The use of food delivery apps is on the rise like never before. The biggest reason for their popularity is the convenience offered to order food online that gets delivered quickly at reasonable prices.
Food delivery apps act as a collaboration partner between restaurants and clients. On-demand food delivery apps such as Swiggy, Zomato, UberEats, GrubHub are quite a rage among consumers these days. If you intend to invest in online food delivery apps, this article will highlight important factors and practices that you need to keep in mind while building a food delivery app.
To begin with, let’s take a look at the following facts as per the Statista:
- Revenue in the Online Food Delivery segment amounts to US$7,730m in 2019.
- Revenue is expected to show an annual growth rate of 12.8%, resulting in a market volume of US$12,536m by 2023.
- The market's largest segment is Restaurant-to-Consumer Delivery with a market volume of US$4,334m in 2019.
Popular business models in the food business
These two business models can help you make the right decision in terms of choosing the right way to build your food delivery app. Let’s take a look at them:
- Aggregator Business Model: A common platform is provided to customers and restaurants. In this model, customers can browse the listed restaurants, place an order, and fill in the delivery details. The app owner cuts its commission and routes the order to the restaurant for delivery. The order is delivered by the restaurant or a third party delivery service. Here you need to create four different interfaces. One for the customers, second for the restaurants, third for the delivery agents and fourth one for the admin of the service. UberEats, GrubHub, and other leading food delivery apps follow the Aggregator Business Model.
- Restaurant to customer model: In this model, restaurant owners don’t need to hire or maintain their delivery agents. A third-party takes care of its delivery services.
8 Things to Take Care of While Building a Food Delivery App
Now is the right time to discuss the essential factors to develop a food delivery app like that of Zomato, UberEats, Swiggy. Below are some things you need to take care while creating a food delivery app.
- Easy to use interface
Interface - it’s the first thing that a first-time user will notice about your food delivery app. As soon as users log in, make sure they find it easy to understand and navigate. If they find it too tiresome, they are going to log out and switch to your competitor soon.
- Data accessibility
Data is the heart of a food ordering and delivery app. Your app should contain all the relevant information: different restaurants, cuisines, menu items, and delivery time. The information enables users to place their orders quickly without much effort and engages them in the right manner.
- Secure payments
The security of the app is a big concern for people using it, and rightly so because the majority of the users fill in confidential information while placing their food order and paying online. As a service provider, integrating multiple online payment methods becomes a must-have feature while developing your food delivery app.
Remember the best way to develop long-term relationships with customers is by keeping their data safe and secure so they never have to think twice before making a transaction. Popular food apps such as Zomato, Swiggy, UberEats offer multiple preferred payment options such as Visa Checkout, Cash, GooglePay, Paypal, etc to accelerate the process.
- Live order tracking
Order tracking is one of the most popular features in a food delivery app. Live order tracking is super helpful to users eagerly waiting for their food to arrive to see the actual location and estimated time the delivery agent would take to arrive at their doorstep. Food delivery apps take assistance from GPS to not just provide mouth-watering cuisines but also enables them to provide the best user experience to its users.
- Multiple ways to order
Apart from mobile apps, some people still tend to make orders from websites and desktop apps. So it makes sense to also provide the option of website ordering and desktop apps alongside Android and iOS apps to provide multiple ways to order for users.
- Rewards & offers
The secret mantra to attract more customers is to keep showering users with lucrative offers and rewards. Today, users are on a lookout for apps which are consistently
providing ongoing offers and pocket-friendly deals. Food delivery apps are leaving no stone unturned to lure customers with attractive deals and offers. Thus, regular rewards and offers encourage customers to use the app and order from the same place.
- Push notifications
The best way to engage customers is through push notifications. Not only can you tell them about your latest offerings but you can also develop a one-to-one relationship with customers and win them over with rewards and offers.
Tip: Don’t go overboard with push notifications as they can drive customers away if overdone.
- Testimonials, reviews, and ratings
Want to build trust with customers? Dedicate an area in the homepage section to display what other users have to say about your app. All successful brands rely on testimonials and ask users for reviews and ratings for their service. This helps build a great reputation and credibility in the market.
Other things to keep in mind
With the above listed and discussed points, below are a few more important factors to keep in mind while developing your food delivery app.
- Stick to your budget
- Select the framework that is right for you
- Aim for lightning-fast delivery
- Have a target audience strategy in place
- Do proper search engine optimization and app store optimization
- Provide membership to add more advantage
- Start campaigns over social channels
- A detailed section for order history comprising order details, order delivery date, order amount, and order status
- Target a local area and then expand
- Customize according to local demands
Conclusion
By now, you must have learned it’s hard to survive without a food delivery app if you are into the food business. It can boost your customer reach, convert one-off customers into repeat customers and even open new avenues to monetize your business.
All that you need to do is to choose a mobile app development company and then you are ready to go.
Contact us if you want help to develop a food delivery app.
