Build your pizzeria website in Nottingham
Nottingham has two universities and around sixty thousand students, and every June a large part of your order book gets on a train. The pizzerias that survive that cleanly are not the ones with the best summer offer — they are the ones who spent the other eight months collecting customers who live here permanently.
The four-month problem, stated honestly
Lenton in February and Lenton in July are different postcodes wearing the same name. If the apps are your only channel, you have no way to reach the people who stayed, because the apps show you to whoever happens to be nearby tonight and nothing else. A mailing list built out of your own orders is the one asset that still works in August.
It also works in reverse. Freshers arrive in late September knowing nothing about the city and choosing their takeaway in the first fortnight. A site that ranks for your neighbourhood, with a menu and prices visible without signing into anything, wins that fortnight far more cheaply than a discount war on a marketplace listing.
Hockley and the independent instinct
The Hockley and Lace Market end of town is where Nottingham keeps its independents, and the people who eat there do so on purpose. That is worth writing down. Say which oven, which flour, how long the dough proves, who is actually cooking. A national brand’s page cannot say any of it, and in the most chain-heavy takeaway market in Europe that is not a small advantage — it is the only one that cannot be copied.
What the direct channel is worth
Commission on an aggregator runs at roughly a quarter to a third of the basket. On a £24 order that is £6 or more, every time, including from the student who orders from you weekly for three years. Your own ordering page costs a flat monthly fee and takes nothing per order, so the arithmetic gets better the busier you are.