How to Replace Foodhub With Direct Online Ordering

Why restaurants move away from Foodhub

Foodhub is a delivery marketplace that charges restaurants commission on every order placed through its platform. Like other marketplaces, it sits between you and your customers — you handle the food, Foodhub handles the relationship.

That model works if your goal is to reach new customers at any cost. It does not work if your goal is to build a profitable, sustainable business where customers come back to you directly.

The reasons restaurants choose to reduce their Foodhub dependency include:

Commission costs. Foodhub typically charges commission in the 10–12% range — lower than some competitors but still a meaningful cost at volume. On £25,000 of monthly delivery revenue at 12%, that is £3,000 per month going to the platform, or £36,000 per year.

Customer ownership. Foodhub owns your customer data. You cannot email, message or target Foodhub customers through your own marketing unless they also order through your direct channel.

Brand positioning. A customer who orders through Foodhub has a relationship with Foodhub, not with you. Your brand exists as a product listing inside their interface.

Pricing control. Some marketplace arrangements restrict your ability to run exclusive promotions for direct customers, limiting your ability to incentivise the switch.

This guide covers how to make the move to direct ordering.

Step 1: Understand your current Foodhub position

Before making any changes, look at your Foodhub data:

How many orders per month do you process through Foodhub?
What percentage are from repeat customers?
What is your average order value on Foodhub?
What is your total commission spend per month?

Understanding these numbers gives you a baseline. You may find that Foodhub drives a small number of orders and most of your delivery business comes from other sources. Or you may find it is a major channel. Either way, the data tells you how much is at stake and what a realistic transition looks like.

Step 2: Choose your direct ordering platform

A direct ordering channel needs a customer-facing interface (website, app or both), a payment layer and a connection to your kitchen. You can build this with separate tools, but a platform that connects all three is significantly easier to operate.

Flipdish provides a complete direct ordering solution for restaurants. It includes:

A branded restaurant website with your menu, your design and your domain name
A branded mobile app on the App Store and Google Play, published under your restaurant's name
Integration with your POS system so online orders go directly to the kitchen
Customer loyalty tools so you can reward direct customers with points and promotions
AI marketing automation to re-engage lapsed customers and drive repeat orders

Because Flipdish is built specifically for food businesses, setup is faster than assembling the same capability from generic e-commerce tools. Most restaurants are live on their direct ordering channel within a few weeks.

Step 3: Set up your menu and ordering channel

Setting up your direct ordering channel requires:

Menu upload. If you already have a structured menu in a POS or spreadsheet, this can usually be imported. At minimum you need item names, descriptions, prices, categories and any modifiers or extras. Your existing Foodhub menu is a useful starting point — the descriptions and photography you already have can be reused directly.

Ordering preferences. Collection, delivery or both. Delivery radius. Minimum order values. Operating hours. These settings take around 30–60 minutes to configure.

Payment setup. You need a payment processor connected to your ordering channel. Flipdish handles payments natively with integrated payment tools.

Thorough testing. Run test orders through the complete flow before going live — order placement, payment processing, kitchen notification and confirmation to the customer.

Step 4: Drive customers to your direct channel

Having a direct ordering channel is not enough on its own. You need to actively move customers across from Foodhub.

Packaging and receipts. Add a message to every order: "Order direct at [yourwebsite.com] and save [X%]." This is the most cost-effective conversion tool available — you are reaching customers at the exact moment they have just ordered from you.

Social media. Announce your direct channel and explain the benefit to customers clearly: ordering direct is faster, earns them loyalty points and saves them money if you are running a launch promotion.

Existing customer data. If you have any email addresses or phone numbers from past direct interactions, message them to let them know about your new channel.

Launch promotion. A time-limited offer on first direct orders works well: free delivery for the first month, a percentage discount or a free item on first order. This gives customers a concrete reason to switch now rather than eventually.

Step 5: Use a pricing incentive to make switching worthwhile

Many restaurants offer a small discount on direct orders to make them more attractive than Foodhub. The maths typically work in your favour.

Example calculation:

Foodhub order of £30: you receive £26.40 (12% commission)
Direct order with a 10% loyalty discount: customer pays £27, you receive approximately £26.60 after payment processing (around 1.5%)

The customer saves £3 and has a reason to choose your direct channel. You receive slightly more than through Foodhub and, critically, you now own the customer relationship. On every future order from this customer, there is no commission to pay.

If you are running free delivery on direct orders during launch (while charging delivery on Foodhub), the incentive is even clearer to customers without requiring a discount on item prices.

Step 6: Build loyalty around your direct channel

A loyalty programme is one of the most effective tools for turning a first-time direct customer into a regular.

Flipdish loyalty tools let you:

Award points on every direct order
Offer rewards at spending milestones
Run targeted campaigns to customers who have not ordered recently
Segment your customer base by visit frequency, average spend and menu preferences

A customer with loyalty points in your programme has a specific reason to return to your channel rather than ordering through Foodhub. Marketplace loyalty, where it exists, rewards loyalty to the marketplace. Your loyalty programme rewards loyalty to your restaurant.

Step 7: Manage your Foodhub transition

You do not need to exit Foodhub immediately. Most restaurants run their direct channel alongside their marketplace presence during the transition.

The practical approach:

Launch your direct channel and run it in parallel with Foodhub
Run a promotion to shift existing customers to direct
Monitor the direct vs Foodhub order split over 3–6 months
Once direct orders represent a meaningful share of your delivery volume, decide whether to stay on Foodhub as a secondary acquisition channel or reduce your presence

Some restaurants keep a reduced marketplace presence specifically for customer acquisition — new customers find you on Foodhub and are then incentivised to switch to direct for subsequent orders. This model captures the acquisition benefit of marketplaces while removing the retention cost.

Will your direct channel appear in search results?

One concern restaurants have when moving away from Foodhub is whether a direct ordering website will be discoverable. Foodhub listings do appear for some restaurant-specific searches.

The answer is yes — with the right setup.

A Flipdish ordering website is a proper restaurant website with a domain you own, not a listing on a marketplace. With basic SEO in place — an accurate Google Business Profile, local citations and structured menu data — your site can rank well for branded searches like "[your restaurant name] order online" and "[your restaurant name] [town name]."

Over time, direct website rankings tend to outperform marketplace listings for branded queries because you control the page and can optimise it. Customers who search specifically for your restaurant are high-intent: they already want to order from you. Getting them to your direct channel removes the commission entirely.

Flipdish restaurant websites are structured to support local SEO from launch.

The financial case

A simple model for a restaurant doing £20,000 per month in Foodhub orders at 12% commission:

Scenario	Monthly delivery revenue	Foodhub commission	Direct platform cost	Net revenue
Foodhub only	£20,000	£2,400	£0	£17,600
50% shifted to direct	£20,000	£1,200	~£200	£18,600
80% shifted to direct	£20,000	£480	~£200	£19,320

This model is conservative: it assumes the same total volume and does not include the long-term value of owning customer data, running loyalty promotions or reducing customer acquisition costs through re-engagement campaigns.

Getting started

Flipdish has helped restaurants across the UK and Ireland build direct ordering channels and reduce marketplace dependency. The online ordering platform can have your restaurant live with a branded website and app within a few weeks.

If you want to understand how the numbers work for your specific operation, talk to the Flipdish team for a tailored assessment.