The Food and Beverage Industry is extremely competitive. With so much choice available, convincing customers to choose your business over a competitor can be difficult.
EasyVend has put together 5 ways you can convince customers to choose your business in 2023.
1. Online Reviews
Haven’t put much thought into your businesses Online Reviews? Research has found that 93% of customers use online reviews to determine what to buy and more importantly who to buy from. The only way that your business will be able to convince a customer to choose your business over the competition is by growing your online reviews.
After a customer has purchased a product from your business, ask them to leave a review of the product and your service online. You may need to offer customers an incentive to motivate them to take action. Think about offering a future discount to customers if they provide an online review.
Building positive online reviews is by far the easiest and most powerful way businesses can convince buyers to shop with them in 2023.
2. Have the Right Products
Seems obvious right? But so many businesses continue to make simple product mistakes that in turn costs them customers. To convince buyers to shop with your business it is absolutely essential that you sell the products that they want to buy.
Before you begin selling products it is important to do market research. Your business needs to identify what products customers are buying and most importantly at what price they are buying them for.
Once you know this, try to find ways to source those products to sell direct to the customer. Having the right products is the only way that you will be able to get customers into your business.
3. Competitive Pricing
Price is often the key determining factor for a customer when it comes to choosing who to buy from. Put yourself in a customer’s shoes, if you see the same product being sold at a cheaper price from another seller, who are you going to choose?
Like we mentioned in the last point, before you begin selling products to sell, it is important that you do market research to see what price your competitors are charging for similar products. Once you know the prices that they are charging try to offer a price point that either matches or betters what they are offering.
4. Adapt to the Customer
Customer preferences can change in an instant. To remain competitive it is important that your business continues to adapt to customer buying changes. Think about it, what customers were buying 5 years ago and the way that they were buying it is much different to the way they do it today.
This is where speaking to your customers becomes so important. Your business needs to hear from your customers firsthand about what they are buying and how they like buying it. Based on the information you receive from your customers, continue to adapt your offering to meet their current needs and requirements. Adapting to the customer can and will lead to better conversions and customer retention!
5. Make the Buying Process Easy
The importance of this point cannot be overstated. To get customers to choose your business over the competition, you need to offer the fastest and easiest buying process. From the time the customer selects a product to the time they receive the goods, the entire process needs to be fast and simple.
The best way to offer the simplest buying process is by implementing your own Online Ordering Website. The benefit of having an Online Ordering Website is customers can place orders online at a time that suits them best. Everything from product selection to payment and delivery date selection can be done entirely online without having to call or email your business!
Make Your Food & Beverage Business Easy to Find Online
Customers cannot choose a business they cannot find. Most buyers in food and beverage start by searching online, usually through Google, Google Maps, or increasingly through AI tools like ChatGPT. If your business does not appear in those searches, you cannot get customers to choose your food business.
A good starting point is your Google Business Profile. Claim it, fill in every field properly, set the right opening hours, and add clear product photos. For a wholesale ice supplier in Brisbane or a dairy distributor in regional Victoria, this profile can become an important source of first-time enquiries, sometimes generating as much visibility as the website itself. Keep it active with a short monthly post and quick replies to any questions buyers leave. The Google Business Profile help centre covers the basics if you are new to it.
If you supply several cities, creating dedicated location pages for each service area can improve visibility for location-specific searches rather than relying on a single general page that tries to cover everything.
Offer a Better Ordering Experience Than Competitors
Once a customer has found you, the next thing they will judge is how easy you make it to actually buy from you. A café owner placing a weekly order at 9 PM on a Sunday may prefer a supplier that allows orders to be placed immediately rather than waiting until Monday morning to call a sales line. A restaurant manager comparing two milk suppliers may favour the supplier that offers a simpler ordering process over one that still sends PDF forms by email.
The simplest fix is a proper B2B eCommerce website where customers can log in, see their usual products, check live pricing, and pick a delivery date without calling anyone.
A few things tend to separate efficient ordering experiences from inefficient ones.
- Speed: A returning customer should be able to reorder in under a minute. Saved order templates, one-click repeat orders, and stored payment details all help.
- Clarity: Buyers want to see real stock levels, real prices, and real delivery windows. Hidden surcharges and unclear delivery expectations can reduce buyer confidence.
- Mobile usability: Many F&B buyers (chefs, café owners, venue managers) place orders from a phone between shifts. If your site is awkward on a small screen, some buyers may choose a supplier with a more mobile-friendly ordering experience.
Build Trust Through Reviews and Social Proof
Reviews can play a significant role in buyer decision-making. Research from Podium found that around 92% of customers say online reviews influence their purchase decisions. Social proof in food and beverage takes several forms, and the strongest approaches combine a few of them.
- Star ratings on Google: This is the first thing a buyer sees when your business appears in search results. A score above 4.5 with a steady flow of recent reviews can appear more trustworthy to buyers than a higher rating with few recent reviews.
