Checklist for ordering food online

Ordering food online is part and parcel of this stay-home period. The process is simple and fast. You can order delicious food of your choice anytime and get it delivered in few minutes. You can even repeat the exact order you placed last time. You just have to download food delivering applications such as Zomato, Swiggy, Faasos, etc. There is hardly any restaurant these days which is not providing services on these applications. All you need is a smart phone or a laptop and an account on these food delivery applications to enjoy your food from the selected restaurant. But hey, is there a better way in doing this altogether? Let’s check it here.

Richa Pande

This time, home food delivery is the preferred way to ease out the every-day-cooking pain. Covid-19 has changed almost everything across the entire delivery system. It has made us more conscious, and we should take necessary steps before ordering food as well as after the food is delivered. But many consumers are new to the experience of ordering food online. Here are some points to keep in mind, when ordering meals online-

1. Choosing a meal-

• Enter the location of the place you want the order to be delivered. Select the precise location, to avoid any hassles.
• Check the ratings of the restaurant. Ratings are helpful because customers rate their experiences – ratings give us a feedback on the customer service of the restaurant/service provider – which helps us in picking up a good restaurant.
• Look for a vegetarian restaurant if you are a vegetarian. You can opt for veg only option, if you are placing an order from a restaurant that offers both vegetarian as well as non- vegetarian meals.  
• Some restaurants also provide food items that targets people who are health conscious i.e. keto diet food items, food items with less calories, etc. If you are adhering to such lifestyle diets, you can order food from such restaurants.
• Some restaurants provide nutritive value with meals they serve. You can pick the meal of your choice based on these values.
• Using the food apps, you can filter the restaurants by-
• Location of the restaurant
• Delivery time
• Ratings
• Food habits (i.e. only vegetarian restaurants)
• What you are willing to eat (i.e. Chinese, Italian etc.)

2. When you have made your selection –

• You can provide instructions to the restaurants to keep the foods spicy as per your preference i.e. less spicy, medium spice and very spicy.
• You can also opt for no cutlery option to minimise the use of plastic items such as forks, spoons etc. as these are not environment friendly.
• For safety of the delivery boy as well as yourselves opt for cashless transactions as exchange of currency can result in the transmission of the covid-19 virus. Prefer no contact delivery for your own safety.
• Compare prices and offers

Fast food restaurants such as Dominos, McDonalds, KFC, Pizza Hut etc. have their own food delivery apps. They also sell food through food delivery apps such as Zomato, Swiggy etc. Always check where you are getting a better price for food items you wish to eat. Also, compare it across the food apps, as you might get a better offer on a different food app.

• Food delivery applications offer discount on different debit and credit cards, payment wallets etc., always check for offers before placing the order.
• You can also gift an order and send it to the address of the person you wish to gift the meal. You can add a personalised note as well.
• FINAL CHECKS BEFORE YOU PLACE THE ORDER-You can save multiple delivery addresses on these app. Check the address before making the payment. Also check the amounts of food in your basket to prevent any hassles.

3. After the food has been delivered-

• Before eating your meals, check whether all items you have ordered have been delivered. If an item is missing from your order or/it doesn’t match your specifications, you can report this to a customer care executive. For example, if you had opted for a Jain meal, and the meal contains onion/garlic etc. Report it to the company and ask for refund/replacement. These food delivery applications are concerned about their reputation and in the event of customer dissatisfaction, they refund some amount in your app wallet or if you opt payment reversals, you can get the refund back into the payment wallets such as Paytm, Google Pay, Phonepe, Airtel Money etc. or into your bank account.
• Wash your hands after touching the food packets; if the food is in plastic boxes it is safer to sanitise the boxes. Transfer the food to your steel utensils after sanitising the boxes and throw away the plastic boxes.
• If the food is spilled or the packaging appears tampered, then immediately click pictures and communicate a return /rejection of the food item. Consuming a food item with tampered packaging is not safe.