The effect of digitalization in restaurant businesses

With the increase in digitalization in the world, electronic commerce, which is a new form of commerce, has spread and a different era has begun in the concept of commerce. Electronic commerce, which has started to replace traditional commerce, has been used frequently in food and beverage businesses with its accessibility and ease. Food and beverage businesses have discovered the fastest and easiest way to reach customers with low capital. With increasing çevrimiçi orders, new business lines have emerged and employment has been provided. However, digital food platforms that bring electronic commerce to food and beverage businesses, the fees they demand in return for this service, reimbursements, bad weather conditions for takeaway staff have brought negativities to restaurants in electronic commerce. In this context, the aim of the research has been determined as the effect of digitalization in food and beverage businesses. Within the scope of the research, interviews were conducted with restaurant employees operating in Ankara and restaurant employees and owners about how çevrimiçi food ordering sites and the orders placed from these sites affect the business. The research design is case study, which is a holistic research method. The universe of the research consists of food and beverage businesses operating in the province of Ankara. The sample of the research, on the other hand, consists of 15 different businesses consisting of 3 doner and home-cooked restaurants, 3 coffee houses and cafes, 3 Çiğköfte restaurants, 3 pizzeria and 3 patisseries by clustering food and beverage businesses with different characteristics in order to examine the subject in more depth. While qualitative analysis was used as the analysis method in the research, interviews were conducted with 15 different business employees using a semi-structured interview form. In order not to affect the thoughts of the participants in the interviews, no opinions were expressed and the opinions of the participants were noted. Content analysis was performed for the obtained data. As a result of the research, although the employees of food and beverage businesses have positive thoughts about digital food platforms such as accessibility, free advertising, and new customer potential, critical factors such as decreased earnings due to high commission rates, difficulties in bad weather conditions, late payment of çevrimiçi payments, and decrease in restaurant occupancy rate. were found to have negative thoughts. For this reason, it is thought that digital food platforms should take steps to satisfy both food and beverage businesses and customers.