How Much Does a Digital Menu Board Cost?

Fast-casual eateries and other businesses would benefit from embracing trends because technology is the way of the future. Any institution will benefit from a balance of having video-driven digital menu screens and static graphics.

Make sure the screens can withstand the cooking climate before incorporating digital menu boards. Make sure you’re preserving your electrical equipment appropriately because technological components don’t function well in a hot, steamy climate.

Estimation of costs

While technology to convert your own televisions into smart displays costs about £200, small, low-tech menu-board displays can cost as much as £500. (for every screen to say the same message). The prices range from £1,000 for a single board to £7,000+ for a series of boards.

More expensive menu boards can cost a few hundred to a few thousand dollars to buy and install, but they include safety features to make sure they’re always on and functioning, like power surge protectors, their own power supply in the event of a power outage, and automatic software and bug fixes to fix glitches.

The majority of eateries soon recover their costs. Digital menu boards have been demonstrated to boost user experience and sales by 10% to 60%, not to mention cost savings over printing conventional menu boards. The cost of adding or updating menu items can frequently run into the hundreds of pounds; however, with digital menu boards, these costs are avoided and any changes can be made automatically for no fee at all.

Are menu boards are worth it?

●     Eliminate the cost of reprinting menus

Because of the economy of scale, digital menu boards are more affordable over time. Updating static menu boards runs between £250 to £350 per location. There is a significant upfront cost if you want a seasonal menu or you find an error, for example. Given that each of these menu boards costs, on average, £300 and your chain has 1,000 locations, printing your menu boards will cost you £300,000 per time.

Most restaurants require significant menu board modifications six to eight times each year. With a middle-ground estimate of seven updates annually, the cost for those 1,000 stores annually comes to £2.1 million, or about £2,100 per store annually. This cost does not include shipping, installation, or time. The savings are obvious, but recurring update fees for digital menu boards can cost between £1,500 and 1,500 per site per year (with some costing as little as £600 per location per year).

The savings apply regardless of whether your business is a franchise with several locations.

Additionally, laws can alter, requiring that the number of calories in each menu item be stated. Your menu boards would need to be reprinted if they had already been produced. Being compliant won’t be expensive when your boards are digital and new rules are implemented.

●     Influence buyer decisions

Having a customizable digital menu board gives you the power to sway customer choices. For instance, there are times of the day when you can cycle between deals. If a menu item is well-liked but occasionally runs out, you might appease irate customers by highlighting (and perhaps even reducing) another item. It is simple to add and remove things, and from the customer’s perspective, nothing appears to have changed. You can affect consumer choices in this way.

You might even have a menu board that is more high-tech, with moving images that either show the meal or cause steam to erupt from it to make it look more appetising.

Since you can easily flip through promos on digital menu boards, upselling is made simple.

●     Cutting edge

Every time your menu changes, you don’t have to put up and take down a digital menu board. If you offer breakfast, lunch, and dinner, your menu can alter accordingly, negating the need for rotating menus or menu boards. The menu may be easily updated digitally at any time of day (and it can even be set to a timer).

When digital boards draw attention from viewers and perceived wait times are reduced, customer experience is enhanced. Because they never have outdated visuals, typefaces, or designs, digital menu boards generally appear current and up to date as well as consistent.

●     Test a new menu

You can compare and test various approaches by using digital menu boards week by week. Since you won’t be constrained by pricing labels, you can raise prices of things by a few cents to test if this affects customer choice, or you can lower the price of items that aren’t selling well to manage kitchen supply. You may instantaneously and automatically update the content to suit your needs.

Testing layouts is an option, and testing content is now affordable and doable. You can experiment with your marketing approach to see if clients react better to videos, still images, animations, or some other variant. Your business has the capacity to discover what benefits clients and what makes the ordering procedure easier.

●     Eco-friendly

Digital signage are less expensive and more cost-effective than posters and conventional printing. You can now spend less on printing, transport, installation, and disposal if your restaurant employs promotional posters, for instance.

Not just for the menu, screens may be used throughout your store for a number of tasks that all reduce the need for paper. From a menu standpoint, you now have a tonne of chances to update your menu boards without having to spend as much money printing and upgrading as you would have in years past.

Conclusion

You don’t want to only use expensive equipment like an expensive poster board without any prints when you invest in it. Many content management systems for menu boards include outcome analysis built right into the programme. Comparing the profits over a month of your restaurant with a digital board to the one with a static board is an excellent approach to gauge the impact if you have at least two branches. You can easily compare sales numbers after promoting a specific menu item over the allotted time.