How important is it for your restaurant to offer online ordering through a mobile site? According to a 2010 study by Morgan Stanley, access to the Internet using mobile devices will overtake desktop/laptop Internet access by 2013.

Smartphone owners tend to use their handheld devices to help with everyday tasks. If given an option, will they call your restaurant from their cell phone to place an order? Probably not. The last time they called, they were put on hold and rushed to complete their order. With their smartphone, your menu is in front of them, they don’t have to wait on hold, and it’s accurate, fast, and paid for.

Online ordering is all about using technology for greater customer convenience. We at NetWaiter want to extend convenience to your customers any way possible. Mobile ordering is a great step to providing the ultimate convenience to your customers and is only getting bigger. If your customers are going mobile, your restaurant needs to go mobile.

Find out how you can increase takeout revenue by as much as 20%, or more. See a 30-minute live demonstration of NetWaiter. The live demo will highlight the front-end and back-end aspects of the NetWaiter System. We'll show you how we can automate your takeout business, provide customers mobile access to your restaurant, and leverage the latest technology to maximize sales. Go to www.netwaiter.com and click "Join a Live Demo."

Everyone likes to feel as if they are an insider, that they know things other folks don't know.  This includes secret menu items at restaurants.

What's better than a secret menu?  A ‘secret’ menu only available to online customers.

"Online ordering is a natural for ‘secret’ menu items," says Jared Shimoff, Sr. Director at NetWaiter.  "Obviously, it’s impossible to keep things a secret when you post information online, but keeping certain menu items exclusive to your online menu will encourage people to gravitate to your online site and help set your online menu apart from menus at other restaurants."

Often times, secret items are similar to regular items, but in different presentations.  For instance, McDonald's purported Monster Mac - a Big Mac with eight patties (can you say heart attack?).  The ingredients are already on hand.  Alternatively, secret menu items can also allow you to experiment with new offerings before rolling them out to the mainstream.

"If you have a secret menu or customers know the secret menu, they feel like they're insiders," Bret Thorn, senior food editor of Nation's Restaurant News, told NPR News.  "They feel a kind of personal connection to the restaurant; they feel they know something that maybe not everybody else does.  And everyone loves that."