Questions to Ask Before Ordering Food Online

Perhaps the realities of the present times have left you stuck up in your apartment – working remotely, with little leisure time to spare for grocery shopping at the mall. Having access to the internet and a credit or debit card at hand, you decide to give placing an online order a trial. Now, here are the questions you might want to ask yourself before deciding on the particular online food order service to use. This article is simply enlightenment about ordering food online.

For what type of meal am I placing the order?

As of the date of this article’s publication, there is a truckload of online food ordering services, dotting the landscape of all states of the US. However, it is essential to know the type of meal order that will work best for you. Since the reason for subscribing to online meal orders is almost always time constraint, it becomes necessary to choose between pre-cooked meals and meal kit orders.

Only restaurants and home kitchens that support online food orders offer this service. The first online order for a pre-cooked meal in the US was for pizza; Hult Pizza was the first company to make this service available, in 1994.

Meal kits, on the other, are metered portions of raw or partially processed food items that come with a recipe and enjoy usage in putting together home-prepared meal fixes. However, unlike pre-cooked meal orders, which are a one-time affair, meal kit orders are subscription services. Examples of businesses that run meal kit subscription services are Blue Apron, Amazon Meal Kit, HelloFresh, Home Chef, Walmart, etc.

Will I be ordering for pickup or delivery?

Most online meal ordering platforms provide their customers with the choice of either picking up their meal or having it delivered to their location. It will, therefore, be advisable to find out beforehand if the online order service you are about to choose has the option of delivery. For pre-cooked meals, some online order platforms allow the option of either paying with card – online, or cash – at delivery. Some services equally inform you of the lag time that will be required to prepare a pre-cooked meal, notify you when the food is ready (for meal pickups), or when the package is likely to arrive (for deliveries).

For delivered meal wills, what kind of delivery service will I prefer?

There are various types of meal delivery services available in the US, and these services supply the food package – either pre-cooked or meal kit, to offices or homes at commensurate charges. One thing to note, however, is that some restaurants, fast food outlets, and meal kit subscription services have a dedicated delivery system incorporated into their services – it would be advisable to use these.

Though there are companies that provide independent delivery services, it is, however, not advisable to patronize such service; as communication breakdowns are inevitable between the company supplying the meal, the separate dispatch rider, and the individual placing the order.