Marketplaces and delivery aren’t the same thing - at least any more. The best operators are tapping white-labelled direct delivery to reduce costs and increase revenue while taking back control over the branding, promotional strategy, and customer experience.

Four Key Ingredients for White-Labeled Direct Delivery Success

White-labeled direct delivery allows these operators to offer their customers a completely customised and fully optimised online ordering and delivery experience. The success of their white-labelled direct delivery operations is possible through these ingredients that Liven offers:

#1 A custom-branded Magic App - Reduces traditional build costs from tens of thousands of dollars to just hundreds, and puts the power of your brand and menu on any device, everywhere

#2 POS-integrated self-ordering - Helps orchestrate online ordering with a few clicks 

#3 Embedded payments - Gives you complete control over the payment experience, including friction-free redemption of targeted promotions or rewards, and your payouts

#4 Direct delivery integrations with leading providers or your own delivery operations - Eliminates the need for delivery intermediaries, reducing costs and complexity 

So, what’s in it for you? Let’s break it down.

#1 Slash Costs and Protect Your Margins

Your bottom line improves when you move to direct delivery. Let’s break it down. Considering an average order value of $60 and a volume of 1000 orders monthly, your revenue from online orders will be $60,000. 

Any order you get via third parties will cost you at least 30% in commissions. You’d then pay circa $18,000 as third-party commissions on these orders, bringing your profit to around $42,000.

When you move to direct delivery, you only pay the drivers for delivery - no commissions or aggregator costs. So even if you consider a per-order delivery/driver cost of $12, you’d be spending only ~$12,000 on fulfilling orders. If you consider spending an additional 5-8% of the revenue on marketing, you’d still save ~$1200-$3000 a month at the very least (more if you choose to partially pass on delivery fees to customers through surcharges). And every saved dollar can be reinvested into your business.

Pro Tip: Drive direct deliveries with your online ordering menu using Liven OrderUp and use your own fleet or connect to riders at even lower per-order costs using Liven’s direct delivery integrations with DoorDash Drive & Uber Direct. 

#2 Own Your Customer experience & data

Third-party platforms own customer interaction, payments, and the majority of customer data. This means missed opportunities for you to collect first-party data and engage with the customer directly.

Create your own white-labelled direct delivery experience by embedding your online ordering menu on your very own Magic App or website to:

• Gather more first-party customer data points: Gain insights into customer behaviour and preferences using surveys, quizzes, their app activity data and payments data

• Personalise promotions/upsells: Personalise how you incentivise your customers, whether through custom promotions, deals or rewards, such as exclusive offers that can only be availed when customers order directly from you

• Activate Loyalty: Increase loyalty by rewarding your customers through your online ordering menu for delivery orders or takeaway orders

The result? A deeper connection with your customers and more opportunities to drive repeat business​.

Pro Tip: Drive repeat delivery orders through your white-labelled Magic app by running SMS & email campaigns to promote these exclusive offers using Liven Engage, and drive repeat orders.

#3 Your brand, your strategy via white-labelled delivery

Unlike third-party delivery options, a white-labeled delivery experience is one you can curate based on your brand and business strategy and then tweak based on the data you own & gather. This gives you complete control over not just the look, feel and customer experience, but also over pricing, promotions.

For example, you can offer exclusive deals to offset slow time periods like free delivery on Monday or Tuesday. Or you could choose to highlight your catering menus on game nights, because you’ve historically seen more group/bulk orders on these days.

Pro Tip: Showcase and promote offers on your own branded currency to bank future shopping intent,  and build deeper loyalty.

#4 Reduce Operational Disruptions

When you’re not using direct delivery, you rely on middleware and third-party integrators to help connect you to the driver, marketplace or delivery services. These don’t just add costs; they also add operational complexity. Think orders not syncing in real-time, leading to delayed orders, or over-ordering. 

Using multiple systems can also create breaks in your workflows and data, making it hard to keep your menus and prices up-to-date. You also increase the risk of downtime, as disruptions in the network or the middleware’s service can affect your connected systems. 

Pro Tip: Eliminate the problem of fragmented tech, and reduce technology costs by up to 75% with the Liven One integrated system.

#5 Good for you and your diners

Offering white-labeled direct delivery is also good for your customers. They get better value in terms of costs (because you don’t need to mark up prices to offset commissions) and freebies (because you can configure your deals & promotions). They can also get rewarded for repeat purchases through your loyalty program.

Pro Tip: Keep your loyalty engine running using Liven’s Brandollar Connect with Liven OrderUp. This automated feature removes friction and encourages your customers to become a part of your loyalty program every time they make an online payment. 

How to Encourage Customers to Use Direct Delivery

Switching to direct delivery is a win-win for your business and customers. But how do you encourage customers to order directly from you? 

Here are a few tips:

1. Incentivise: Create special offers, freebies or rewards for placing direct orders.

2. Educate: Inform customers of the benefits of ordering directly with your restaurant and encourage them to support local restaurants.

3. Market: The key to getting customers to order from your app is publicising the rewards and benefits of doing so. You can:

   • Showcase your special ‘direct delivery offers’ on your Magic App or in-venue

   • Include flyers in orders that highlight the value and incentives of ordering from your app, and include a QR code that folks can scan to order from you directly. Pro tip - with Liven Abacus you can engage directly from a QR code on the receipt.

   • Inform customers of these offers and benefits of ordering direct via email or SMS marketing.

   • Use Instagram, TikTok and other social channels to promote your direct delivery offers, and educate customers about how they can support local businesses. Think about menu items that are only available via direct self-ordering.

Switching to direct delivery is how the best operators reclaim control over costs, customers, data and operations. 

Give us a call and we can quickly show you how much you will save and make.