With the recent news of the Self-Service Order Interface Working Team, many companies in the online ordering space are breathing a big sigh of relief – I know we are at LocalUp. :-) Now what does that mean? SSOI is a long way of saying POS integration… an easy way for online orders to go to any point-of-sale (POS) system, which is how restaurants often manage their order flow.

Since our inception, many of our restaurant partners – over 700 and counting at this point – have asked about integration with their specific POS system. The issue is that there are literally hundreds of different systems, each with their own specific setup. Unfortunately there’s no easy way to integrate this on a large scale. This issue is exacerbated when you continue to increase the number of orders through your platform as a percentage of total orders to the restaurants. And with an average annual volume of $42k per year, per restaurant, we are getting this request more and more lately.
Noah Glass of OLO is heading up this effort, and kudos to Noah for taking the initiative and tackling this challenge head on. Additionally, I am proud to tell you that LocalUp’s CTO, Steve Saporta, will be joining the SSOI Working Team to help create a set of standards for POS integration. The ultimate goal for this team, as the press release makes clear, is to create an open standard for the interface between POS systems and self-service ordering systems. Whether they be online, mobile, or in the restaurant itself.

Thanks to this initiative, restaurant owners, managers and employees can just now begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. They’ll finally be able to handle the influx of online orders from different online ordering providers, and consumers will get their food just a touch quicker – and with fewer errors – due to the seamless integration and expedited facilitation of information. 

Oh and restaurateurs, you will soon be able to take your frustration out on your fax machine. :-)