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In this article:\nPhishing attacks are becoming more sophisticated\nEducate yourself, family, and any employees about phishing attacks and other online fraud\nNever provide sensitive information to anyone without double checking\nNever download files or click on links from unknown/untrusted sources\nNever send payment without confirming the legitimacy of the request\nPhishing attacks and other online fraud are a growing problem for small businesses. As more people transact, recreate, socialize, and work online, there is more opportunity for bad actors to entice people into seemingly innocent actions that can have devastating financial consequences to your business.\nIn this article we’ll go over some of the common cyberattacks that you and your employees (if any) might expect to see, and what you can do to prevent the damage they can cause.\nWhat is phishing?\nA phishing (sometimes called “spear phishing”) attack is when a cybercriminal sends you a fake email, SMS/text, phone message, or other communication attempting to get you to divulge sensitive personal or business information, or to send payment to a fraudulent recipient. \nOften, these attacks will appear to be sent by a boss or coworker, requesting urgent action on a key project or payment on an “overdue bill,” and will ask you to click on a link or download a file that installs malware onto your system, which then the hackers can exploit for criminal purposes.\nThese phishing attacks are becoming quite sophisticated, and can even include fake job postings on popular employment sites to lure employees to download malware-laden job application programs, or “tech support fraud” where criminals masquerade as technical support or internet security personnel in an attempt to gain access.\nWhat can I do about phishing attacks and other online fraud?\nThe best defense against phishing and online fraud, in addition to software with good security features that automatically block fraudulent messages when possible, is education. Take the time to educate yourself and your employees about the types of fraudulent cyberattacks that they may see, and what to do when they get one. Read below to learn more, and set up a training schedule to keep your employees and family members informed.\nThe most common type of phishing attack will attempt to get you or an employee to download a file, click a link, or input passwords or other personal information. You should NEVER click on a file or an imbedded link from an unknown source, or one you aren’t expecting, before confirming the legitimacy of the file/link via another way. Call or email the sender directly and ask them whether they sent you a file recently. When in doubt, delete it. Don’t click on emails from unknown senders, and definitely don’t click on file downloads. It just takes one to install a virus that can let future fraudsters full access to your system.\nNever punish or shame an employee for asking too often whether a link or request is legitimate before taking sensitive action. Keep the lines of communication open and review your phishing protocols regularly so all employees keep on their toes. It just takes one mistake to open up the back door to sensitive company files, personal information, and more.\nEven the most famous and profitable businesses in the world have suffered the impacts of this type of cyberattack, so don’t think your small business is immune.\nSpoof websites can fool you or your employees into providing security credentials\nIt used to be that if a website had an “https” prefix, you could count on it being legitimate. But spoofers and scammers have become very creative and people are fooled every day into inputting their secure login information on a fraudulent website that looks nearly identical to their bank’s, their amazon or eBay account, or even their own website.\nSometimes you can detect the fraudulent website by looking closely at the URL. Often the suffix will be subtly different, or there may be a letter or two missing from the main company name in the address. Sometimes you can find typos or other clues on the main landing page that can let you know the site may not be legitimate.\nWhen in doubt, type the correct, known address into your browser and look for any messages from the company that can inform you about the procedure or payment you suspect may be fraudulent. No legitimate company will ever ask for your login or password via an email or text message, and even on a phone call they will usually not ask you to provide these details but will direct you to the correct site where you can input the information yourself.\n(Image)\n\nRansomware is on the rise, and can impact even very small businesses\nRansomware is what it sounds like: fraudsters entice you or employees into installing malware via a link, or providing login information, and then they hack into your system and hold sensitive files, financial information, company databases, intellectual property, or other valuable information for ransom until you pay them a lot of money, or else they corrupt, delete, or otherwise destroy the files and information. Some companies have determined that it’s actually cheaper to simply pay the fraudsters than to repair the damage they may cause. \nEmail or messaging scams can fool you or employees into sending payment\nAnother tricky method scammers are trying lately is impersonating a boss, partner, key employee, or other business owner in an email, text, or internal company message, and ask for a money transfer or other type of payment. These are often urgent, nebulous requests, and prey on the fear of some employees of asking too many questions to the boss or seeming not to know what’s happening. A boss with a history of brusqueness can exacerbate this problem.