Online ordering Kuwait: what your checkout has to ask for

Restaurants worry about the menu. Almost every lost order in Kuwait is lost after the menu, in the sixty seconds between choosing food and finishing the order.

That stretch is your checkout. It asks for a name, a number, an address and a way to pay, and if any one of those is slower than it needs to be, the customer closes the page with a full cart. Online ordering Kuwait is really a question about those four things.

This article goes through each field, why it is there, and what has to happen to the order once the customer taps the last button.

Who is on the other end of the phone

Two facts shape a Kuwait checkout more than any design choice.

The country is young and connected. The US government's commercial guide for Kuwait records high mobile and internet penetration above 90 percent alongside a young population, with 56 percent under the age of 35, and notes that food and beverage was one of the two segments that led local e-commerce before newer categories appeared.

The country is also mixed. About one third of the population of 4.86 million are Kuwaiti nationals, and the same guide describes the remainder as expatriate residents from more than 100 countries.

So the person ordering your machboos at nine at night is likely to be under thirty five, on a phone, and reading either Arabic or English. A checkout that only works well in one language is turning away part of its own street.

Field one: the name, and only the name

Ask for a name. Do not ask for a title, a last name in its own box or a company. Every extra box is a chance to stop.

Field two: the phone number

The number is the identity in this market. It is how your kitchen calls if something is unclear, how the driver announces himself, and how the customer is recognised the next time they order.

Ask for it once, with the country code handled for the customer rather than typed. Then use it. A number collected and never used again is a wasted question.

Field three: the address, as numbers

This is where Kuwait differs from most markets and where most order pages fail.

An address here is a set of numbers. Area, block, street, building, floor, flat. Written as a sentence it turns into "near the co-op, white building, second one", and that costs a driver ten minutes and a customer a cold meal.

Two rules follow. Collect the parts separately, so the driver reads a list rather than a paragraph. And take a map pin, because a pin dropped on the phone at the moment of ordering beats any description written by somebody who is not the one driving.

If you deliver to towers or compounds, set your delivery fee per building rather than one flat charge for the city. The distance to the far end of your area is not the distance to the block behind you, and customers notice when a fee is honest.

Field four: how they pay

Be plain about this, because vagueness at the payment step is what kills a cart.

Our system takes no online payments at all. Payment is cash or your own card machine when the food is handed over. That is a real limit and you should decide whether it fits your business before anything else.

It also has two effects worth knowing. No card details exist anywhere in the system, so there is nothing to steal and nothing to be liable for. And nobody is refused because a card was declined at eleven at night, which for a lot of kitchens here is the more common problem.

If taking money before the food leaves is a requirement for you, this is the point to stop reading and look elsewhere. Online ordering system for restaurants sets out the three models honestly, including the ones that do take payment.

What happens the moment they finish

A checkout that ends in a form landing in an inbox nobody watches is not an ordering system.

Here, finishing the order sends 3 messages in about 2 seconds. A confirmation to the customer, so they stop wondering. A ticket to your kitchen group on WhatsApp, where your team already is. And for a delivery, a link to your riders' group carrying the map pin and the building details, which opens for the driver with no account and no app.

Every one of those is logged with whether it arrived, so a message that failed is visible instead of assumed.

"We tested the address step with real drivers before we designed it. Every one of them said the same thing: give me the pin and the building number and I will find it, give me a description and I will phone. The phone call is the expensive part, and it happens after the food is already in the car." — Tanzeel ur Rehman, co-founder of Get Menu

The rest of what an ordering page needs

The checkout is the part that leaks, but a few other things have to be right or the checkout never gets reached.

Your menu sits on your own address on getmenu.ae, included in every plan, with 12 page layouts and a photo style you set once. Item names and descriptions can be written in Arabic as well as English, which in this market is not decoration.

Options and add-ons carry their own prices, and choices can be made required, so nobody orders a mixed grill without saying which sauce. Counts per item fall as orders come in and the dish greys itself out at zero, so a customer never picks something the kitchen finished at eight.

Every line is priced again from your live menu at checkout, so the total on the screen is the total at the door. Free delivery over a value you choose is set by you, not by us.

If you also have tables, a code is generated for every table and the table becomes the address, with a group at one table able to order onto a single bill.

Customers who come back cost nothing to win, so there are stamps, tiers your regulars grow into, and a card in Google Wallet that updates itself with no app to install. Apple Wallet is built and waiting on a certificate. Restaurant loyalty in Kuwait covers what works locally.

Month end brings invoices carrying your tax registration number as a PDF, a sales dashboard by day and item, and an export to a spreadsheet whenever you want it. After 120 days the details of an old order are wiped by the system itself.

The limits, in one place

No online payments. No scheduled ordering and no pre-order, so a customer orders for now, inside your opening hours. No collection order type: the system understands delivery and dine-in. And we are not a cash register, so whatever prints receipts at your counter today keeps doing it.

A fortnight that proves it or does not

Put your ordering page link in your Instagram bio and set it as your automatic WhatsApp reply. Do nothing else.

Stop reading prices down the phone. Reply with the link instead, every time, for two weeks.

Then count three numbers: orders that arrived with a complete address, calls your kitchen had to make to ask where a customer lives, and orders you took without paying anyone a commission on them.

Restaurant app explains why a web page usually beats building an app for this. The trial runs 15 days, needs no card details to start, and takes 0% of what you sell.

Frequently asked questions

Can customers pay online?

No. Payment is cash or your card machine when the order is handed over, so no card details are stored anywhere in the system.

Does it handle Kuwait addresses properly?

Yes. Area, block, street, building and flat are collected as separate details, and the customer drops a map pin at checkout that travels with the order to the driver.

Can I charge different delivery fees for different buildings?

Yes. Fees are set per building rather than one figure for the whole city, and you can set a value above which delivery is free.

Do I need a website already?

No. Your ordering page is your address, and it is included from the first day of the trial.

Can the menu be in Arabic?

Yes. Item names and descriptions can be written in Arabic alongside English, which matters in a country where residents come from more than a hundred places.