The 2024 UK Takeaway Report: 5 Mistakes Costing You Sales (And How to Fix Them)

The UK takeaway market is more competitive than ever. While passion for food gets you started, it's smart business decisions that ensure long-term success. After analyzing industry trends and speaking with dozens of owners, we've identified five common but costly mistakes that are silently eating into profits. Here's what they are and how you can fix them.

Mistake #1: Giving Away Your Customers (and Profits) to Apps

The Problem: Platforms like Uber Eats and Just Eat are great for visibility but come at a steep price—commissions of up to 30%. More importantly, they own the customer relationship. You don't get the customer's data, so you can't re-market to them, build loyalty, or encourage direct orders.

The Fix: Treat third-party apps as a customer acquisition tool, not your primary sales channel. The goal is to convert every app customer into a direct customer. The most effective way to do this is by launching your own commission-free online ordering website.

How CloudTill Helps: Our Online Storefront feature lets you create a beautiful, branded ordering page in minutes. Include a flyer in every delivery bag that says "Save 10% on your next order—use our website!" to convert app users into profitable, direct customers you own.

Mistake #2: A Static Menu in a Dynamic World

The Problem: Your menu is printed, laminated, and rarely changes. But ingredient costs are constantly fluctuating. The price of chicken wings goes up, but your menu price stays the same, and your profit margin shrinks. You also have no easy way to test new specials or create limited-time offers.

The Fix: Adopt a dynamic menu that can be updated instantly. This allows you to adjust pricing to protect margins, feature high-profit items, and create exciting daily or weekly specials to keep your offering fresh.

How CloudTill Helps: Our Menu Management is fully dynamic. Log in, change a price or add a 'Special of the Day', and it's live instantly on your POS and online store. Combine this with our Offer Creation tool to build profitable meal deals that increase average order value.

Mistake #3: Guessing What's Popular vs. Profitable

The Problem: You know you sell a lot of cheeseburgers, but are they actually your most profitable item once you factor in the cost of beef and cheese? Many owners rely on gut feeling rather than data to make critical menu decisions.

The Fix: Use sales data to understand your business. You need to know your top-selling items, your most profitable items (which aren't always the same!), your peak hours, and your average order value.

How CloudTill Helps: Our Advanced Analytics dashboard gives you all this information at a glance. See which items to promote, which to re-price, and when to schedule extra staff for peak hours. Data-driven decisions are the key to unlocking hidden profitability.

Mistake #4: Ignoring Your Hyper-Local Market

The Problem: Many takeaways focus only on online platforms and neglect the powerful marketing opportunities in their immediate vicinity. Your most loyal and frequent customers are often the people who live or work just a few streets away.

The Fix: Engage your local community. Sponsor a local youth sports team, offer a discount to employees of nearby businesses, or run a postcode-specific promotion. Build a local social media presence on Facebook or Instagram, sharing mouth-watering photos of your food.

How CloudTill Helps: With your own online store, you have the freedom to create custom discount codes. Use our Postcode Delivery Rates feature to offer lower delivery fees to nearby addresses, incentivizing local loyalty.

Mistake #5: Wasting Hours on Manual Admin

The Problem: How much time do you spend each week manually entering supplier invoices into a spreadsheet or calculating driver wages and delivery fees? This is time you could be spending on marketing, menu development, or with your family.

The Fix: Automate repetitive administrative tasks with an all-in-one system. Your POS should be the hub that handles everything from sales and inventory to staff management.

How CloudTill Helps: Our AI Inventory Import can digitize a supplier receipt from a single photo. Our Staff & Driver Management tool lets you set wages and automatically calculate delivery fees based on postcode, turning a payroll nightmare into a simple report.

Conclusion

Thriving in the modern food industry isn't just about great food; it's about smart operations. By avoiding these common mistakes and leveraging the right technology, you can take control of your customer relationships, optimize your profitability, and build a more resilient, successful business.