Thuisbezorgd Competes with Restaurant Websites – and That’s Not OK
Want to order food from your favorite restaurant? Then check that you have the right web address, otherwise you may end up ordering through Thuisbezorgd – without meaning to. ‘Sometimes it feels like we have to compete with Thuisbezorgd, instead of helping each other,’ says restaurant owner Sidney.
If you want to order a pizza online from restaurant Slijs, pay attention to which website you click on in Google. The first search results you get when you type Slijs into the search engine are not from the restaurant, but from Thuisbezorgd. It is only at number four or five that you find the link where you can order directly from Slijs. Huh? ‘Thuisbezorgd has been doing that for a few years now, and with a great many restaurants,’ explains Sidney Groot (owner of Slijs).
Regular customer confused
For a few years now, Thuisbezorgd has been copying restaurant websites in order to capture orders that were actually intended to go directly to the restaurant. Sidney: ‘They created a separate website with an order form. People think they are ordering from us, but they are ordering from Thuisbezorgd. That order does reach us, but we have to pay 13 percent to Thuisbezorgd, plus an administration fee per order. Regular customers would prefer to order directly from us, but they get confused by that fake website.’
Huge budgets
By advertising heavily on Google, those copied websites appear higher in the search results than the restaurant’s real website. Can Slijs advertise more itself, so that its site appears above Thuisbezorgd’s in the search results? No chance, says Sidney. ‘They have such huge budgets that we can never beat them. It would be a waste of money.’
Losing customers
Sidney signed a contract with Thuisbezorgd when they started their restaurant. ‘The advantage is that you can immediately start generating revenue. We are now noticing that we are actually losing regular customers to Thuisbezorgd. And that is obviously not the intention.’ The contract states that Thuisbezorgd will create a page featuring the restaurant’s menu, but nothing was said about advertising or separate websites. ‘It may all be legally correct, but it remains a strange move,’ says Sidney.
‘It makes no sense’
Slijs is not the only restaurant affected by this. For example, if you want to order sushi from Blue Sakura in Enschede, you also have to struggle through a pile of fake websites before reaching the Japanese restaurant’s direct site, writes Tubantia. Check it yourself: type the name of your favorite takeaway restaurant into Google and see where you end up. ‘The website Thuisbezorgd created for us also makes no sense at all,’ says Sidney. ‘Our logo isn’t on it, which probably has something to do with copyright, and there’s a hamburger at the top of the page, even though we don’t even sell those.’
Number 1 on an industrial estate
Sidney spoke to Thuisbezorgd founder Jitse Groen in person at Horecava a few years ago. Another strange thing: Slijs paid a considerable amount to get a prominent spot on the Thuisbezorgd website when visitors searched for a takeaway meal in Hoorn. ‘We were promised a place in the top three, at least. But apparently it is based on postcode. Our kitchen is located on an industrial estate. If you searched using that postcode, yes, we were at the top. But our customers are in the city center, and there we averaged number 16 instead of number 22. The option to rank highly in the search results is intended to attract new customers. But at number 16, only regular customers could find us, and we were paying Thuisbezorgd a few extra euros per order for it. We explained that to Jitse when he gave a talk at Horecava. He said we were an exception. We never heard anything else, and of course we stopped the promotion because it was costing us hundreds of euros.’
Menu
Sidney complains about Thuisbezorgd, but still does not want to cancel his membership. ‘It is a great platform that enables fledgling restaurants to find customers quickly. It is simply a shame that they advertise so aggressively and in such a devious way. Our delivery drivers point out to customers that they are better off ordering directly from us. The correct website is printed on the pizza box, which makes it easier. We’ll just have to do it that way.’
We contacted Thuisbezorgd to ask for a response, but we were unable to reach them.