- Written reviews with specifics: Generic “great service” reviews help, but reviews that mention a real product, a real situation, or a real outcome help much more. A line like “We switched our weekly bread order to this supplier and have not had a missed delivery in eight months” often provides more useful information to prospective buyers than several generic reviews.
- Customer testimonials and case studies on your own site: A dedicated testimonials page with photos, business names, and quotes (used with permission) gives buyers a deeper view of the kind of customers you already serve.
- Logos of known customers: If you supply well-known cafés, retailers, or hospitality groups, a simple logo strip on your homepage can help establish credibility with prospective buyers.
- Industry awards, certifications, and memberships: HACCP certification, food safety accreditation, and membership in industry associations serve as additional indicators of credibility, especially for B2B buyers comparing several suppliers at once.
Use Promotions to Attract First-Time Customers
A new buyer often needs a clear reason to consider changing suppliers. Promotions lower that risk and make the first order feel lower risk. The aim is to design offers that bring in serious buyers, not bargain hunters who never come back.
A modest first-order discount, around 10% off the first invoice, often feels meaningful to the buyer without putting pressure on your margins. Free product samples tend to work well for distributors, since a café that has already tasted your beans or baked goods may be more willing to consider switching suppliers. Free delivery for the first month removes a common objection. Bundle pricing on complementary products can also encourage customers to purchase multiple products in a single order without forcing you to cut any single product price.
What often distinguishes effective promotions from less effective ones is tracking. A promotion that brings in 50 accounts and retains 35 of them as ongoing customers tends to be more valuable than one that brings in 200 and retains only 20. HubSpot’s market research guide is worth a look if you want to shape offers around real buyer behaviour.
Create a Repeat Customer Strategy That Builds Loyalty
Acquiring a new customer typically costs five to seven times more than keeping an existing one. In food and beverage, where orders often repeat weekly, the long-term value of retained customers can be particularly significant. A single café supply account can be worth tens of thousands of dollars a year, and losing the account can have a substantial impact on annual revenue.
Loyalty starts with the basics. Late deliveries and incorrect orders can reduce the effectiveness of loyalty initiatives. Once the baseline is reliable, easy reordering helps strengthen customer retention. Recurring schedules and saved order templates inside an online order management system remove the mental load for the buyer and make repeat purchasing more convenient.
Volume-based pricing tiers also reward loyalty without needing a separate points programme. A simple quarterly check-in often helps identify service issues before they affect customer retention. A proper supply chain management system gives you the visibility to identify those signs early so corrective action can be taken promptly.
Final Word,
The Food & Beverage industry is extremely competitive. The only way that your business is going to be able to convince buyers to buy from you is by offering the best products at the most affordable price. The 5 strategies presented are a few proven ways your business can convince customers to shop with your business in 2023.
We hope you enjoyed reading this article. To read more articles like this, please visit the EasyVend latest news page here.
SERP FAQs
How do customers choose a food and beverage business?
Customers tend to choose a food and beverage business based on five things: how easy it is to find online, how smooth the ordering process feels, what reviews and social proof say about it, the offer at the first interaction, and how reliable the service feels across the first few orders. Trust and convenience usually outweigh price once a buyer has had a couple of positive experiences with a supplier.
How can food businesses attract more customers?
The most reliable food business growth strategies for attracting customers are a mix of strong online visibility, easy online ordering, and clear social proof. A claimed Google Business Profile, a working B2B ordering site, a steady flow of recent reviews, and a clear first-order offer usually cover most of what drives new enquiries. Word-of-mouth from happy customers tends to handle the rest.
Why are reviews important for food businesses?
Around 93% of customers use online reviews to guide their purchase decisions. In food, the effect is often sharper because buyers are naturally cautious about what they eat or serve. Reviews shape your search visibility, your click-through rate, and the buyer’s comfort level all at once.
What is the best way to increase food business sales?
The most reliable way to increase food business sales is to make repeat ordering effortless for existing customers and to remove friction for new ones. That usually means putting orders online, setting up recurring schedules, offering volume-based pricing, and using customer data to spot accounts that are either growing or quietly slipping. Most of the meaningful growth in food and beverage comes from existing customers ordering more often.
How do promotions help food businesses grow?
Promotions give new buyers a low-risk reason to try a supplier they have not used before. A small first-order discount, a free sample, or free delivery for the first month often costs less than traditional advertising and tends to convert at a higher rate. The real growth happens when a strong service experience turns those first-time orders into long-term repeat accounts.
About EasyVend,
For Supply Chain Businesses, EasyVend supports and automates every part of your business, freeing you up to grow your sales simply, unlike other ERP systems.
EasyVend includes key everyday features like Inventory Management, Online Ordering, Invoicing, Receipting, Automatic Credit Card Payments, Xero Accounting Integration, Route Management, Business reporting and more.
Using the latest technologies, EasyVend removes common frustrations making business more streamlined today!
To learn more about EasyVend or to get a no-obligation Trial EasyVend of the software, call us today on 1300 473 744 or submit the form below.