iPad Wine Menus, More Affordable Than You Think
iPad wine menus are popping up across the country. But it isn’t only celebrity chefs using the technology. Although you can find iPad beverage menus at Gordon Ramsay’s or André Rochat’s restaurants, restaurants of all sizes across the country are using electronic wine menus, from independent operators to regional and corporate operators nationwide.
One of the hesitations we usually hear from prospective customers is around cost. Having all of these iPads must be so expensive. After all, using paper is cheap, pennies. Let’s break down the costs a little further…
Often times, paper menus aren’t as cheap as you think they are. After all, how much are you printing? Are you including the costs of the paper, the printer, the ink, and your time dealing with formatting and modifying documents to print? Often times after our clients begin using digital menus, they realize how much time they save from their daily work of updating inventory and menus. How much is your time worth?
Printing Costs
Nice quality paper for wine lists ($0.12 per sheet) x 4 sheets = $0.48 per menu
Ink costs for printing ($0.21 per page) x 4 pages = $0.84
Printer costs and maintenance = $33 per month
25 Menus in circulation x $1.32 each = $33 per week
Total monthly printing costs = $165
Note the above cost assumes:
1. You’re printing only four times per month
2. Your wine list and beverage menus are a combined four pages
3. You are printing 25 copies of the menus
Now compare to the costs of iPads provided for the Uncorkd beverage menus, which can be as little as $15 per month each.
But here’s the great thing about digital menus… you can make changes whenever you want. This helps when you…
1. Run out of something, instantly remove it from the menu
2. Get something new in, add it quickly instead of waiting a week for the reprint
3. Want to feature an item or move slower moving inventory, not a problem with iPad menus
4. Find a mistake or want to change a price, done in seconds
Instead of spending hours formatting a list and then waiting for it to print out and then maybe even putting them into binders or covers, every single week (or whenever you print), make changes in seconds. Your inventory is changing daily, why aren’t your menus? The reason is because you don’t have the time to modify the menus and reprint every day. Or if you do, it’s sucking up a lot of your time, or your staffs’ time.
I was speaking with one of our clients yesterday, a large steakhouse that has been using Uncorkd for almost a year, and I asked her what the largest benefit has been. She replied that in addition to increasing wine sales per cover significantly, for the first time customers can buy everything they have in stock in the restaurant. No longer do they have expensive bottles sitting in storage that aren’t on the menu yet because they haven’t had time to reprint them. Everything on-premise is always on the menu and in front of customers. They used to make changes and reprint their wine list monthly, now they spend about 5 minutes per day on Uncorkd, adding new wines and taking off items sold out.
So when considering the costs, keep in mind the hours you’ll save and the hundreds you may already be spending on printing. Then consider that restaurants using Uncorkd increase their sales 10%, 20% or even more.
- Uncorkd Adds New Vendor Purchasing, Tracking and Reporting Functionality - February 13, 2018
- Uncorkd Adds New Inventory Management Functionality with POS Integration - July 24, 2017
- How Many Red or White Wines Should You Have on Your List - May 3, 2016