\nWe spoke to one accountant working for a group of entrepreneurial businesses who got an email from an important business owner asking for an immediate wire transfer of $120,000. The accountant went back and forth with him all day via email, judged that the request seemed legitimate, and was preparing to send the wire transfer. \nDue to the accountant’s personal system of checks and balances, he called the business owner to confirm a couple of things and request certain documentation, only to find that the business owner in question had no knowledge of the transfer in question. Upon careful examination, the email address the original request for transfer had come from was one letter different from the actual business owner’s email address. Luckily the fraud was detected and reported before the payment was sent.\nThis is just one example of how innovative criminals can fool good people into providing money or sensitive information. Be vigilant! Double check everything.\nImprove your business’s chances for success and growth by improving your online visibility\nAlong with training your family and employees about phishing and other online attacks, you also need to make sure your online \npresence\n is solid so that people can actually find you and start spending money with you.\nEven small, local shops, microbusinesses, freelancers, sole proprietors, and gig workers need a good online footprint today because almost everyone checks reviews and business details online before visiting, even if they get a personal recommendation from a friend or see your marketing materials.\nSome ways to help you show up in local searches are getting regular online reviews to your \nGoogle\n, \nYelp\n, and \nFacebook\n listings and also creating new \nonline business listing profiles\n across other web directories. 

How to help prevent small business phishing attacks and other online fraud

In this article:\nWhy fake online reviews are so damaging to small businesses\nHow to remove a fake Google review\nHow to remove a fake Yelp review\nHow to use reputation management software to simplify the review management process \nFake\n \nreviews??\n Who would have thought that this would even be a problem for small, local businesses, contractors, solopreneurs, and freelancers? Many small business owners are surprised when they see the damage that can be caused by malicious or mistaken reviews posted about their businesses on review sites like Yelp, Google, Facebook, and TripAdvisor. Below, we’ll show you how to remove these fake reviews.\nWhether a fake review is posted by angry customer, a disgruntled current or former employee, or simply a random jerk who may just be doing it for fun, the sad reality of our increasingly online world is you have very little control over what people say about you or your business on the internet. A fake review of your business can be frustrating, and potentially harmful. \nWhy you need to take fake reviews seriously\nThe importance of a business’s online reputation is growing, even for small, local shops. 97% of consumers read \nonline\n reviews for \nlocal\n businesses, and nearly 9 out of 10 trust those reviews online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends and family. So a business’s “star rating,” its online review score, has a real impact on revenue for local businesses. Even customers sitting in your parking lot or standing on the sidewalk outside your door will often check online reviews for “social proof” before deciding to purchase.\nIt’s bad enough when you try your best to help a difficult customer and they leave you a bad review anyway. (Click to read our in-depth article on \nhow to respond to negative reviews\n and remove other negative online content about your business. Also, research shows that negative online business reviews aren’t necessarily as harmful as you might think. Businesses with between 10 and 25% negative reviews make the most money!)\nBut it’s even worse when you get a bad review that is completely false, fake, or mistaken (such as someone leaving a review for your business when they obviously intended to leave it for a different business). The reasons for bad reviews don’t really matter to potential customers. The potential damage is the same.\nThe good news is, fake reviews are contrary to the user guidelines for all of the major review sites, and are one of the few types of reviews that can actually be removed.\nMake no mistake, we recommend you take all reviews seriously, treat all customers respectfully, and respond appropriately to all reviews. But a review is obviously false, you can request that the review site administrator remove it. Here’s how:\nHow to flag and remove fake Google reviews \nGoogle will remove reviews they determine have violated their terms of service as outlined in \nGoogle’s review policies\n, which includes: fake, false, or manipulative reviews, spam reviews (content posted multiple times from different accounts), conflicts of interest (reviewing your own business), impersonations (representing the views of someone other than yourself), misleading or inaccurate reviews (reviews or photos that clearly represent a different business or location), off-topic reviews (content not at all related to a customer’s experience patronizing the business in question), and restricted, illegal, derogatory, or explicit content (photos, content, or links to restricted, dangerous or illegal activities, including threatening or discriminatory language).\nIf you’re sure that a review is in violation of Google’s terms of service, you can flag the review so Google’s administrators can examine it for possible removal. You can do this from either your Google My Business account or from Google Maps.\nHow to flag a fake Google review from your Google My Business account\nSign in to \nGoogle My Business\nIf you have more than one listing, select the location you’d like to manage\nSelect \nReviews\n from the menu
