Question 1

What is the status of restaurants listed on Takeaway.com?

Accepted Answer

Takeaway.com provides an online food ordering and delivery platform that lists more than 15.000 professional third party restaurants across België, where consumers can place their orders. We ask restaurants listing on our platform to provide us with their company information, and this enables us to make a declaration that they are a professional trader (and not a consumer) to the best of our knowledge. If you are in België, you will find this declaration within the "info" section of each restaurant's page.

Via the platform, Takeaway.com acts as a technical intermediary allowing restaurants to provide products (such as meals) for delivery and/or takeaway. The contract for the supply and purchase of the products is between consumers and the restaurant from which an order is placed. In some cases, Takeaway.com is also responsible for the delivery.

Question 2

How is the restaurant list organised?

Accepted Answer

The order of restaurants in the restaurant list of Takeaway.com is dynamic and subject to a wide variety of factors. Our aim is to show our customers restaurants that they are likely to order from, in a fair way for our restaurant partners, whilst optimising for a great ordering experience.

The default order we list our restaurants is what we refer to as the ‘Best match’. The main factors used to determine the Best match order are distance to the customer and the ‘Quality score’, which is based on reviews. Popularity factors, such as the number of orders a restaurant receives, also play a role in the organisation of the list. Temporary factors such as the weather or busy times could impact the order too. Finally, to increase visibility, restaurants have the ability to sponsor their listing to appear higher in the restaurant list. Restaurants that make use of this are displayed on the Platform as ‘sponsored’. You can find more information on the ranking parameters here: What are the main ranking parameters?

As all factors may be subject to change, the order of restaurants in the restaurant list is dynamic. Your neighbour may see a different order than you do, and you could also see differences between your list at 17:00 and at 21:00.

Finally, you can always use filters to make the selection more specific or use the sorting options that are available. We aim to always display the most relevant list for you, but after all, tastes differ!

Question 3

What are the main ranking parameters?

Accepted Answer

Distance: The most important ranking factor is distance. At Takeaway.com we prioritise restaurants that are closest to the delivery address to spread the orders on our platform as much as possible between the active restaurants. We also want to ensure a customer’s waiting time is short and restaurants only need to travel a few kilometres when delivering their meals. When ‘Pick-up’ is selected instead of ‘Delivery’, we rank all restaurants based on distance in the default listing.

Quality: The quality score is a measurement based on our customers’ average feedback via their most recent food and delivery ratings. This way, it shows a fair image of the delivered quality because Takeaway.com has millions of customers, all with different preferences. Please note that the content or characteristics of a restaurant's menu or meals will on its own not have an effect on its position on the platform, but could in turn impact the quality score due to better reviews.

Popularity: We determine popularity by the number of recent orders processed by a restaurant compared to other restaurants in that area. While this mainly applies to chain restaurants, it could also apply to more prominent restaurants in a city centre. ‘Popular restaurants’ also tend to employ more delivery staff and therefore can typically cover a larger delivery area and more orders. Based on their popularity, we place them somewhat higher on the list than restaurants that do not have this kind of capacity.

New restaurants: New restaurants temporarily receive an improved position on Takeaway.com because they have fewer reviews. To help these restaurants get started, they receive a higher placement for a short period of time (usually for a week). We indicate new restaurants with the ‘New’ label.

Logistic efficiency: Takeaway.com may temporarily move restaurants down the list if we know that their orders are unlikely to be delivered to customers within a reasonable timeframe due to capacity issues at the restaurant or our delivery services. In addition, both Takeaway.com and the restaurant can decide to "close" a restaurant on the platform if it is too busy in which case it will no longer appear in the restaurant list. For chains with multiple restaurants that deliver to a customer's location we show the closest open branch first and move the further away chains down the list.

Sponsored Results: Takeaway.com offers a paid sponsorship service, allowing restaurants to improve their visibility on the platform by moving up their rank in the ’Best match’ search results. This improved visibility is in proportion to the ranking they would otherwise have on Takeaway.com based on the ranking factors listed above.

For example, a quality 4-star restaurant could appear below a 3-star if the customer is further away, so that restaurant may wish to boost its visibility. It is also possible that a restaurant may want more orders on a certain day of the week, and uses the sponsorship services to increase orders for that day.

While our sponsorship services are important tools for restaurants, relevance to customers continues to be one of the main aims behind our ranking. To ensure that the results remain relevant to customers, restaurants have limitations on improving their visibility. For example, it will be too costly for restaurant #150 in an outer suburb to use our sponsored service and obtain the number 1 position for the entire city.

We also restrict the number of spots a restaurant can move up the list to ensure that even when restaurants are using our sponsored services, customers feedback will always directly influence their position in the restaurant list. We want to reward restaurants that provide excellent service to customers while offering customers the best food-ordering experience possible.

Favourites: Customers have the possibility to save restaurants as a ‘Favourite’. These restaurants will appear higher up in the restaurant list in order for customers to find them more easily.

Other factors: Furthermore, if any filtering, sorting, or searching actions have been taken, this will affect the order and types of restaurants shown based on the eligibility of those restaurants to the filtering, sorting, or searching criteria.

Testing: From time to time, we may run tests or experiments to monitor and improve our service, which may temporarily impact the restaurant order.

Question 4

Are there other factors that influence how restaurants show up on the list?

Accepted Answer

Some factors may temporarily influence a restaurant's position on the restaurant list, such as a restaurant's quality or popularity.

Takeaway.com may also move a restaurant down to a lower position when we know their orders are less likely to be delivered to customers within a reasonable timeframe due to factors like weather, crowds at a particular location, opening hours, holidays, and the restaurant or delivery service's capacity. Both Takeaway.com and the restaurant can temporarily 'close' a restaurant on the platform if it is too busy, which is quite common.

Sponsored results
Takeaway.com offers a paid sponsorship service called 'TopRank', allowing restaurants to improve their visibility by moving up their rank in the 'Best match' search results. This improved visibility is in proportion to the ranking they would otherwise have on Takeaway.com based on the ranking factors listed above.

For example, a quality 4-star restaurant could appear below a 3-star restaurant if the customer is further away, so that restaurant may wish to boost its visibility by using TopRank. It is also possible that a restaurant may want more orders on a certain day of the week, so they will use TopRank in an effort to increase their orders that day.

While TopRank is a great tool for restaurants, the primary goal of our ranking system is to show our customers the most relevant restaurants. Restaurants have limitations on improving their visibility using TopRank. For example, it will be too costly for Restaurant #150 in an outer suburb to use TopRank and obtain the number 1 position for the entire city.

We also restrict the number of spots a restaurant can move up the list to ensure that even when restaurants are using TopRank, customer feedback will always directly influence their position in the restaurant list. We want to reward restaurants that provide excellent service to customers while offering customers the best food-ordering experience possible.

Favourites
You can save restaurants as a 'Favourite'. Your favourite restaurants will appear at the top of the listing so you can find them easily.

Testing
From time to time, we may run tests or experiments to monitor and improve our service, which may temporarily impact the restaurant order.

Question 5

Why do some restaurants have 'Sponsored' under their names?

Accepted Answer

Typically, we determine a restaurant’s ranking by its distance from the customer, quality of reviews and popularity. The higher the restaurant scores in these three areas, the better its ranking order will be.

However, restaurants can pay to appear higher in the restaurant list. When a restaurant does so, we indicate this with the word ‘Sponsored’. Distance, reviews and popularity still affect the position of a sponsored restaurant.

What is the status of restaurants listed on Takeaway.com?

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