We live in an era where “there is an app for that” is no more a surprise for us. From a simple communication device to an integral part of our daily lives, the journey of mobile phones has truly been dramatic. The availability of mobile applications packed with brilliant features and functions is the main reason behind the massive growth of handheld devices such as smartphones. From booking hotels and money transfers to ordering food or other products, mobile apps have flipped the scenario of almost every industry you can imagine.
Business owners have also started to realize the importance of having a mobile application for their organization. They have started to develop an app with user-friendly nature and easy-to-organize features. 70-80% of business owners believe that mobile applications increase business revenue, and that is why they are inclining towards custom mobile application development services for their business.
A mobile application is like the X-factor for your business that helps in increasing your customer base while retaining the existing customers. If you have a mobile application to offer your services to your users, you can have increased chances of securing a high ROI.
Whether it is about being put on hold or screaming over the phone to place your order through the deafening background noises, ordering food has always been a hassle. But now, the days of calling a restaurant to order your favorite food are over.
Well, all thanks to some amazing online food applications such as GrubHub, DoorDash, Swiggy, Zomato, and so on. On-demand food delivery app development is growing exponentially as people enjoy ordering their favorite food from the comfort of their homes. Getting our favorite dish or food delivered to our doorstep has made our lives much easier. The market of on-demand food delivery applications is so huge and most entrepreneurs are planning to develop a food delivery mobile application.
Soon to be the $300 Billion Industry
As per statistics of the food delivery industry, it is expected that by the year 2025, the UK Food Delivery Projected Revenue will be around $9.4 billion. Just Eat and Deliveroo, two of the largest food delivery services are based in the UK. In 2020, the usage of food-delivery applications grew rapidly as due to the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of users tried food delivery applications for the first time.
With Just Eat’s new delivery service, the platform-to-consumer model will expand in upcoming years. To compete with Just Eat, both Deliveroo and UberEats have opened up their platforms to accommodate third-party deliveries.
As compared to other internet-based markets, the food delivery industry has seen rapid growth in the last five years. Currently being the $120 billion industry, it is expected that the projected global food delivery app value by the year 2027 will be worth $300 billion.
How Online Delivery Applications Work?
The very first step of a food delivery application is to collaborate with owners of cafes and restaurants so that users can have the option to choose from a variety of cuisines. The home screen of the application displays the list of available restaurants from where the customers can order their favorite food.
After adding their favorite food to the cart, users can place their order and the restaurant will be notified of the order. After the order is confirmed, a delivery executive will be assigned and the user will be updated with the ETA of their order.
Stepwise Guide to Begin with the Food Delivery Application Development
Before launching a new application, you need to do a lot of research and planning if you want a high return on investment. Follow the steps discussed below, if you want to develop a profitable food delivery application.
Step 1: Market Research and Analysis
Begin by spending some time and effort with market information and related facts of your niche. You can take help from internet sources or you can go with public records. Before investing, you need to be sure about the current market status and what the future holds for the application you are planning to develop. Observe your key competitors, targeted audience, and the local market.
Step 2: Business Model and Value Proportion
Before developing a food delivery app like Uber Eats, DoorDash, FoodPanda, etc. you need to create a business plan for your project and write it down in black and white. Decide the features you will be including, your selling propositions, and the monetization strategy. Revenues can be generated through subscription plans, merchandising eCommerce products, advertising, or charging a service fee.
Step 3: Hire a Professional App Development Company
Now the next step is to hire a professional app development company that can build an application as per your needs. Either you can work with freelancers, individual contractors or you can outsource a company that offers custom food application development solutions. Check the quality of their service based on the prototype present during the initial stages. Find a development partner that can cater to your requirements and budget.
Step 4: Begin with the Development Process
Now your ideas will start taking a shape of their own. You need to be aware of the efforts, time, and money that you are going to spend on each step. Be careful about your budget and stick to it at all costs. Once the UI/US design is finalized, the development company will start creating the back and front end of your application. Focus on user-friendly, ease-of-navigation, and secure application development.
Step 5: Choose an Attractive Design
Go with a design that is attractive and will help you to win customers over your competitors. Keep it simple yet unique, user-centric, and should look great on mobile devices.
Step 6: Test Your Product
After the application is designed and developed, you need to check it for flaws and errors. With quality assurance testing, all the features and workability of the app can be tested. The goal is to offer a bug-free app to the users.
