An Irish alternative to delivery apps: keep more of every order

The alternative to the big delivery apps is taking orders directly: customers order and pay through a channel where the commission is small and the customer stays yours, and you decide how the food reaches them. Delivery apps commonly charge around 30% of each order, which on a food business's margins can turn delivery into a loss. On Mosey, Irish-built and Irish-run, collection (Order Ahead) is 1.5% commission and delivery is 6%, and you choose whether you deliver with your own drivers, shared drivers or not at all.

What a 30% commission actually leaves you

Start with the arithmetic, because it is the whole argument.

A €50 order at 30% commission leaves you €35. From that you still pay for the food, the packaging, the wages of everyone who made and packed it, and your share of rent, energy and insurance. If food alone is around a third of the price, that is roughly €17 of ingredients out of the €35, before a single wage. On a busy delivery night you can be working hard for very little, or for nothing.

It is worse than it looks for collection. A collection order has no courier at all, yet it is often charged at the same rate.

The delivery app commission calculator shows what you pay today and what you would keep on a lower rate, using your own volumes.

How the numbers change on Mosey

• Order Ahead (collection): 1.5% commission.
• Delivery: 6% commission.
• Tips: 0%. Every cent of a tip reaches you.
• Stripe's card fee is passed on at cost, with no Mosey markup, and 23% VAT applies to Mosey's fee.
• Customers pay a booking fee that scales with the order (€0.30 under €10, €0.60 under €30, €0.90 under €50, €1.29 on orders of €50 or more), quoted inclusive of VAT. It is the only fee they pay on top of the food and any delivery charge.

There is no monthly subscription to take orders, no listing fee and no charge for having a menu, however large.

Three ways to get food to the door

Mosey does not run a courier fleet, and that is deliberate. With a marketplace courier you do not choose who carries your food, how long it sits or how it is handed over, but you get the rating when it arrives cold. Here you choose.

Your own drivers

Invite them from the Drivers section. They receive orders and move them through the delivery statuses. You control the quality, the timing and the handover, and the delivery fee you charge is yours.

Drivers shared with a nearby venue

A venue near you that already employs drivers can lend them through a driver pool. They set a flat fee per delivery, you pay it only when you use a driver, and you set the delivery fee your own customers see. It is how a small kitchen offers delivery without hiring anyone, and a quiet week costs nothing.

Collection only

Many places do best with collection alone: no drivers, no zones, and food handed over at its best. On Mosey, Order Ahead is the cheapest way to take a paid order, with pickup slots you cap so a rush cannot land twelve orders in the same six minutes.

You can mix them: collection all week, a shared driver on quieter nights, your own drivers on Friday and Saturday.

You set the zones, the fees and the minimums

For delivery you type the area names and Mosey maps the zones. Each zone carries its own delivery fee, minimum order and estimated time. When a customer enters an address, they see the right fee, or are told they are outside your area before they build a basket. Start tight and widen later.

Orders arrive on a kitchen display, move through confirmed, preparing, ready and out for delivery, and the customer is told when their food is ready. Customers can self-cancel only within two minutes of ordering, with an automatic refund; after that, refunds are your decision.

Who owns the customer?

On a marketplace, the customer belongs to the marketplace. You are renting a slot beside your competitors, and when that person is hungry again the app decides who they see first.

On Mosey the customer is ordering from you, in an app where your business has its own profile, menu, ratings and loyalty programme. You can see who your regulars are, what they order and how often, and you can reach them again:

• every collection and delivery order counts as a loyalty visit automatically
• vouchers, promotions and membership benefits apply at checkout
• automatic messages can thank someone after an order or win back a regular who has gone quiet

That is the difference between paying to reach your own customers forever and building something that is yours.

Why direct orders improve the rest of the business

Lower commission is the headline, but direct ordering also helps in quieter ways.

• Quiet nights earn something. A rainy Tuesday with a half-empty room can still be a reasonable night in orders, and at a low commission those orders add to profit rather than just keeping the kitchen busy.
• Pre-orders smooth the kitchen. Customers can schedule an order up to seven days ahead; it stays off the kitchen display until it is time to start.
• Groups order together. A customer can start a cart, invite friends and split the bill; the order fires only when everyone has paid, so you are paid in full either way.
• Bad weather matters less. Dine-in drops in a downpour. Delivery and collection usually do not.

How to move customers from the apps

You do not have to leave a delivery app overnight. Build the direct channel first, then shift volume to it.

1. Set up Order Ahead and, if you want it, delivery. Get your menu in (photograph the printed one and the scanner reads it), set your hours and add pickup slots or zones.
2. Place a test order and walk it through the kitchen display with your team.
3. Tell every customer. Put the link on receipts, in every bag, on table cards and in your social bios. Have staff mention it at the counter.
4. Give a reason. Prices that match your menu rather than a marked-up app menu, faster collection, and loyalty that counts every order.
5. Track the split between direct and app orders each week.
6. Cut back on the app as direct orders grow, for example by limiting the hours you are live there.

Getting paid

Customers pay through Stripe, and the money goes to your own Stripe account rather than being held by Mosey. Commission is deducted as the sale happens, so there is no invoice at month end, and Stripe pays out to your bank on your normal payout schedule.

For the full delivery setup, see delivery for restaurants. Claim your business free, or see pricing first.