01 Jan How restaurants can Increase Spending on a Sunday
Restaurants should be looking to increase turnover with a much higher share of a consumer’s wallet on a Sunday than any other.
While Sunday used to be a day of rest, it’s certainly not any more as anyone who has visited the Trafford Shopping Centre will testify!
Instead it is fast becoming as important a day for restaurant owners as Saturday
Much of the reason for this, it seems, is that our culture is rapidly changing as we become a generally more secular society.
It used to be illegal to buy and sell on a Sunday up until the Sunday Trading Act of 1994. As a result, people tended not to go out that much at all on a Sunday – and certainly not that much money was spent.
With a combination of the introduction of Sunday trading laws and a relaxation of drinking laws it means that it is now much easier than ever before for restaurants to attract customers on Sunday. As a result, shopping centres and high streets are now much busier on Sundays and with a massive selection of entertainment, such as sport, theatre or the cinema it means the footfall for restaurants is now much greater than before….
Take Advantage of Sundays
Importantly, restrictions on Sunday trading (large shops can now only open for 6 hours a day on Sunday between 10am and 6pm) have also actually benefited restaurants too. That’s because while there are now more people out and about in shopping centres and high streets, there are fewer hours where they can actually spend money in shops.
This has meant that restaurants have attracted people either waiting for the shops to open in the morning, or in the evening when they have to close.
Sunday is also the key day for people getting takeaways, perhaps because they want to treat themselves or can’t be bothered to go out and eat at the end of a busy week.
According to research by Paymentsense, demand for takeaways increases each day throughout the week, peaking on a Sunday when it is more than 50% higher than on an average weekday.
5 ways that restaurants can boost Sunday sales
1) Provide breakfast options – with shops typically not open until around 11am or 12pm, Sunday breakfast is the perfect opportunity for many people to eat out. Indeed, research from Paymentsense suggests restaurants should market breakfasts and brunches to a younger demographic and couples with young children, who are the most likely groups to eat out in the morning.
2) Use social media marketing – research from Sprout Social shows that while engagement on Facebook is relatively low on Sunday, Twitter is particularly popular throughout the weekend with the highest levels of engagement between 9am and 3pm on a Sunday. Restaurants should therefore consider “Tweeting” during these hours if they want to help drive sales.
3) Offer a traditional Sunday lunch – the tradition of everyone in the family eating together for a roast dinner at home may not be as strong as it used to be, but people (especially older groups) still want a traditional meal on a Sunday, especially during the winter months.
4) Develop your takeaway offering – obviously Sunday is a much more active day than it used to be, but people do still like to relax – perhaps more so than on any other day. For many, this means not doing their own cooking and ordering a takeaway instead. It’s imperative that restaurants have a strategy in place for dealing with the increased demand for ordering either via their own website with a secure Payment gateway, or through those of third parties (Uber Eats, Deliveroo, Just Eat etc.).
5)Create a distinctive customer loyalty program – Sunday is the one day of the week where restaurants have the biggest share of consumer spending. So it’s important to build on that in order to boost sales on the other days of the week. One way of doing this is with a customer loyalty program. According to a Forbes article, a customer loyalty program can help boost sales by up to 30%.