Step 6: Promote the Application
Choose the right marketing channels to promote your application in the market. The primary aim is to grow the customer base and reach the target audience. This can be done through campaigns, social media marketing, or you can ask food businesses to promote the product.
Step 7: Leave Room for Future Maintenance
As technology is advancing each day, you need to keep your app updated with the latest trends and features. So hire a mobile app development company that can provide after-development support to your application.
Major Challenges and Solutions for Food Delivery App Development
One major factor that can affect the cost of food delivery app development is the basic marketing strategy. Here are a few market challenges with solutions that you may face with your application.
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Partnering Up with Restaurants
As there are already big food delivery brands in the market, restaurants have already partnered up with them. As time passes, it would become difficult for you to collaborate with them. Consider offering better partnership profits or try to communicate with the restaurants that do not have a partnership with a lot of food delivery apps.
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Choosing Best Features for Your Application
This is another complex challenge that can affect your food delivery app development strategy. If you want your app to be successful, you need to integrate some best features in your application for better ROI. We have discussed some features below that can help you to develop a flexible food delivery mobile application.
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Choosing the Right Business Model
Another factor that can create a challenge for your food delivery application the business model used. There are various development models available that you can choose from as per your requirements and budget.
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Scary Competitive Market
With some famous food delivery apps in the market already, it may be a tough call for you to set a foot in the market. With the latest and amazing features, quick responses, and engaging UI/UX, you can be in a win-win situation.
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Development Can Change the Game
While setting a business online, the first challenge is to hire the right development platform. Communicate with various development organizations and check the client reviews and testimonials before hiring a development company.
So these are some of the major challenges and solutions that can help you to win the food delivery market like a pro.
Food Delivery Business Tips
To keep your foot in the market with your food delivery business, you need to follow some instructions and tips. Here are some tips you can follow to make your business successful:
- Conduct Market Research
Your app needs to be an MVP or Minimal Viable Product, and for this, you need to conduct thorough market research to evaluate your food business.
- Expand Services
To generate more profit you can expand your delivery services just like Postmates. You could make your on-demand delivery app for groceries, alcohol delivery, all on one platform.
- Offer Affordable Services
As compared to other food delivery giants, you can offer cheaper services to users. You can start by targeting your local customers and becoming a food delivery hub in your area. Then slowly grow out by partnering up with bigger companies or local restaurants, which is a deal of profit for both.
- Be Unique
Make sure that your food delivery app is not exactly a clone of other food delivery applications that are already on the market. Your app needs to stand out of the crowd, so make your USP create a top-class food delivery application for your targeted customers.
- Separate Ratings and Reviews
It will be profitable for you if you keep the food and delivery service rating and review section separate. There are chances that the food is great but the delivery service is not good. A common section for both can bring the entire rating down.
Distinct Features of Food Delivery Application
The classification of features is mainly divided into the users, admin, and delivery executive. Here is a list of all the features that you can integrate into your application.
Customers Features
For users, the following features need to be integrated into the application:
- Registration
New users can sign-up through mobile number or they can also log in through social media account.
- Update Profile
Users can update address details, email addresses, and delivery instructions through their profile.
- Search Food or Restaurant
A search bar should be integrated on the home page so that users can easily search for their favorite food or restaurant. To offer location-based search results, you can also integrate GPS.
- Place Order
It allows the users to add food items into cart and place an order
- Make Payment
This section includes various payment gateways to pay for food delivery.
- Order Receipt
This section allows the users to share the order receipt through email or messages.
- Track Oder
Users can live track their order with this feature through the app.
- Rate and Review
This section allows the users to provide ratings and reviews for the restaurant and delivery services.
- Notifications
Users will be informed about the order status, ETA, and new offers and deals through in-app mobile notifications.
- Call Restaurant or Delivery Executive
To check the status or to provide special cooking instructions, users can also call the delivery restaurant or executive.
Delivery Executive Features
The app for delivery executives should be integrated with the below-mentioned features:
- Registration
The delivery executive can register and authenticate their credentials under this section.
- Manage Profile
It allows the executives to add, delete, or update their details.
- Order Management
Under this section, the executive can change the order status from “in progress” to “delivered”.
- Availability Status
The delivery executives can change their status from “offline” to “online” or vice-versa.
- Navigation
For quick delivery, navigation can offer the best route to reach the delivery address.