\n(Image)\n\nFind the review you’d like to flag and click the three dots in the corner\n(Image)\n\nClick \nFlag as inappropriate (or “Report review”)\n(Image)\n\nFlag a fake Google review in Google Maps:\nSearch your business on Google Maps\nSelect the right location and scroll down to \nReview summary\nClick the \nReviews\n link under your rating
\n(Image)\n\nScroll to the fake review and click the 3 dots in the top right corner
\n(Image)\n\nClick \nFlag as inappropriate (or “Report review”)\n(Image)\n\nComplete the form that follows and click \nSubmit\nIt can take several days for Google to evaluate the report, so be patient. But you should receive a response from Google with information about their decision and the status of the flagged review.\nHow to flag and remove fake Yelp reviews\nFake reviews and other reviews that violate \nYelp’s content guidelines\n, like spam reviews, reviewing one’s own business, impersonations, inappropriate content, violations of people’s privacy, promotional content, defamatory or fraudulent reviews, and “not recommended” reviews may be flagged for review and removal by Yelp’s staff. Before reporting a Yelp review, read this helpful article from Yelp first: “\nWhen should I report a review?\n”\nIf you suspect a review is fake, you should report it to Yelp. Here’s how to flag and report a fake review (remember that reporting doesn’t guarantee that it will be taken down).\nLog in to your Yelp account (the “Report review” option won’t be available if you don’t log in).\nLocate the fake review you wish to report. \nIf you’re on a laptop/desktop, click the the “Report review” button that looks like a flag.\n(Image)\n\nMobile users:\n use the “Report review” function dropdown in the “three dots” menu.\n(Image)\n\nAfter you report the fake review, Yelp will evaluate it based on its content guidelines. This may take several days. Yelp will email you with their decision to remove or keep the review.  \nStay on top of your online reviews\nStaying on top of your legitimate reviews is hard enough—let alone dealing with fake reviews. But it’s very important to keep current on all your reviews and respond appropriately to all of the legitimate ones.\nObviously, this process can take a lot of time, but if you shedule a daily review check you can take care of your reviews in manageable chunks before they all pile up.

The complete guide to removing fake reviews

It’s hard to beat original content and images when attracting new customers, but sometimes things get busy and there isn’t time to create the image you need. In those situations, it’s good to have a few sites like with high-quality, free stock images and graphics to use as you need.\nWe’ve pulled together seven go-to sites for free stock images. These are great, high-quality sources with files large enough for moderately sized printing. They’re great for promotions, branding, blogging, website background images, and more.\nWith no further ado, and in no particular order:\nGratisography\nGratisography is a good resource if you’re looking for outside-the-box, creative photos with a healthy dose of playfulness and nonsensicality. These images are great for stopping people in their tracks, making a point, and just about any other fun kind of use you can imagine.\n\nVisit GRATISOGRAPHY\n\n \nPexels\nPexels has an abundance of images, well tagged and searchable, and they add images frequently. They have images ranging from automotive to nature, fashion, and style, as well as food and hospitality. There is no shortage of options on Pexels.\n\nVisit PEXELS\n\nStocksnap.io\nRight up there with Pexels, Stocksnap.io has a wide variety of image options. They also have a great selection of photos great for those milestones in life. Sports, weddings, graduations as well as home and garden, fitness, and so much more. Whether your promoting a life-event or your collaborative, work-friendly brunch spot, Stocksnap.io has a wealth of free, high-quality images to browse.\n\nVisit STOCKSNAP.IO\n\nUnsplash\nUnsplash has some of the most artistic everyday use images. They also cover a wide variety of categories, but with a certain flair for beauty. Several of the photos they offer would look just as good in a frame on the wall as they will in your marketing and branding. They have images ranging from the Aurora Borealis to beautiful top-down, flat lay photos waiting for your messaging and promotion.\n\nVisit UNSPLASH\n\nBurst\nBurst is great for the industry-specific user. From exercise to jewelry, Burst offers a very curated and beautiful supply of images for general or specific use. What we love most about Burst is their Tips and Ideas links at the top. Not everything will apply to small and local businesses, but it provides a beautiful gallery of ideas. It’ll get your creative juices going, especially if you’re feeling a bit stumped.\n\nVisit BURST\n\nFoodiesFeed\nFoodiesFeed is dedicated to—you guessed it—food. It’s not a huge library, but it’s packed with fresh, professional looking photos of food, preparations, party settings, and more. Perfect for augmenting meal images at restaurants, cafes, bars, and lounges.\n\nVisit FOODIESFEED\n\nISORepublic\nOne thing we’ve found as we’ve scrolled through multiple free stock photo websites is a bit of repetition. It’s not surprising when considering the nature of common licensing of these images. ISORepublic, on the other hand, has a great set of images that are categorical, but not typical. It leans a bit more abstract and has a great swath of active, exploration, and adventure photos. If you’re not finding the stock images you need on other sites, this one may have the gold nugget you need.\n\nVisit ISOREPUBLIC\n

