How to set delivery zones and fees for your own restaurant delivery

To set delivery zones and fees for your own restaurant delivery, draw two to four zones around the areas your riders can reach reliably, charge more for the zones that are further away, set a minimum order for each zone so a long trip always carries a worthwhile basket, quote a delivery time per zone that you can keep on a busy night, and decide what the rider is paid for each zone. Then tell customers outside those zones before they start ordering, not after.

One flat fee for the whole city is the common mistake. It overcharges the customer two streets away and loses money on the one across town. Zones fix both. This article is about the pricing and the controls. Whether to run your own riders at all is covered in “How restaurants manage their own delivery riders in Pakistan”.

Key takeaways

• Draw zones from where your orders actually go, using roads, bridges and signals as the edges. A circle on a map ignores the route a rider has to take.
• Each zone needs four numbers: the delivery charge, the minimum order, the delivery time and the rider payout.
• The delivery charge and the minimum order work together. A far zone can carry a higher charge, a higher minimum, or both.
• Quote the time you hit on a Friday night, not on a Tuesday afternoon.
• At the end of the day, know which riders still owe cash, and settle delivery-app orders separately from the till.

How do you draw delivery zones?

Start with evidence. Take the delivery addresses from the last two or three months and mark them on a map. Most restaurants find a dense core near the kitchen, a middle ring, and a scatter of far orders that take the longest.

Draw the edges along things a rider cannot ignore: a main road with one crossing, a railway line, a nullah, a signal that takes eight minutes at dinner time. Two addresses the same distance from your kitchen can be ten minutes apart in practice. A zone is a promise about time, so shape it by travel time.

Keep the number small. Two zones suit a neighbourhood restaurant. Three or four suit a kitchen that covers several sectors or towns. Past that, staff cannot remember the rules and customers cannot predict the fee. Name the zones the way customers name their areas, not Zone A and Zone B.

How should you charge: by distance or a flat fee?

Charge by distance, in steps. A fee per zone is easier for a customer to understand than a fee per kilometre, and it does the same job: near orders pay little or nothing, far orders pay for the trip.

Work out each zone's fee from the cost of the trip: the rider's payout for that zone, plus a share of the time he is unavailable. Many restaurants deliver free in the nearest zone because those orders are frequent and the trip is short, and recover the cost of the far zones in full. What you should avoid is a far zone priced below what the rider is paid for it, because every order there then loses money before the food is costed.

What minimum order should each zone have?

The minimum order protects you from the trip that cannot pay for itself: one cold drink sent six kilometres. Set it per zone, rising with distance. The near zone can have a low minimum or none. The far zone needs a basket large enough that the food margin and the delivery charge together cover the rider.

Show the minimum early and help the customer reach it. A message that says how much more is needed, with a suggestion or two, converts better than an error at checkout.

An illustrative zone table

The figures below are illustrative, for a single kitchen with three zones. They are an example of the shape, not a recommendation. Your own distances, traffic and rider costs set the real numbers.

Read across the rows. In zone 1 the restaurant pays the rider from the food margin and uses free delivery to win frequent orders. In zone 2 the charge nearly covers the rider. In zone 3 it covers the rider in full, and the higher minimum makes the trip worth the time.

How do you quote delivery times honestly?

A delivery time is kitchen time plus waiting time plus road time. Owners usually quote road time and forget the other two. Take your real preparation time for a delivery order at peak, add the minutes an order typically waits for a rider, then add the ride for that zone.

Quote the peak figure. A customer told 45 minutes who gets the food in 35 is pleased. A customer told 30 who gets it in 45 phones the counter twice and orders elsewhere next time.

How should rider payout work per zone?

Pay per delivery by zone if your riders are paid per trip. A flat amount per delivery makes the far zones unpopular, and the far orders are then the ones that wait. A payout that rises with the zone makes every order worth taking.

