Recent articles in respected business publications reveal that restaurants are seriously questioning the business sense of portal sites that offer online ordering.  An article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek relates how Pedro Munoz, owner of Luz, a Latin American restaurant in Brooklyn, NY, has decided to drop his portal service with Seamless.

The good news is that Munoz has been sending out information with his takeout and delivery orders, directing customers to use his custom online ordering site – powered by NetWaiter.

In the articles, Munoz cites the factors that make portals an untenable situation for his restaurant, and others:

High fees.  Munoz paid Seamless a 14% commission on all orders, plus additional charges for advertising and credit-card transactions.  Considering that some restaurants don't realize a high profit margin on some dishes, this doesn’t leave much profit.

Turnaround time for payment.  Munoz and other restaurant owners had to wait up to 30 days for payments that were processed through Seamless to reach his account.  He says that Seamless was holding as much as $20,000 at some points.

Similar complaints have been made by other restaurants against other online portals.  “It’s awesome if you’re a customer.  It’s great,” Munoz told Bloomberg. “But in all aspects, it’s killing the restaurants.  It’s a model that cannot be sustained.”

Much has been made of the Millennial generation. As customers, these young folks--18 to 39 years old--are an important group.  There are more than 80 million of them in the U.S. That's a lot of restaurant meals. Coincidentally, you will also find that this group is most apt to use online ordering.

A few facts about Millennials:

• They want one-to-one interaction with the brands they use. They are inundated with commercial messages, and more and more they are blind to them. Engagement is the key to this group. They pay attention only to those who understand them and their lifestyle.
• Millennials rely on their mobile devices. According to Millennial Marketing, 75% percent of this group use their smartphone as a personal shopping assistant, and 73% are transacting directly on their mobile devices.
• Millennials check their Facebook status six to eight times a day on their smartphones.
• Millennials see their smartphone as the principal lifeline to their world. According to a study by Zipcar, thirty percent of people falling into the Millennial label said giving up their mobile phone would have the greatest negative impact on their life -- two to nearly three times higher than any other age group in the survey. The answer in every other age group--their car. Translated: Millennials would rather give up their car than their smartphone.

What do you do with this information? Reflect it in your marketing. Select events and causes that matter to Millennials. Base the decor and the artwork in your restaurant on what you known Millennials like (you can find this information on the Internet).

And make sure your Millennial customers know you offer online ordering, because--you know--Millennials love their smartphones.