Solution · Build direct customers
Every order on Uber Eats, Just Eat or Deliveroo is a customer they introduce, charge you for, and keep the data on. A direct channel — your website, your app, your loyalty, your customer list — flips that round. Lower fees per order, higher repeat rate, and a marketing list you actually own.
If 70% of your online demand comes through marketplaces, you don't really have customers — you have a recurring sponsorship of someone else's growth. Three things compound:
None of this means leaving the aggregators — they're a real demand source. It means making sure the customers they bring you become your customers on the second order, not theirs again.
"Direct ordering" is a phrase competitors use to mean a basic checkout page. We mean an ordering business you own end-to-end: a fast, branded site that ranks in search, a checkout that converts, a customer record that stays with you, and a loyalty engine that pays them to come back.
Server-rendered, fast, with proper schema markup so Google indexes your menu and your local pages — not a marketplace listing in front of you.
One-page basket, saved cards, address autocomplete, time-slot picking, upsell modules — the same conversion playbook the big chains use.
Every order tied to a customer. Email, phone, address, order history, lifetime value — yours, not rented from a third party.
Points, vouchers, birthday rewards, referral codes — issued on direct orders only, so the cheapest channel becomes the most rewarding for the customer too.
| Lever | Aggregator order | Direct order on Andromeda |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per order | 15–30%+ commission, often plus consumer fee | Low transparent fee + card processing |
| Customer contact data | Withheld | Yours, attached to every order |
| Marketing rights | None | Email and SMS, GDPR-compliant opt-in |
| Loyalty / repeat reward | Generic platform-wide promos | Your scheme, your rules, your brand |
| Brand experience | Marketplace branding dominates | Your colours, your photography, your voice |
| Pricing flexibility | Aggregator dictates display | Set deals and prices independently |
| Customer relationship | Belongs to the marketplace | Belongs to you |
A practical rollout, not a long project:
A typical UK takeaway running £20k a month online sees the maths change like this once a direct channel is live and growing:
| Mix | Aggregator-only | 50/50 split | 70% direct |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average effective cost per order | ~25% | ~15% | ~9% |
| Annual cost on £240k turnover | ~£60,000 | ~£36,000 | ~£21,600 |
| Customer database after 12 months | 0 records | ~3,000 records | ~6,000+ records |
Illustrative. Actual figures depend on your aggregator mix, average order value and marketing follow-through.
"Within six months we'd flipped from 80% Just Eat to 60% direct. Same volume of customers — but each direct order is worth nearly a fiver more to us than the marketplace one was."
No. Aggregators stay where they are — you keep that demand. The point is to give the customers you already have a better, cheaper place to come back to. Most operators see direct channel grow as a share of total, not aggregator volume shrink.
Three levers, applied in this order:
Yes — by a wide margin. A direct order on Andromeda carries a low transparent fee plus card processing, which is a small fraction of what marketplaces charge once their commission and consumer fees are stacked. The bigger long-term win is the customer data and repeat behaviour you keep.
Most operators start with the website — it captures every device, ranks in Google, and is the cheapest channel to set up. A branded app is a strong add-on once you've built a base of repeat customers: it gives you push notifications and a one-tap repeat-order experience for the people who already love you.
The first site typically goes live within about 30 days of contract. We build the menu from your POS data, configure payments, apply your branding, and integrate it with the kitchen. Subsequent sites in a multi-site rollout are quicker because the platform already knows your brand and menu structure.
If you're already on Andromeda POS, it slots in natively — every web order lands on the same screen as in-store sales. If you're on legacy hardware we run a lab store first so you can see the whole flow with your data before you commit.
20-minute call. Bring your last month's aggregator statement and we'll show you what shifts when 30, 50 or 70% of those orders come direct instead.
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