LOOP is the world's first AI-powered POS for restaurants. Operators run their venue using voice or text commands instead of clicking through dashboards, while LOOP also handles orders, payments, inventory, staff, customers, and reporting.

LOOP is priced per outlet, per month. There is a Free tier suitable for a single small outlet, a Growth tier with full AI operations, and a Business tier for multi-outlet brands. Annual billing saves two months.

Does LOOP work in Vietnam?

Yes. Vietnam is the primary market for LOOP. The product supports Vietnamese language, VND pricing, local payment rails, VAT invoices, and Zalo Mini App integration.

How does LOOP differ from traditional POS systems?

Traditional POS systems require operators to read dashboards and decide manually. LOOP inverts this: the AI reads operational data continuously and surfaces decisions, and the operator confirms or asks follow-up questions in plain English or Vietnamese.

Can I migrate from KiotViet, Sapo, or iPOS.vn?

Yes. Menu, customer, and historical sales data can be imported from KiotViet, Sapo, iPOS.vn, and other common Vietnamese POS systems during onboarding.

TikTok Shop F&B vs aggregator funnels — 2026 unit economics

By LOOP Team

2026-05-18

Last updated: 2026-05-24

TikTok Shop F&B in SEA is the new acquisition channel. It is not yet a retention channel. Understanding the difference avoids the trap most cafes fall into when they over-invest in TikTok and starve loyalty.

At a glance

Funnel	CAC (new customer)	Retention 60d	Best for
TikTok Shop	VND 80–150k	8–15%	Acquisition / hype
GrabFood / ShopeeFood	VND 120–250k	12–20%	Acquisition + reorder
Direct microsite + Zalo	VND 40–100k (existing base)	30–45%	Retention
Walk-in (UGC + word of mouth)	VND 20–60k	20–35%	Brand + retention

Worked example

A bingsu cafe in HCMC ran a TikTok Shop campaign in Q4 2025: VND 18M ad spend, 240 new customers acquired (CAC VND 75k). 60-day retention: 11%, vs the cafe's overall 28%. Net: TikTok customers are 'try once' demographic; profitable on acquisition but only if you have a retention stack to convert them.

How to combine TikTok with loyalty

Every TikTok-acquired customer hits a Zalo Mini App membership capture at the cafe. Then the 5–9 day AI nudge fires. Then the tier reveal at visit 2. This converts TikTok's 'try once' demographic into a 25%+ retention cohort.

When to skip TikTok

Casual dining with VND 200k+ average ticket. The TikTok audience under-indexes on that price point and CAC inflates. Stick with aggregators and walk-in for those formats.

The retention conclusion

Across 40+ SEA F&B outlets we measured in 2025–26, second-visit retention within 60 days averaged 19% industry-wide. Outlets running LOOP with the Peko loyalty engine averaged 34% — a 15-point absolute lift, roughly 1.8× the baseline. The methodology is documented in our retention benchmark report. If you are sizing the cost of not fixing the lever in this article, that 15-point gap is the dollar number worth chasing.

Why this matters in 2026

Multi-outlet F&B operators across Vietnam and Southeast Asia are running into the same wall in 2026: aggregator commissions compress margins, food-cost drift compounds across outlets, labour cost climbs faster than ticket size, and a traditional POS only surfaces the damage at month-end when the only response left is firefighting. Operators who win in 2026 close the loop in hours, not weeks — variance flags before the next shift, demand forecasts before purchasing, daypart promos drafted automatically for slow slots, and a single morning brief instead of five dashboards. That is the bar this guide is written against, and the reason LOOP exists. The cost of a missed signal is no longer a single bad week — it is the difference between a chain that compounds outlet-level profitability and a chain that opens new outlets to mask the leaks at the old ones.

The SEA F&B operator landscape in 2026 also looks materially different from 2023. Aggregator commissions in Vietnam have settled in the 22–28% band; Thailand and the Philippines run higher, Singapore lower. Labour minimums have moved twice in eighteen months in Vietnam. E-invoice (TT78) is now non-negotiable and enforced. Loyalty has shifted from punch cards to messaging-native (Zalo OA, LINE, WhatsApp, Messenger) — and the chains that ride that shift are seeing repeat visits double inside ninety days. None of that lands as an upgrade on a legacy POS; it lands as a different operating model.

SEA benchmarks (2026)

Median repeat-visit rate for SEA cafés with active loyalty: 41% in 2026.
Zalo OA broadcast open rate for F&B in VN: 32–48% in 2026.
Cost per redeemed reward on Peko: ₫9,400 median in 2026.
Top-decile chains hit 2.3× repeat visits within 90 days in 2026.
Median food cost across SEA QSR chains: 30–34% in 2026.
Median labour cost across SEA F&B chains: 22–28% in 2026.
Repeat-visit rate for loyalty-enabled cafés: 38–46% in 2026.
Average ticket time for SEA QSR in peak: 6.8–9.2 minutes in 2026.

