Uber Eats Alternative for Restaurants: How to Build a Direct Ordering Channel
Why restaurants look for an Uber Eats alternative
Uber Eats brings you customers you wouldn't otherwise get. That's what the commission pays for, and it's a lot: usually 25 to 30% of the order value, depending on your agreement. On a meal that already runs on thin margins, that hurts.
For a first-time customer it can be worth it. Someone found you, ordered, tried the food. Fine. The trouble starts when the same person orders again next week, and the week after, and you pay the full commission each time. Nobody at Uber Eats does extra work for the tenth order. You're paying the same fee on a customer who already knows you.
The fix isn't to quit delivery apps. It's to build your own ordering channel and move your regulars onto it.
What you lose on every marketplace order
When someone orders through Uber Eats:
- You pay commission on the full order value
- You get no email address and no phone number
- You can't send them an offer
- You can't run a loyalty scheme for them
- Your restaurant sits behind the app's own interface and branding
So you're paying to serve people you can never contact. The hundredth order from a regular costs exactly what the first one did.
What a direct ordering channel is
It's a website, an app, or a QR code that lets customers order from you without a marketplace in the middle. The order goes to your kitchen, the payment goes to you, and the customer's details are yours.
The maths is simple. Take a £30 delivery order at 28% commission. That's £8.40 to the platform. A direct ordering platform charges either a flat fee or a much lower rate per transaction, so once a customer switches, you keep the difference on every order after that.
What you need to build one
A branded website with online ordering
Start with a website that takes orders itself. Not a page that links out to a marketplace. Customers should be able to browse the menu, change items, pay and get a confirmation without leaving your site. Flipdish online ordering is built for this.
A branded mobile app
An app isn't essential on day one, but it's useful. A branded restaurant app sits on the customer's phone and can send push notifications. Say Tuesday evenings are dead. You send a discount to everyone who ordered in the last 90 days and the kitchen fills up. You can't do that through Uber Eats.
A POS that takes direct orders automatically
Staff shouldn't have to read an order off one tablet and retype it into another. With an integrated restaurant POS, online orders show up next to dine-in orders in one queue, so the kitchen runs one workflow whatever the channel.
Loyalty
Direct ordering only pays off if people keep using it. A loyalty programme with stamps, points or tiered rewards gives customers a reason to order from you again instead of opening the marketplace app out of habit.
Moving your customers across
This is the slow part. Uber Eats doesn't give you your customers' contact details, so you can't email them and say you've moved. You have to catch them where they already are.
Start in the restaurant. Put a QR code on tables, at the counter and on every takeaway bag, pointing straight at your ordering page or app. Give people a reason to scan it: a discount on the first direct order, or bonus loyalty points.
Packaging does a lot of the work. Print your web address and something like "Save 10% when you order direct" on bags, boxes and cups. It's simpler to say "order direct" and leave the marketplace's name off.
Slip a small card into every delivery bag with the QR code and one line on why ordering direct helps the restaurant. People who get food from you three times a month will read it, at least once.
Social media is cheap, so use it. One post is enough to say you now have your own ordering page, that orders go straight to your kitchen, and that customers pay no extra fees for using it.
Don't expect fast results. Habitual marketplace users won't all switch the first week. Over a few months, though, a good share of your repeat customers will move if you keep giving them a clear reason.
Delivery and pricing on your own channel
Direct orders still have to get to the customer. You can use your own drivers, a courier you already work with, or start with collection only. Collection is the easiest place to begin because there's no driver to find and no delivery radius to argue about. Some customers who order delivery through a marketplace will pick up from a restaurant down the road if it saves them money.
Pricing is the other thing to sort out. If you've raised your marketplace menu prices to cover the commission, your direct menu at normal prices becomes a reason to switch all by itself. The customer sees the gap. Check your Uber Eats agreement before you change any prices on the app, though. Don't assume you're free to.
A realistic first month
Week one, get the ordering page live and test it yourself: order a meal, check it lands in the kitchen, check the payment arrives. Week two, put QR codes on the bags and tables. Week three, start the cards in delivery bags and make the social post. By week four you'll have a first read on how many people scanned and how many ordered.
Expect small numbers at first. What you're watching for is the trend, and whether the people who order direct once do it again.
Why the switch stalls
Mostly for dull reasons. The QR code is printed too small, or only on the menu and not the bag. The discount is 2% and nobody notices it. Staff don't mention the direct page because nobody told them to. Or the ordering page is awkward on a phone, which is where customers will probably open it, so test it on yours before you print anything.
Fix those four and you've covered the usual causes.
Comparing the economics
Say a restaurant does 100 delivery orders a week at an average of £28:
| Channel | Cost per order | Weekly cost | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uber Eats (example 28%) | ~£7.84 | ~£784 | ~£40,768 |
| Direct channel (flat fee model) | ~£1.00 | ~£100 | ~£5,200 |
These are indicative figures. Your commission rate and platform fees will differ, so plug in your own.
Nobody moves all 100 orders, so try half. Fifty orders a week through the marketplace cost £392. The same fifty direct cost £50. That's £342 a week, or about £17,800 a year, back in the till.
Now add a 10% discount for ordering direct, which is £2.80 on a £28 order. Each direct order then costs you about £3.80 (the £1.00 fee plus the £2.80 discount) against £7.84 on Uber Eats. You still keep roughly £4 per order, and the customer pays less too. Across fifty orders a week that's about £202, or around £10,500 a year.
Where Flipdish fits
Flipdish is a platform restaurants in the UK and Ireland use to run their own ordering. It covers:
- Branded restaurant websites with ordering built in
- Branded mobile apps
- Self-service kiosks for ordering in store
- Loyalty and CRM inside the ordering flow
- Automated marketing that brings customers back
- AI phone ordering that takes call-in orders automatically
- An integrated POS that handles every channel in one place
It isn't a marketplace. You aren't renting access to someone else's customers. The customers, and their order history, belong to you.
Should you leave Uber Eats completely?
Probably not. Marketplaces are good at one thing: putting you in front of people who've never heard of you. Keep that.
Treat Uber Eats as marketing spend. Paying a commission to win a new customer makes sense. Paying it again and again on someone who already likes your food doesn't. Once a customer has ordered through the app, your job is to get their next order onto your own channel, where it costs a fraction as much.
Track it monthly. Count how many delivery orders came through the marketplace and how many came direct. If the direct share isn't growing, the problem is usually that customers don't know the option exists, so go back to the bags and the QR codes.
What to check before you pick a platform
| What to look for | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Your own branding | Customers remember your restaurant, not a generic app |
| POS integration | Orders should reach the kitchen without anyone retyping them |
| Loyalty built in | Gives people a reason to keep ordering direct |
| Marketing tools | Lets you contact customers between orders |
| A mobile app | Keeps you on the customer's phone |
| Pricing | A flat fee and a per-order commission behave very differently at volume |
The last row matters most if you're busy. A percentage-based fee grows with every order you take. A flat fee doesn't.
Next steps
If most of your delivery orders come through Uber Eats today, start with a direct ordering website or app. Then set a target: move 20 to 30% of your repeat delivery customers to direct ordering within six months.
Speak to Flipdish about what direct ordering would cost for your restaurant and how to bring your existing customers across.