooCommerce and WooCommerce Delivery Slots installed on your site. 

• WooCommerce. Your main eCommerce plugin, it sets up your store so you can sell products, manage inventory, and process orders.
• WooCommerce Delivery Slots. Your delivery and collection management plugin. It allows customers to select delivery dates and times and allows you to customize your delivery schedule.

Once you have both of these installed, setting up your store for food orders is made easier with this guide to creating an online ordering system for restaurants.

Having a food delivery restaurant means of course that you need to make deliveries. The delivery process on its own can be a hassle, but with the help of a Map Location Picker and Google Address Autofill added to the checkout form, you can streamline your delivery process.

How to manage WordPress food delivery with Delivery Slots

Now you have your store set up and ready for food orders to come rolling in, it’s time to organize and manage your WordPress food delivery and collection. WooCommerce Delivery Slots allows you to tailor your delivery schedule and system to suit your restaurant’s needs. 

Here are some of the things you can customize with WooCommerce Delivery Slots:

• Set a delivery schedule to suit you.
• Allocate a maximum number of orders per day.
• Set holidays/close dates.
• Allow customers to pre-select or reserve their delivery slots.
• Set delivery zones based on zip codes/postcodes.

Set a delivery schedule to suit you

Managing your food delivery can get a bit complicated. In fact, you might have specific dates or times when you can’t deliver food to your customers at all. 

Delivery Slots allows you to select which days of the week you can deliver so that you’re in full control of your schedule. 

Not only that, but Delivery Slots also allows you to:

• Disable same-day delivery if a certain time has passed.
• Disable next-day delivery if a certain time has passed.
• Restrict deliveries to only be allowed in the current week.
• Set added fees for same-day and next-day delivery to cover costs.
• Add specific time slots throughout the day, and customize it for each day of the week and shipping method, to suit your opening hours and delivery zones.
• Set a maximum number of orders per time-slot.
• Generate time slots automatically between two set times.
• Set fees per time slot.
• Change the wording to accommodate for delivery or collection.

Allocate a maximum number of orders per day

As well as organizing your delivery schedule in terms of date and time, with Delivery Slots you can also allocate a maximum number of orders you’ll take in one day. This feature allows you to adjust this for each day of the week to cater to your team’s capacity.

By restricting the number of orders you can take, you’re making sure that your restaurant is able to cope with increased orders and sudden fluctuations.

Set holidays/close dates

No matter the size of your restaurant, you likely won’t be open 365 days of the year. Luckily, Delivery Slots allows you to set your holiday dates ahead of time and name each of them. This way you can pre-set your national holiday close dates and any custom scheduled dates to save you hassle later on.

Allow customers to pre-select or reserve their delivery slot

A lot of the time, customers will want to make sure they’re able to get their food delivery when they want it before they place their order. Delivery Slots allows you to add a reservation table to your store to allow for this.

With your time slots already set up for ordering, customers simply select which time slot they want before the checkout, and start their order safe in the knowledge that they’ll get their order when they want it.

Set delivery zones based on zip codes/postcodes

If you’re managing your own food delivery and collection, the likelihood is that you’ll need to restrict the locations you can deliver to, or set specific time slots for those locations. 

Delivery Slots allows you to combine your shipping zone settings in WooCommerce, with the settings in Delivery Slots to make this possible. 

Explore these settings in detail:

How to manage food collection with Delivery Slots

We’ve already mentioned the benefits of managing WordPress food delivery with Delivery Slots, but let’s not forget about food collection.

All of the settings mentioned above can be adapted to suit a restaurant, cafe, or even store that offers a collection of their goods. 

For example, you can:

• Set specific days of the week that you offer collection to take control of your schedule.
• Allocate specific times of the day that you allow collection so you have time to prepare.
• Allow same-day collection or don’t.
• Set a maximum number of orders you’ll allow to keep up with demand.
• Allow bookings up to a certain number of minutes before their slot to make sure you can prepare the order.

Roundup

Managing your WordPress food delivery website can be straightforward if you have the right tools on hand to allow you to customize it to your needs. WooCommerce Delivery Slots coupled with WooCommerce do exactly that.

By taking control of your food delivery and collection, you’ll be able to quickly adapt, scale, and manage your restaurant even when demand fluctuates. 

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