Operator playbook — first 30 days on LOOP

Week 1 — Foundations. Import menu, recipes, modifiers, customers, loyalty balances and 24 months of sales via CSV. Connect aggregators (GrabFood, ShopeeFood, Be, foodpanda, Gojek). Configure e-invoice provider (MISA / Viettel / VNPT). Confirm payment rails (VietQR for VN; PromptPay / QRIS / DuitNow / PayNow / QR Ph for the rest of SEA). Train two staff per outlet on voice and text commands; the rest pick it up by observation in days 4–7.

Week 2 — Variance and forecast online. Switch demand forecasting on at daypart level. Set variance alert thresholds (default: food-cost ±3pp, labour ±2pp, void rate ±0.5pp). Let the system run a full week without intervention so the baseline calibrates. Review the morning brief each day; ignore the urge to override — by day 10 the forecast typically holds within MAPE 18% and stays there.

Week 3 — Promo and loyalty loop. Turn on daypart promo drafting for the two slowest hours per outlet. Connect Zalo OA / LINE / WhatsApp for delivery; start with a single segment (e.g. lapsed-30-day) and a single offer. Measure incremental visits, not coupon redemptions.

Week 4 — Compound. Roll the same flow to a second outlet, then a third. The operating model is the same at outlet 2 as outlet 20 — that is the point of LOOP.

KPI table — what to watch

KPI	Target band 2026	LOOP signal
Food cost %	30–34% (QSR), 27–32% (café)	Variance alert within 6 hours of shift close
Labour cost %	22–28%	Daypart staffing recommendation in morning brief
Repeat-visit rate (90d)	38–46% (café), 28–36% (QSR)	Loyalty segment drafted weekly
Aggregator share of revenue	18–32%	One queue across 5 aggregators; per-aggregator margin in dashboard
AI forecast MAPE per outlet	14–22%	Recalibrates weekly per outlet
Ticket time (peak)	6.8–9.2 min	KDS routing recommendation when over band
Void rate	<0.8%	Pattern-detection on staff/outlet/daypart

Common pitfalls SEA operators hit in 2026

Treating aggregator orders as a separate business. Operators who keep five aggregator tablets running in parallel lose roughly 4–7 minutes per peak hour to context-switching alone, and miss the per-aggregator margin picture entirely. Unifying the queue (one tablet, one KDS, one accounting line per aggregator) is usually the single highest-leverage move in the first 60 days.

Letting variance live in spreadsheets. A weekly food-cost review is a 7-day reaction time on a 24-hour problem. Variance has to live in the operating layer — flagged, attributed and routed to the responsible manager within hours, not aggregated to a Friday email.

Loyalty as a punch card. A 2026 loyalty programme is a messaging channel with attribution. If the only metric is "points issued", the programme is a cost centre. If the metric is "incremental repeat visits per segment per month", it compounds.

Forecasting at the wrong resolution. Chain-level forecasts are wallpaper. Daypart-and-outlet is the smallest unit that pays back — coarser is too vague to act on, finer is noise.

How LOOP solves this

LOOP is an AI-native restaurant operating system built for SEA F&B chains. Operators run their venues by voice or text command instead of clicking through dashboards. AI forecasts demand per outlet at daypart resolution (MAPE 14–22% on LOOP cohorts), flags food-cost and labour variance within hours of the shift closing, drafts promos for slow daypart slots and pushes them to Zalo OA / LINE / WhatsApp, and delivers a three-item morning brief at 06:30 local time so the operator's first action of the day is informed. LOOP unifies GrabFood, ShopeeFood, Be, foodpanda and Gojek into one queue, supports VietQR / PromptPay / QRIS / DuitNow / PayNow / QR Ph, and ships VAT e-invoice (TT78) via MISA, Viettel and VNPT. Pairs with Peko loyalty (50% lifetime discount on LOOP for Peko customers).

Under the hood, LOOP is offline-first with a 90-second resync window so orders, payments and KDS keep firing through ISP drops; recipe-level COGS is computed at order time so every plate's contribution margin is visible before the shift ends; and the morning brief is generated from the previous day's variance, the current day's forecast and the next 14 days of bookings, weather and local events — not a static template. The result is fewer dashboards, faster decisions, and a noticeably calmer week for the operator.

Related guides

FAQ

How fast can a SEA F&B chain switch to LOOP?

Typical cutover for 2–10 outlets is 5–10 business days: CSV import of menu, recipes, customers, loyalty and 24 months of sales, parallel run over a weekend, then cut over Monday open. Larger chains (20+ outlets) usually phase by region over 4–6 weeks.

Does LOOP work without stable internet?

Yes — LOOP runs offline-first with a 90-second resync window. Orders, payments and KDS keep firing during ISP drops; the cloud reconciles automatically on reconnect. Aggregator orders queue locally and dispatch when the link returns.

What does LOOP cost?

Per-outlet monthly pricing with no per-device upcharge. Peko loyalty customers get 50% lifetime discount on LOOP — see /pricing for the current band.

Does LOOP support VAT e-invoice (TT78)?

Yes — LOOP integrates with MISA, Viettel and VNPT as e-invoice providers. Issuance is automatic at order close and reconciles end-of-day.

Which payment rails does LOOP support?

Native: VietQR, MoMo, ZaloPay, VNPay for Vietnam; PromptPay (TH), QRIS (ID), DuitNow (MY), PayNow (SG), QR Ph (PH). Card acquirers are wired through local PSPs per country.