The restaurant operating flow includes a conveyor belt to serve the food and 22 SalesVu-powered self-order kiosks where patrons can order meat, soups, drinks, and sides. They accept reservations through their SalesVu-powered website and also allow customers to add themselves to the waitlist right from the smartphone branded app that SalesVu created for them.
Like most restaurants, Hot Pot City has experienced big challenges due to COVID-19 as the restaurant had to close down for more than a month and lost 90% of the full-service restaurant business. During these tough times, their top priority was to maintain enough sales to stay afloat. Take-away was their only hope for survival but they didn’t want to use an online ordering marketplace/app option because of the high percentage commission fee they would be charged. They decided instead to implement SalesVu’s free desktop/mobile e-commerce website and smartphone branded app.
‘I am so satisfied with SalesVu’s online ordering solution. It completely gave the restaurant a second chance! Without the website and branded app, I don’t know how we were going to be able to get through this difficult time. I actually saw a huge increase in sales. ECommerce orders increased by 200% in May 2020 compared to April 2020’ – BJ Wang
Owner and manager BJ Wang uses the Sales report to track daily and weekly sales and to make comparisons between sales from last month/year. When it’s time to do taxes, he can easily pull a Z report which shows the tax amount for each category that is set up in the account. In addition to the Sales report, the Orders report is something he uses every day to check all of the e-commerce sales that are coming from the website or the branded app. This report is also extremely helpful to check the past purchase history of his clients.
‘In today’s social media era, people are increasingly inseparable from smartphones. I feel that the branded app has been more useful because everyone has a smartphone and people do everything with it. Not only can they place a takeout order, but they can also add themselves to the waitlist and make a reservation at the restaurant after we resume the dine-in service’ – BJ Wang
Once the state of Maryland lifts the lockdown restrictions, BJ will be able to reopen his restaurant for dine-in business. He’s already well-positioned to follow self-distancing guidelines between customers and employees since he has SalesVu OrderUp self-order kiosks installed at each of his 22 tables. Seeing how successful they have proven to be, he also plans to continue utilizing the website and branded app for online orders.
If you live in Rockville, go ahead and support a local business! You can order incredible food directly from their website or download Hot Pot City’s branded app.
