WebsiteClosers® presents a performance-based service in the Food Service and Food Delivery niche. Launched in 2020 during the pandemic lockdowns, the business spotted an opening as restaurants made a huge shift toward online sales of meals and food delivery options. The company formed a partnership with the food delivery giant UberEats and has been providing restaurant clients with virtual branding strategies that help them boost their online sales and enjoy higher revenue streams.
The business has won over clients by working with each one to find the right virtual concept that fits with their menu. Their support includes launching online menus, virtual branding, high-level photography of their meals, creating marketing materials, and managing the client’s analytics to optimize their growth. This has given those clients enhanced visibility on UberEats, DoorDash and Grubhub, and enabled them to enjoy substantial monthly sales growth without having to hire new workers, and to reach new customers within the online delivery market.
UberEats is now the dominant platform for the company’s clients, and this business focuses on that platform. That includes providing clients with exclusive deals that enable them to pay lower commissions to UberEats. While most restaurants pay 30% in UberEats commissions, this business has negotiated deals that let clients pay just 17.5% for delivery orders and 19.1% for Uber One subscriber orders.
The company also passes on exclusive UberEats incentives to clients, such as $1,000 in marketing credits per location.
This has made the company a vital partner for its restaurant clients, and the company has a very low churn rate. Clients who sign up stay with them long term to take advantage of the obvious benefits they’re getting.
That’s given this business solid recurring revenues and excellent growth potential. The business operates on a commission-based model, or 10% of the weekly sales their clients get, plus a weekly service fee. Their work is entirely performance-based, and clients are billed only when they get sales.
In the meantime, the company provides weekly performance tracking and monitoring of the restaurant’s online reviews. This makes them partners with their clients, critical to the ongoing success of their online sales. The business enjoys solid commissions since each physical restaurant typically generates up to $3,000 a month in virtual brand sales, and there are no seasonal factors impacting those sales.
The company now has several top-selling categories of virtual foods, including pizza, pasta, gyros, and sandwiches, and recently launched additional virtual brands in existing locations. Deliveries are handled entirely by UberEats, and this company’s focus is on helping clients with branding and strategizing their online sales.
This is a booming industry. Demand for food delivery services, from groceries to restaurant takeouts, is thriving today. Revenue for online food delivery platforms is expected to reach a phenomenal $1.65 trillion by 2027. The industry enjoyed 22.2% delivery revenue growth in 2024, and Americans are leading the way and spending far more on these deliveries than their international counterparts. This company is riding a fast-growing wave.
This business is a great opportunity for a strategic buyer to acquire it and scale it rapidly. The new owner could focus on direct marketing within UberEats and other food delivery platforms to increase its visibility there. The company could also run paid media campaigns on Google and Meta to attract more clients and launch affiliate partnerships to drive sales higher. The business could also expand to a larger client base outside of their home region in Washington D.C.
Business Broker Takeaway
We are excited about this business for 3 important reasons:
1. Low-Cost Operation. The company has a strong business model that operates entirely online and can be managed anywhere, with minimal overhead and low operating costs. Most of the company’s processes are automated or handled directly through UberEats. The company is overseen by three business partners who handle all operations and management, and the business has no employees except for a bookkeeper who works on a contract basis. The owners work as little as one hour per week operating the company, thanks to its solid foundation and partnership with UberEats.
2. Customer Retention. Their target customers are typically mom-and-pop-style eateries such as pizza or Chinese restaurants, in locations that perform well on delivery apps. These restaurants are eager to boost their revenue without having to hire more workers or expand their physical location, and they come to this business looking for creative ways to jump-start their online sales. These companies typically stay with the business for years, enabling the company to maintain very low rates of client turnover. The business has added new food category brands to existing locations but hasn’t yet expanded to new markets, giving the new owner a great scale opportunity, simply by onboarding more restaurants or expanding brand reach into new cities.
3. Marketing Opportunities. The company hasn’t invested much in paid marketing, since their growth has been entirely organic and mostly based on word-of-mouth referrals from existing clients or through UberEats. That gives the new owner a clear opportunity to ramp up digital marketing tools that would give this business considerably higher levels of visibility within this industry. That could include paid media campaigns on Google and an increased presence on Instagram and other social media platforms to generate higher levels of organic traffic.
Conclusion
The seller is open to assisting the new owner with this transition, to ensure a smooth transfer, or in accepting a minority equity position or consulting arrangement to help the new owner realize their vision for the business.
This is a very easy business to manage. No special skills are needed, although the ideal buyer would have some experience in restaurant tech or delivery platforms. This should be an attractive offering to a savvy buyer, since this company provides a proven business model, low overhead, and significant growth potential.
The company’s efficient operations require minimal daily or even weekly involvement from the new owner but provide them with strong recurring revenue streams from its commissions and organic revenue growth that has been accomplished with minimal investment in paid marketing. The business owns 5 trademarked virtual brands that can be used to expand into other restaurants in cities across the country. With the virtual restaurant industry growing rapidly, this is an excellent opportunity for an investor to get a secure foothold in this field.
