The race to provide POS-centric solutions to restaurants’ digital needs is accelerating. Getting ahead in this race, Fiserv came out with the announcement that it acquired a growing restaurant marketing and commerce platform called BentoBox. Fiserv has already signed an agreement and it aims to integrate BentoBox technology into its Clover restaurant technology solutions. This acquisition will enable Fiserv access to BentoBox’s restaurant website-building technology, marketing tools, and digital ordering solutions.
BentoBox – The Growth Story
Since its inception in the year 2013, BentoBox has grown drastically. Within a short span of 8 years, it now powers more than 7500 restaurant concepts across 14000 different locations.
BentoBox was known for its robust platform that offered website design, online marketing, and ordering tools to help restaurants grow. It gave restaurants an interface for a unique dining experience for their customers. BentoBox platform converted restaurant visitors into loyal customers and helped generate new avenues for revenue.
In a statement, Frank Bisignano said that customers are looking for a seamless and consistent experience when they engage with a restaurant online or offline. He added that with the addition of BentoBox’s website building capabilities, the business management solution of Fiserv will become more robust, and can cater to all kinds of restaurants.
Clover Expansion
Clover can expand its dining and business management solutions to nearly 200,000 restaurants with this transaction coming into force. These restaurants also include those delivering unique dining experiences like casual and complete dining services.
They will be able to offer an integrated platform to deliver a customized customer experience.
Due to the pandemic, restaurant technology has grown at a slower pace. There were many incompatible solutions that restaurant owners had, making it difficult to find a perfect solution. There has been a massive shift for restaurants as they now need a significant digital presence. Tech providers are racing to capture this vast market to cater to the restaurant’s digital needs with a connected and comprehensive system. And the fight will become more intense as the pandemic enters its final stages.
POS providers already had an advantage. They were at the forefront of this race and looking for solutions for connecting their payment systems with separate ordering software. Fiserv has been trying to capture this market has launched their updated Clover Station Solo. This device helps to connect the restaurant’s front and back-end operations and can be integrated with Grubhub, a food delivery marketplace, to track order delivery.
What After Finserv Acquires BentoBox?
After Finserv acquires BantoBox, they can quickly grab a more significant share of the market. It will now provide a seamless experience to customers and cater to merchants with a vast range of digital products.
According to Nandan Sheth, Fiserv’s Digital Commerce business head, the company is now taking care of restaurant categories, which had many inefficiencies. Also, they are looking to speed up the areas where people pay their checks. Look for a future shift to payments via digital wallets. With this, the company can provide a better customer experience, and the merchants can choose from a vast range of products.
BentoBox has been aggressively working to identify places where the digital needs of the restaurants have not been improved. In its effort to fill the gap, BentoBox launched its product for the pre-order and catering needs of the restaurants.
In an interview, Brian Lee, BentoBox vice president, said that they talked to many restaurants offering catering and other pre-order services, and they all faced similar problems. He also noticed there were no tools available in the digital markets to manage the catering and pre-orders. BentoBox noticed these deficiencies, which got more noticeable due to COVID problems and shortage of staff.
Clover’s move to integrate the digital ordering feature with their payment solution has been widely reported. Reports said that 58% of the consumers are now ordering more food from restaurants than prior to March 2020. It also said that now about 61% of the consumers are ordering food online from restaurants.