7 sites for free stock images for small businesses

In this article:\nHow small business funding can pay for itself\nHow you can get better rates on business capital\nWhy even large businesses still use business lending\nHow a small business loan can improve your business’s credit rating\nWhen economic, environmental, or medical disasters hit, small businesses are often hit hard. During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of businesses signed up for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans issued by the authority of the Small Business Administration (SBA) under the CARES Act, due to the devastating economic effects that resulted.\nPrevious disasters, recessions, and weather events have similarly driven local businesses to acquire emergency funding, but physical and economic disasters aren’t the only reason small businesses need a reliable and ready source of small business capital.\nLet’s go over a few reasons why you shouldn’t be afraid of taking out a small business loan, and then we’ll talk about some potential sources of funding.\nNote:\n this article is for informational purposes only. Consult your business attorney and/or financial counselor to make sure a business loan makes sense for you.\nMost businesses need funding, financing, emergency loans, or other capital during their lifecycles\nIf you are reluctant to take out a business loan because you think it means you’re somehow lesser than other businesses, get that thought out of your head right now. Many businesses can’t even get started without the help of a small business lender, especially if the owner doesn’t have a lot of support from family and friends for start-up costs. \nAdditionally, most, if not all, small businesses find themselves in need of business capital multiple times throughout their life-cycles, for expansion, improvement, new equipment, repairing damage from fire or flood or vandalism, hiring, paying down higher-rate loans, and many other reasons.\nEven huge, enterprise companies with lots of cash reserves are constantly borrowing funds to maintain cash flow, upgrade equipment, start new divisions, acquire other businesses, or for other financial purposes. \nSo, forget any supposed stigma related to borrowing money to save or improve or grow your business. That’s what the lender is there for.\nYou can theoretically make money by borrowing business capital at a lower rate\nOf course you should only borrow money if you can pay it back on time and in full. This is the first lesson in Business Loans 101. That said, there’s the possibility that you can actually make money by borrowing. \nLet’s say you see the potential for growing your business, offering a new service, or selling a new product that brings in significantly more profit, but you need a business loan to make it happen. You can secure business financing at a reasonable interest rate, invest that funding in your improvements in facilities or services or products, and potentially make enough profit that it covers the cost of the interest on the business loan… and then some.\nIf you theoretically borrowed at 7% and you earned 10% more than before, you basically got paid 3% for taking out the loan when all is said and done. And the improvements and increases in revenue don’t go away after you’ve paid the loan off.\nUsing small business financing can improve your business credit rating\nSimilarly to how your personal credit rating can be improved by maintaining a line of credit or other type of loan and paying regularly and on time, your business credit rating can be improved if you borrow funds and pay regular, on-time payments. This shows creditors and reporting agencies that you are a responsible business owner who pays your bills on time, and you can be trusted with larger loans. \nIt may seem contradictory that borrowing money (and paying as agreed) seems to show lenders that you don’t actually have any real \nneed\n to borrow money (and thus can be relied upon to pay it all back as agreed), but that’s how it works.\nRegular small business loan customers can ask for lower interest rates and other perks\nSimilarly to how an improved business credit rating can improve your chances of getting a better/bigger loan, once you’ve established a trusting relationship with your lender for a business loan, you can sometimes get better rates, lower fees, or other perks that are reserved for “elite” customers.\nSome lenders will offer 0% origination fees on your next loan, waive any prepayment penalties, lower your interest rates, and offer other perks that can save you a lot of money. But they usually only offer these benefits to current or former borrowers. So, you need to borrow money in order to save money (next time).

