How can I offer meal plan, catering or scheduled ordering in my venue?

In this article:

• provide a separate menu on your venue page in Skip to offer ordering on a scheduled (calendar) basis.
• control ordering through minimum and maximum lead times.
• set up collection or delivery times based on the day-of-week, the time-of-day and specific calendar periods.
• receive and process orders received through scheduled ordering.

 

Setup of a separate menu to offer scheduled ordering

Once your menu has been set up in Skip, you will provide the following settings to control and manage orders:

• The minimum time you require to fulfil the order, for example 24hrs. This means that your customers must place an order at least 24hrs prior to their preferred collection time.
• The maximum time in advance you want an order to be placed, for example 8 days. This means that your customers can not place an order more than 8 days in advance.
• The days of the week that you want to offer collection for the order placed by your customers. For example, Tuesday through to Saturday, excluding Sunday and Monday. This means your customers will not be able to select these excluded days to collect their order.
• The time periods during these days to select to pick up orders. For example, between 11am and 12pm and between 4pm and 5pm hourly blocks. This means your customers can select a time that suits them and suits your venue for collection.
• The date range you want to offer the scheduled orders service. For example, 1-May to 21-May and then 2-June to 28-July. This allow you to focus on when in your operations you'd like to offer the service around your requirements.

Customers using the service

Your separate menu will be available 24/7 to allow your customers to order at their convenience but for the times that you allow for collection:

Your customers are prompted to select the date and time that suits them and can select from only the days and times that you have set to be available:

These details are then confirmed in the cart and confirmation page.

These details are kept in their inflight orders menu until after time off collection for reference:

 

Receiving orders in your venue

NOTE: Orders received with this feature are not received via your mobile Skip printer by default and must be requested to be sent to the printer instead of email only.

Once the order has been placed you can receive and review your orders in a number of ways.

All orders are sent via email to the email address on your Skip account. This email has a summary in the body text and an attached PDF file that you can use or print to label your orders. Orders can also be set to print on your Skip Printer as per normal.

Email summary sent to venue email address

Attached invoice file in PDF format for order processing

Dashboard app for reviewing orders

If you are using the merchant dashboard app or web app you can see scheduled orders in the COMPLETED tab for the applicable day of scheduled collection when the email ONLY functionality it turned on, otherwise they will appear along with your usual orders in the NEW tab.

1. Select COMPLETED
2. Toggle the date at the bottom of the page to select the date to view
3. Review the time for the beginning of the selected collection time period.

Other notes

All orders are paid at time of your customer placing the order and will be deposited in to your provided account as per your normal orders.

All the same type of products and more can be added to this menu. Items that aren't so time critical are perfect. Some examples:

• retail items (coffee bean, in-house products)
• essential items and produce (milk, fruit & veg)
• take and cook at home meals (frozen meals)
• meal plans in advance (dietary meal plans and meal solutions)
• lunch orders (at school, for work)
• groceries (all the every day order ahead items)

Changes to the settings for this feature can be requested via Skip support email.

Want to discuss in more detail? Contact your account manager or [e-mail]