Keep the payout and the customer's delivery charge as two separate numbers. They do not have to match, and when they are treated as the same thing, changing one for a promotion quietly changes the other.

When should you tell a customer they are outside your area?

At the first screen or the first sentence of the call. The worst version is a customer who chooses eight dishes, enters an address and is then refused. Ask for the area first, show the fee and the time for it, and if the area is outside your zones, say so and offer takeaway.

How do you keep track of cash that riders still owe?

Cash on delivery means your money is in a rider's pocket for part of the day. Treat every delivered cash order as owed until it is handed in. For each rider, keep a running list of orders that are out and orders delivered but not yet settled, and settle at fixed points: after each run when it is quiet, and always before the shift ends and the day is closed. A day closed while a rider still holds cash shows a shortage that is not really a shortage.

Why settle delivery-app orders separately at day close?

An order that came through a delivery app was paid to the app, not to you. That money arrives later, by bank transfer, less commission. If those orders are rung into the till as cash or as ordinary online payments, the drawer looks short or the online total looks over, and the manager spends the close chasing a difference that does not exist.

Keep them in their own bucket. At close, compare your count of that app's orders and their value with the total the app's own portal shows for the day. If the two disagree, an order was keyed wrong or missed, and you find it that night instead of at the end of the payout cycle.

How does Bhookly handle delivery zones and fees?

In Bhookly you draw your delivery zones on a map. Each zone has its own delivery charge, minimum order, delivery time and rider payout, the same four numbers as the table above. A ready-made area list covers Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

On the ordering website the customer is asked “Where are you ordering from?” on arrival. They choose delivery or takeaway and their area, by list or by GPS, and see the fee and the time before they build a basket. An out-of-area visitor is told at that point. For the exact address the customer drops a pin on a map, and the fee and time show live as the pin moves. The rider navigates to the pin, not to a description. Minimum orders are enforced, with a nudge in the basket showing how much is left to reach them.

Orders arrive in the online orders inbox on the till, and staff accept or reject each one. The dispatch board then shows every delivery in five lanes: New, In kitchen, Ready, Out for delivery and To settle, each with the customer's map pin. To settle is the list of delivered orders whose cash has not been handed in, so the cashier can see at a glance which riders still owe money. For restaurants running their own riders, Bhookly also has a delivery rider app, described on the Delivery management page.

The customer follows the order on a private tracking link: Placed, Confirmed, Preparing, Ready or Out for delivery. The stages are driven by the kitchen. What the customer sees is what is happening.

At day close, orders paid through a delivery app are kept apart from the till and checked against the app's own total. The till's own count is not disturbed by them, so there is no false alarm that online is over. A mis-keyed app order shows up as a difference that night.

Frequently asked questions

How much should a restaurant charge for delivery?

A restaurant should charge for delivery by zone, with the charge rising with distance and set against what the rider is paid for that zone. Many restaurants deliver free in the nearest zone and recover the full cost of the trip in the furthest one.

Can I set a different minimum order for each delivery area?

Yes, in Bhookly each delivery zone has its own minimum order, along with its own delivery charge, delivery time and rider payout. The ordering website enforces the minimum and shows the customer how much more is needed to reach it.

How do I stop orders from outside my delivery area?

Ask for the customer's area before they order. A Bhookly ordering website asks “Where are you ordering from?” on arrival and tells an out-of-area visitor straight away, with takeaway as the option, so nobody builds a basket you cannot deliver.

How do I know which riders still owe cash?

Track delivered cash orders as owed until the rider hands the money in. Bhookly's dispatch board has a To settle lane that lists exactly those orders, next to the lanes for New, In kitchen, Ready and Out for delivery.

The bottom line

Delivery of your own pays when the far orders stop being subsidised by the near ones. Draw a few zones from real addresses, give each one a charge, a minimum, a time and a rider payout, tell out-of-area customers at the start, and settle rider cash and delivery-app orders before you close the day. Expect to adjust the numbers after the first month.