Why you shouldn’t be afraid of small business loans or financing

In this article: \nTop free website builders for small businesses\nPros and cons of several popular site builders\nExamples of free templates and features for free site builders\nThere are tons of free website builders that can help you get a start to marketing your business online. These are generally pretty simple to set up, too, so you don’t need a professional web developer or any knowledge of how to code. \nPrebuilt templates and drag and drop features make creating your own business website a breeze. But how do know which website builder is right for your business?\nIn this article we’ll walk you through the pros and cons of the top free website builders so that you can choose the one the suits the needs of your business the best. \nYou may also like: \nAre free website hosting and domains really free?\n\nBest free website builders for small businesses—pros and cons\nLet’s dive right in. Check out these website builders to see which one might be best for your business. \nWix\nWeebly\nJimdo\nSite123\nWordPress.com\nWix\nWix is a widely used free website builder among small businesses. However, generally speaking, most business owners that use Wix have upgraded to a paid plan in order to have their own custom domain on the website (like www.yourbusinessname.com) instead of the free subdomain that Wix gives you (accountname.wix.com/customname).\nPros of Wix’s free plan\nWix has tons of great features and reasons that it can be a good free option for your business. \nHundreds of template options to choose from for all business types\nDrag and drop features to make your website look exactly how you want it to\nOver 100 fonts to choose from and the ability to upload your own fonts\nWix ADI (Artificial Design Intelligence) can custom design a website for you with the input of a few options from you \nSEO customization\n500MB of free webspace\nCons of Wix’s free plan\nWhile Wix offers tons of features on its free plan and gives you the capabilities to create a beautiful business website, there are some limitations of the free plan. \nYou can’t have your own custom domain\nYour website will have ads on it from Wix\nYou can’t have an online store on a free Wix site\nLimited bandwidth and storage\nBy upgrading to Wix’s Combo plan for $13/month, you can remove the ads from the site and connect a custom domain. This is usually enough for informational websites. \nHowever, if you want to have an online store or accept online payments, you’ll want to look at Wix’s \nbusiness and ecommerce plans\n that start at $23/month. \nExamples of templates and demo sites from Wix\nHave a look at the below to get an idea of some of the templates and features Wix offers: \nhttps://www.wix.com/website/templates\n(Image)\n\nDemo site: \nhttps://www.wix.com/website-template/view/html/2651\n(Image)\n\nFeatures: \nhttps://www.wix.com/features/main\n(Image)\n\nWeebly\nWeebly is a free website building solution that partners with Square for its ecommerce capabilities. They do provide the option to have a free online store, however, that does come with the \ntransaction fees\n of using Square for payment processing. \nPros of Weebly’s free plan\nEcommerce capabilities, including the ability to manage inventory, add coupons, and automatically determine taxes\nMarketing features like SEO, lead captures, and the ability to add your Instagram feed to the website are included\nChat and email support are available\nCons of Weebly’s free plan\nYou can’t add your own custom domain to the free website plan (you’ll have to use customname.weebly.com)\nYou have a limited amount of storage for the website, which can become an issue if you have a lot of pages or products\nSquare ads will be on your website\nA slideout “powered by Weebly” ad will be in the footer of your website\nThere’s a cookie notice that you can’t disable on the free plan\nYou don’t get free phone support\nMost of these cons can be bypassed by upgrading to Weebly’s professional plan, which starts at $12/month. \nExamples of templates and features from Weebly\nHave a look at the below to get an idea of some of the templates and features Weebly offers: \nTemplates: \nhttps://www.weebly.com/themes\n(Image)\n\nHere’s a demo site we created using Weebly:\n(Image)\n\nBelow you can look at the breakdown of Weebly’s pricing and features: \nhttps://www.weebly.com/pricing\n(Image)\n\n(Image)\n\n(Image)\n\nJimdo\nJimdo is another website builder that is easy to use, and it will allow you to create a simple and