- Call Restaurant or Customer
To ask about the cooking status or to inform the customer about reaching the delivery location, delivery executives can call the restaurant or the customers.
- Delivery History
This section offers the complete details about deliveries made in past.
- Earning
This section mentions the status of earning, schedules, payments, tips, etc.
Admin Features
The admin manages and monitors all the operations of order execution and delivery. They need to make sure that the delivery is fast and on time. So here are the key features for the admin panel:
- Registration
It enables the admins to add restaurant details such as name, location, and working hours.
- Manage Profile
The admin can add, edit, or delete a customer’s details.
- Order Management
Allows the admin to cancel, update, or schedule the order delivery.
- Content Management
Through this feature, the admin can add items to the menu, update the users about new offers and other information.
- Payments
It enables the admin to track total and daily earnings.
- Admin Dashboard
The dashboard offers all the details and analytics of the users, restaurants, past and upcoming orders, and the delivery executives.
Top Food Delivery Applications
We will now have a look at the top food delivery applications and the features that have made them so popular. The success of food delivery applications depends on the features included in the app that differentiates you from the market. So here are the top food delivery mobile applications that are ruling the market.
- Uber Eats
The taxi service also launched a food delivery application to attract customers and restaurants from all over the world. The application is available for both iOS as well as Android platforms with some nice-to-have app features such as live order tracking, scheduling delivery, cashless transactions, and delivery time estimation. As service fees, Uber charges 15% of the order subtotal.
- GrubHub
The application serves in the USA and the UK and is famous for its food variety and partnering up with local as well as international restaurants. It not only focuses on restaurant options but also offers options for cuisine and specific meal. The application doesn’t charge any extra fees from the customers, only the restaurants might have order minimums and additional charges.
- Deliveroo
This application has partnered up with premium restaurants that do not offer food delivery. Deliveroo has a limited delivery radius, but it can deliver your order within half an hour.
Factors Affecting the Food Delivery App Development Cost
The cost of food delivery applications is also affected by the features that you include in your app. The more features you add, the more is the development price. Let’s have a look at some of the features:
- Interface Design
If we look from the point of view of the customers, UI and UX are important features of the application. The application needs to have a user-friendly interface to attract new customers and retain the old ones. Being an important factor, the interface design affects the cost of food delivery app development.
- Development Platform
iOS and Android are the top platforms for application development. You need to pay a hosting fee to the platform on which you are going to run your app. The platform or platforms that you choose for development highly affects the cost of development. If you want your application to run on both platforms, you can choose hybrid app development to cut down some of the app development costs.
- App Marketing
Since there are some big bulls of food delivery applications such as Uber Eats and GrubHub that are already present in the market, it is difficult for start-ups to set their foot in the market. As per your pre-marketing budget, you can launch campaigns to create awareness about your brand in the market.
- App Upgradation
To keep the app run smoothly, it is important to roll out updates on time. The cost of updating the application depends on the type of upgrade you are planning to toll out.
Estimated Cost of Developing a Food Delivery Mobile App
After analyzing all the features and factors of the food delivery mobile application, it is time to calculate a rough estimation of the food delivery app development cost. Although it is not possible to calculate the exact cost as we have already discussed that various factors affect the development cost.
- A simple food delivery application with some basic features like UI/UX, basic functionality and item list can up to $8,000 for development only.
- Integration of some advanced features like stable UI/UX, payment gateway integration, push notifications, social media integration, can cost $10,000 to $20,000.
- Integration of complex features such as live tracking; audio/video animations, real-time tracker third-party API integration, and custom graphics can cost more than $20,000.
Required Team Structure for Food Delivery App Development
The very first thing that makes a good impression on users is the sleek and clean user interface of the app. So it is important to hire a professional UI/UX designer that can create a food delivery app with an attractive and quick user interface. Moreover, a team of backend developers, iOS and Android developers is enough to develop a successful food delivery application. Having a team of testing and quality assurance is also important in case of a major breakdown of the application.
- Project Manager
- UX/UI Developers
- Android/IOS developers
- Backend Developers
- QA Teams
- Delivery Manager
The Key Takeaway
Surely this is a long read but this is going to help you to take your business to new heights. As some famous food delivery mobile applications are already in the market, it is going to be quite difficult for you to set your foot in the market.
Considering all the information discussed, it is clear that food delivery app development requires professional resources, workforce, and time. If you are still confused about how, to begin with, the development process of your food delivery application, then you are welcome to contact us.
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