How e-commerce can help restaurants reduce labor costs and increase efficiency |

Restaurants operate on tight margins, leaving little room to waste financial resources on inefficient processes. One of the most time-consuming back-office tasks is ordering supplies, especially when a restaurant relies on multiple suppliers for its supplies. When done manually, this process can quickly become a significant drain on time and resources.

Depending on the number of suppliers and the frequency of orders, our estimates suggest that restaurants can spend anywhere from 10 to 18 hours of work per week managing orders. This manual process often involves writing lists of what to order, contacting suppliers via phone, text, email, or (heaven forbid) fax, checking for confirmation, and then staring out the window until the truck arrives. To put it mildly, it’s outdated and inefficient.

While front-of-the-house restaurant technology has evolved steadily with online ordering apps, point-of-sale (POS) systems, self-order kiosks, contactless payments, and more, the back-of-house has lagged behind. But restaurants are not to blame. Slow adoption of technology by foodservice providers and distributors is a major barrier to modernization.

While setting up a custom e-commerce platform has traditionally been cost prohibitive for distributors, requiring a significant capital investment and recurring maintenance costs, that’s changing. Today, third-party e-commerce vendors (like Cut+Dry) offer distributors white-label e-commerce solutions that are feature-rich and have a strong user appeal. Distributors no longer have to invest an arm and a leg to get an e-commerce solution.

Save time and money

Ordering online saves time – there’s no doubt about it. For example, Coupa Cafe has nine locations and previously managed orders via phone calls, faxes, emails, and even on-site visits from distributor sales representatives. Not only was it incredibly difficult to manage, but because everything was done manually, there was no way to track who ordered what, where from, how much was ordered, and what was delivered. It was an operational nightmare that stressed out their staff—and they spent four to six hours a week on this manual ordering process.

By switching to an online ordering system that allowed them to place all orders digitally and have immediate access to records, they were able to streamline their operations. The result? A drastic reduction in the time spent ordering—to just one to two hours per week, a 70% reduction in work hours.

For restaurants, this time savings can lead to significant financial benefits. In California, where the minimum wage is $16 an hour, reducing hours on tasks like ordering can save restaurants thousands of dollars a year. This freed-up time will also allow staff to focus on important activities that can drive sales—from customer service to upselling and cross-selling—increasing revenue.

Features like order guides can further increase efficiency. Restaurants typically order the same things at the same frequency, in the same quantities. With order guides, this process can be partially automated, so staff simply review and approve repeat orders rather than manually entering them each time.

Operational efficiency

Saving staff time is a big plus, but e-commerce platforms offer much more. These systems reduce order errors, speed up dispute resolution and make the entire ordering process more intuitive. With clear images and detailed product information, decision-making becomes faster – restaurants know exactly what they’re ordering. Real-time delivery tracking also reduces the time spent worrying about when packages will arrive.

Another advantage is the integration of digital payments. With most e-commerce platforms, restaurants can pay distributors online, eliminating the need for accounting teams to manually write checks and enter invoices—a time-consuming process, especially for larger operations with multiple locations. By streamlining these financial workflows, restaurants can significantly reduce administrative stress.

With an e-commerce solution, all purchase orders are automatically generated and available at the click of a button. Accounts teams can easily reconcile orders and payments, select and group invoices based on dates or vendors, and pay the distributor with another click of a button. As easy as pie.

E-commerce platforms aren’t just about ordering, they encompass every step of the ordering process from start to finish that a restaurant goes through. Browsing products, placing orders, tracking deliveries, resolving disputes, and paying for goods. Restaurants save time at every step—and while the exact savings may vary from business to business, the overall financial impact is significant, especially in an industry where every dollar counts.

Mani Kulasooriya is the co-founder and CEO of Cut+Dry, a single, efficient, easy-to-use platform that makes food commerce a more enjoyable, profitable, and less wasteful experience. A serial entrepreneur, Mani has spent the last decade at the intersection of food, restaurants, and technology. He began his career in fintech, building payment systems at Citibank and Yahoo. This training laid the foundation for Mani to conceive and design complex, scalable, transaction-based businesses with a payment component. Mani co-founded CAKE, a restaurant POS startup that was acquired by Sysco (SYY). While at Sysco, Mani helped create an entirely new technology organization, Sysco Labs, which he helped grow to a team of over 400 people.

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