professional-looking website for your business. However, the free plan is pretty limited compared to some of the other popular free website builders. \nBeyond a website builder, Jimdo offers some other products (for additional cost) that can help you get your business off the ground: online store, custom domain options, and a custom logo builder. \nPros of Jimdo’s free plan\nYou get 500 MB of free storage for your website\nYou can start an online store (the free version is capped at 5 products)\nSeveral free templates to choose from, all you need to do is change the fonts and colors to match your brand\nYou can easily embed videos, contact forms, and Google Maps on your website\nBuilt-in tools for social media are included along with share buttons for your pages, products, or blog posts\nCons of Jimdo’s free plan\nYou can only have 5 web pages\nYou can only have up to 5 products in your store\nYou don’t get a custom domain connected to your site (you’ll have customname.jimdosite.com)\nIf you want unlimited products and pages on your website, you’ll have to use Jimdo’s unlimited plan, which starts at $39/month. If you only need a few pages or products, but you want a custom domain, then you could do just fine with their Start plan, which is $9/month. \nExamples of templates and features from Jimdo\nTemplates: \nhttps://www.jimdo.com/examples/\n(Image)\n\nDemo site: \nhttps://amanda-brennan-creative-producer.jimdosite.com/\n(Image)\n\nBelow you can see the pricing and features breakdown of Jimdo: \nhttps://www.jimdo.com/pricing/creator/\n(Image)\n\n(Image)\n\nSite123\nSite123 claims to be the easiest free website builder “by far.” They help you get a website started in just three steps:\nSelect the type of website you want\nAdd your business name\nCreate your account\n(Image)\n\n(Image)\n\n(Image)\n\nOf course, there’s more to actually building your website, but this is all you need to do to get started in editing and building your new website. \nPros of Site123’s free plan\nFull use of Site123’s website editor with easy drag and drop features and clickable fields to edit content\nTons of professional templates to start from \nEasily add multiple pages\nCons of Site123’s free plan\nYou can’t have a custom domain\nYou won’t have ecommerce capabilities\nThere’s a small banner ad at the bottom of the free sites. Currently it looks like this:\n(Image)\n\nSite123’s Premium plan starts at $12.80/month and eliminates the cons of the free plan. \nExamples of templates and features from Site123\nTemplates: \nhttps://www.site123.com/website-templates\n(Image)\n\nDemo site: \nhttps://www.site123.com/templates/preview/1278915\n(Image)\n\nFeatures: \nhttps://www.site123.com/features\n(Image)\n\n \nWordPress.com\nIf all you need is an informational platform, then WordPress.com can provide a quick, free solution. WordPress.com, \ndifferent from WordPress.org\n, is primarily a blogging platform, but you can use it to provide information about your business services and products in a beautiful and professional way. \nPros of WordPress.com’s free plan\nDozens of free website templates to choose from\nAny content you write on your WordPress.com website remains your property\nEasy-to-use editor that automatically saves your work every few minutes\nCons of WordPress.com’s free plan\nYou won’t be able to use a custom domain\nCustomer support is limited, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan for good support\nStorage space is capped at 3 GB\nSEO capabilities are limited\nYou won’t have access to install plugins for additional functionality on your site (i.e. contact forms, slideshows, online booking, etc.)\nNo ecommerce capabilities\nFor as little as $4/month, you can have your own custom domain, 6 GB of storage, and basic customer support. For additional features, you can check out their other payment plans at \nWordPress.com\n. If you want to have ecommerce capabilities with a WordPress.com website, you will need to upgrade to their Ecommerce plan for $45/month. \nExamples of templates and features from WordPress\nTemplates: \nhttps://wordpress.com/themes\n(Image)\n\nDemo site: \nhttps://wordpress.com/theme/maywood\n(Image)\n\nFeatures: \nhttps://wordpress.com/features/\n(Image)\n\n(Image)\n\nWhat should you do after your website is published?\nCreating a business website, whether free or not, is only the first step to increasing your online visibility. There are several steps involved, most of which revolve around \nlocal SEO\n and getting reviews to your \nonline business listings\n like Google My Business. 

