Most Singapore merchants who don’t have a loyalty programme say the same thing when asked why: they’re not ready to change their POS. They’re on a system that works, their staff know it, and the idea of disrupting operations to get a membership programme running isn’t worth it. The Aptsys […]
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Running a restaurant in Singapore has always been labour-intensive. But the pressure to reduce manpower costs has never been higher. Wages are up. The foreign worker quota is tighter. And good F&B staff — the kind who show up reliably, learn fast, and stay past six months — are harder […]
If your restaurant runs QR ordering, your entire service depends on one thing most operators never think about until it breaks: your internet connection. A SIM card failover router gives your Singapore restaurant backup internet for QR ordering the moment your main connection drops — automatically, in seconds, with no […]
Most Singapore restaurants that take reservations are sitting on a missed opportunity. Every booking is a name, a phone number, and a real signal of interest — someone who chose your restaurant specifically, planned ahead, and showed up. But when the meal ends and the guest walks out, that data […]
If you run a restaurant in Singapore and you use QR ordering, you already know the biggest benefit: fewer orders go wrong, and your staff spend less time running between tables. But there is a second advantage most operators do not fully use — pay upfront with QR ordering so […]
Singapore’s Beverage Container Return Scheme (BCRS) has been running since 1 April 2026, but many restaurant operators still haven’t registered for the Return Right F&B Scheme — and with it, a $500 one-time incentive from NEA that expires on 30 September 2026. That’s one month away. What is the Return […]
If you run a restaurant in Singapore and you still take reservations through a website form, you’ve probably noticed the same thing: a lot of people message you on WhatsApp anyway. They skip the form entirely. They find your number somewhere — Google, Instagram, a friend’s recommendation — and they […]
If you run more than one F&B outlet in Singapore, you already know the problem. You update the price of a dish at your main branch, then spend the next hour calling or messaging your other locations to make sure they’ve done the same. Someone forgets. A customer gets charged […]
A CRM for an upscale restaurant in Singapore is not the same as one for a casual dining chain or a food court stall. The mechanics are different. The tone is different. What members expect in return is different. If you bolt a mass-market loyalty programme onto a fine dining […]
Most Singapore restaurant owners think of their CRM as a loyalty points tracker. Points in, points out. Customers earn, customers redeem, and you hope they come back. It works — but stored value works better. If you have not added a stored value system to your CRM, you are leaving […]
Getting customers to join your loyalty programme sounds simple. In practice, it is one of the most frustrating parts of running a restaurant CRM in Singapore. You invest in a membership system. You train your staff to ask. But at the counter, during a busy service, with a queue forming […]
Your POS system generates a report every single day. Most Singapore restaurant operators glance at total sales, maybe check if the number looks right, and close the tab. That is a missed opportunity — and in a margin-thin business, missed opportunities add up. The data sitting in your POS is […]
In Part 1, I wrote about what happened on 9 August 2025 — the ransom note in the database, the team that gave up their National Day to come back to the office, the customers calling a hotline we could barely keep up with, and the fear that gripped me […]
Yesterday was National Day. For most Singaporeans, it means fireworks, red and white, and a rare public holiday. For me, it marks something else: exactly one year since the worst day in Aptsys’s history. On 9 August 2025, while the rest of Singapore was celebrating, we were hit by a […]
If you’re a Singapore restaurant operator trying to grow your off-premise revenue, you’re facing a version of the same decision: do you list on GrabFood, foodpanda or Deliveroo, or do you build your own online ordering channel? And if you’re already on a delivery platform, do you actually need your […]
Table turnover is one of the few levers a Singapore restaurant can pull to increase revenue without raising prices, adding seats, or hiring more staff. A table that cycles in 55 minutes instead of 80 minutes doesn’t just feel more efficient — over a dinner service, it can mean one […]
If your restaurant signed up with a payment provider because the rate looked unbeatable, it’s worth asking one question: do you actually know why it was so cheap? For a lot of Singapore F&B merchants, the answer traces back to a merchant category code (MCC) they never chose and probably […]
You ran a membership sign-up promotion. Fifty customers joined. Three months later, you’re looking at the numbers and most of them haven’t been back. The loyalty programme is technically running — but it’s not doing what it’s supposed to do. This is one of the most common problems with restaurant […]
Every Singapore restaurant owner who takes reservations knows this routine. A message comes in at 11pm: “Hi can book for 4 pax Saturday 7pm?” You’re asleep. You reply in the morning. They’ve moved on, or booked somewhere else. Or you do reply — and spend the next ten minutes going […]
Walk into most Singapore F&B back offices and you’ll find the same pattern: one system for the POS, another for QR ordering, a third for CRM and loyalty, a fourth for the kitchen display, and sometimes a fifth just for reservations or delivery. Each tool does its job well enough […]