Deliveroo Launches POS Integration For Restaurants

Restaurant food delivery startup Deliveroo announced it is launching point of sale (POS) integrations to its restaurant partners via an API and developer portal.

According to TechCrunch, the integration will eliminate the need for front-of-house staff from having to manually input Deliveroo food orders into an eatery’s sales system. The company reports that one major chain even had to assign a single member of its staff at peak times to “sit there and type in the orders.”

The company revealed that initial tests showed the integration cuts order processing time from around 2.5 minutes to approximately 30 seconds. POS companies and “tech-savvy restaurants” should be able to complete the integration in two weeks.

“We weren’t sure how many people were going to adopt it — now we can see it’s clearly taken off and is working in supporting restaurants,” said a spokesman.

Currently, 500 restaurant sites are using the integration, which they joined during a trial, along with 25 POS companies that are plugging into its API. Deliveroo expects thousands to follow suit by the end of the year, with a “couple of hundred” restaurants joining each month.

The spokesperson said Deliveroo chose an API approach because of the diversity of the POS market.

“At a European level, it’s crazy how many different types of POS companies there are. So from our perspective, rather than trying to produce our own system, which worked with every single one, it was best to design a system where they were able to use an API of ours and integrate from their system,” the spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Deliveroo, which operates in 12 markets, said that POS integrations have been achieved with restaurants in the U.K., France, Belgium and Spain. The U.K., where the company has more than 10,000 partners, has been the most “advanced” so far.

Last year, the company landed $385 million in a new round of venture funding, bringing its valuation to around $2 billion.