Free site builders: Which one is right for your business? Pros and cons

In this article:\nIs a delivery service right for your restaurant?\nWhat you’ll need\nHow to use third-party services\nSafety precautions\nDelivery best practices\nThe COVID-19 pandemic had one, arguably positive outcome: Due to mandatory shutdowns of restaurant dining rooms and lobbies and customers opting to order out and remain in their homes, the restaurant industry, including small, local joints, was forced to finally adapt to a carry-out and delivery model in order to survive. \nToday, pretty much everyone expects online ordering, delivery, and/or carry-out options for every restaurant, including food carts, trucks, pop-ups, and truly small one-person shops. \nThroughout this article, we’ll talk about the different measures you may need to take when starting a new delivery service and some different options to get started. \nIs a delivery service right for your restaurant?\nFirst, you need to determine if your restaurant can benefit from offering delivery and take out services, especially if you’ve never done this before. \nLet's go over the pros and cons to ensure that you will be making a profit by offering delivery services. \nPros of restaurant delivery service\nThe benefits of offering delivery service include:\nMaintain or increase revenue as more people ordering food from home\nPotential to reach more and new customers as a new avenue of ordering from your restaurant opens up\nLess space needed to operate in (during any future shutdowns, you don’t need to keep your front checkout counter running or dining room open)\nPotential to get more orders out the door than you would be able to seat people in your restaurant\nmale restaurant delivery driver\n\nCons of restaurant delivery services\nThere are some downsides to offering restaurant delivery services that you need to weigh, depending on your location and restaurant type:\nIf you’re in a high-demand area, it may be difficult to meet customer expectations with acceptable delivery times\nThe prices you need to offer in order to offset the costs of delivery services may be unappealing to customers, which might hurt overall sales\nYou’ll have less control over a customer’s experience as your driver (or 3rd-party delivery courier) faces traffic delays or the food arrives with poor presentation due to travel\nIncreased costs associated with paying any employees that have to drive their own vehicles for delivery (mileage compensation)\nIf you’re using a third-party delivery service, you’ll have smaller profit margins and less control over how long it takes to get food delivered\nWhat you’ll need to start offering restaurant delivery services\nIn order to start offering delivery services from your restaurant, there are a few things you’ll need to make sure you have in place. \nOnline/Over-the-phone ordering capabilities\nFirst, you’ll need the ability to actually take and fulfill orders. It won’t be difficult to switch your strategy to start offering over-the-phone orders (assuming you have enough staff and phone lines to keep up with demand), but there may be a little more effort required to offering online ordering. \nWe recommend offering online ordering if possible because you’ll have more opportunities to receive more business. This is how most people prefer to order delivery services in today’s market. \nCheck to see if your current POS (point-of-sale) system offers online ordering capabilities or partner with a third-party like Grubhub or DoorDash that will do this for you (more on this later). \nHigh-speed internet\nIf you are offering online ordering, you’ll need a good internet connection in order to receive and fulfill orders. \nDrivers\nYou might consider transitioning any non-food-prep staff to working as delivery drivers. You’ll want to make sure you have enough staff members on hand who are willing and can take on this responsibility. \nMethod of transportation\nBeyond just the willingness to deliver food, your staff should have a good mode of transportation. Unless you have company vehicles, your employees will likely have to use their own vehicles to deliver food. Consider any mileage compensation you may have to offer in order to make this transition worthwhile. \nBags/takeout carriers for travel\nIf you’ve never offered delivery services before, you’ll probably need to order some additional materials to help delivery operations run smoothly. You’ll want takeout containers that will retain heat as best as possible as well as bags or carriers for your employees to use when delivering the food. Reusable, heat-insulating bags are best here.\nConsider dedicated parking stalls and entry points for takeout / pickup\nIf you have the option, you might create a dedicated access door with a specific register and staff to support carry-out/app-delivery orders. Also think about adding or designating more limited-waiting parking stalls for curbside/takeout orders.\nHow to start delivering food using third-party services\nIf the above sounds like a big lift, the easiest way to implement online ordering and delivery sources with little change to your current operations is to use a third-party service, like one of the following:\n\nDoorDash\n\n\nGrubhub\n\n\nUberEats\n\nThese guys are the pros of running online ordering and delivery and can help you quickly get your restaurant ready to start delivering to your customers. But be aware of the cost.\nFor most third-party services, you’ll have a process that looks similar to the following steps:\nSign your restaurant up and create an account. You’ll need to verify or activate your restaurant by providing necessary details like business name, phone number, hours, etc. \nWhen you have an account, you’ll need to confirm your menu items and pricing in the dashboard of your third-party service. \nVerify your bank account and tax ID information. This is important for making sure you get paid and the third-party service gets their commission.\nUpdate your store hours on your dashboard.\nFinish activating your account and start taking orders!\nDepending on the service you use, you may also be provided with a tablet or other device to take and fulfill orders.\nOne caution we will state of using one of these services during any potential future lockdowns is that drivers in your area may be overwhelmed with the influx of online orders. This could result in longer wait times (and fewer orders from these services due to the increased wait times). \nTo help offset the downsides of using a third-party service, we recommend implementing your own internal delivery service as well. The more options you have to get your customers their order, the better your restaurant can perform during times of crisis. \nSafety and hygiene practices for restaurant delivery\nSafety and hygiene practices are always important in the restaurant industry, but they are critical during times of heightened awareness of disease transmission.\nTips for enforcing safety among your employees and customers:\nScreen all employees when they arrive at work to ensure they aren’t exhibiting any flu-like symptoms, and haven’t come into contact with people exhibiting symptoms\nEncourage no-contact delivery by allowing customers to pay online or over-the-phone and having your employees drop the food off at their door and notify them via the app or their smart doorbell (this is now the default for most carriers)\nHave constant reminders for handwashing, sanitizing surfaces, and proper hygiene behaviors for your employees\nEnsure each driver has hand sanitizer and/or gloves to use during deliveries\nKeep disinfectant products stocked up\nBe sure to inform your customers that you are taking every precaution necessary to help ensure the safe handling of their food. Help give them the peace of mind they need to make the decision to order from your restaurant. \nBest practices for restaurant food delivery\nBeyond the necessary safety precautions to take, there are some basic best practices for food delivery that you should keep in mind to help operations run smoothly:\nSimplify your delivery/carry-out menu. Keep the number of items in your delivery menu limited to help run efficient food prep and delivery operations. \nStart promoting delivery right away. You want your customers to know that you are now offering delivery and take out options. Add this to your restaurant’s website, Yelp, Google, TripAdvisor, and other online business listings, and promote locally targeted social media or Google ads to help get the word out. \nConsider your pricing structure. You may need to make some changes to your pricing to help offset increased costs of delivery, whether that is adding a delivery fee or increasing the cost of each item you offer. Be transparent with your customers about your pricing and the reasons for any changes. With increased demand, customers will most likely understand the need for you to boost your prices a little.\nSet accurate expectations for delivery times. Now is not the time to overpromise. You must set accurate expectations of when a customers’ food will get to them if you want your delivery services to run well. 

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