Embrace On-demand Food Delivery App Development in 2023
The food delivery industry is still in its early stages, just beginning to mature, one might say. The first online menus turned out 20 years ago and have made a journey to mobile applications that ensure their delivery services.
The market size of the online food delivery industry worldwide was evaluated at $770 billion in 2022, & its 2023 expectation is $920 billion, with further growth to $1.45 Trillion by 2027. Platform-to-consumer delivery makes up 60% of the market, with the restaurant-to-consumer segment following closely behind. In the image below, you can observe the global online food delivery market revenues from 2017 to 2027, segmented by category (in trillion U.S. dollars).
Food delivery application development hasn’t been so timely & promising.
To maintain this statement, we will just ensure next statistics:
- 90% of users are going to increase their food delivery service usage in the future.
- 63% of users utilize third-party delivery more than it was before the pandemic.
Naturally, industry leaders like Uber Eats have set a high standard for modern solutions in this field. However, this only serves to inspire food delivery app development companies to embrace the challenge and innovate with cutting-edge solutions to meet these demands.
If you’re ready to take a share of the $920 billion market, you’re in the right place, but let’s first discuss what a food delivery app is.
What Is a Food Delivery Application and Who Needs It?
food delivery service service is a home delivery in which cafes, restaurants, stores, or third-party applications deliver food to users on demand. Delivery might ensure groceries store from supermarkets or cooked meals, catering, or wholesale.
In historical terms, the initial instance of food delivery can be traced back to Italy in 1889 when the King had pizza delivered to his Naples palace. However, the modern food delivery service truly took off in the 1950s in the USA. During this era, middle-class Americans increasingly chose to have lunch at home in front of their television sets, leading to a decline in restaurant revenue. Those establishments that embraced delivery services experienced rapid sales growth, with some enjoying over 50% enhances in a short span of time.
Nowadays, suggestions are generally placed through a mobile application, phone, or website.
So, let’s also consider which entities should create a food delivery application. The primary participants in the market include both established food establishments and innovative startups. The first utilize of food delivery apps to achieve more clients. They can also use mobile decisions to relieve their restaurants during the busiest hours of the day. Thus, they permit their customers to make an order in advance & plan their work accordingly. The clients can also order food to go if all the seats are occupied. Both the customers & the restaurant benefit from such an choice, the latter can generate up to 25% more revenue thanks to an app.
COVID-19 accelerated the digitalization of the restaurant industry, besides, the trend is projected to continue over the next 5 years.
Regional aggregator startups widely utilize food delivery apps, where the consumers can opt food from multifaceted food establishments, or even specialty stores & supermarkets. Subsequently, restaurants, cafes, and various establishments collaborate with the aggregator, reaping the rewards of boosted sales. The startup in its turn gets a percentage of the app utilization by various establishments. Hence, whether you’re an owner of a food business or a budding startup, you have the opportunity to enter the market and capitalize on this niche.
Everything you need to know is below; simply continue reading.
How to Create a Food Delivery Application
The niche analysis and research
Firstly, you should find the answers to certain questions before ordering on-demand food. That’s why you should carefully find out your competitors & the leading decisions in the market to find their weaknesses and strengths. With this information, you can develop and make better, quicker, & more innovative applications than the ones already existing in the market. In case you need to assist with this step, you can always order discovery from an experienced team, like Stfalcon. Research conducted by experts can significantly reduce the cost of developing a food delivery app, occasionally resulting in savings of up to half the budget.
Business model selection
It isn’t enough to plan your development procedures, when it comes to food or grocery delivery application development, you need to resolve upon your business model. At the very least, you should consider the following options:
- Utilizing either a taxi or an external courier service. In this model, your solution serves as the bridge connecting clients, drivers, and restaurants.
- Utilizing your own vehicles. This approach is both time and cost-intensive, and it carries additional risks and entails greater responsibility.
- Operating your own food delivery service. In this scenario, your primary task is to connect clients with food establishments. This approach demands minimal involvement and offers less control.
Monetization strategy choosing
Without monetization, any startup dies. If we look at UberEats, 3 prior application monetization strategies can be figured out:
- Delivery Charge. Initially, they implemented a fixed fee of $4.99 for order delivery, but later transitioned to calculating it based on the distance between food locations and customers.
- Advertising. Food establishments pay for their promotion in the application search.
- Revenue Sharing with Businesses. The platform levies a fee for each order placed.
App functionality
Before you dive into app development and engage a food or grocery delivery app development company, it’s crucial to determine the features and functionality your app needs. Decide upon the key features that you’d like to see on Glovo or UberEats, & then, delve into even more detail, reffering to the features for each of the 3 basic agents: customer, restaurant, and courier.
Food delivery application development
In this step, it’s advisable to rely on an expert development team, then you can have confidence in receiving an outstanding product. Besides, outsourcing your product development is often cost-effective. Testing, launching, & publishing should also be mentioned here, but you will find more details below.
Let’s first deal with the key features of a food delivery app.
Food Delivery Application Features
As we’ve mentioned above, the app’s functionality should be developed in the context of the 3 key consumer categories: customer, food establishment, and courier.
Customer’s app
Sign up feature
Clients should be able to create an account for tracking orders, making secure payments, and providing feedback. Additionally, ensure the inclusion of email confirmation and password recovery options.
Chat and in-app calls
For the customers’ convenience, permit them to check their order updates right in the application and chat with client service or call them right from the application.
Reviews & ratings
This feature permits the customers to opt from a variety of establishments set on honest and sincere customer opinions.
Payment
Convenience is crucial, so seamlessly incorporate an in-app payment system for swift and secure transactions within your solution. Integrate various payment methods such as credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Wallet, PayPal, and more; it’s advantageous to offer as many options as possible.
Order placement and shopping cart
The possibility to order right from the menu is a small, yet important client-friendly option, that is worth consideration. You may implement filters to make the choice even more convenient. The shopping cart should contain all the necessary info, including the total cost, time of delivery, and payment methods to choose from.
Order Scheduling
The customers should be able to choose the delivery time to get the order when it is possible for them.
Geolocation & Order tracking
By integrating a map into your solution, you empower users to discover nearby restaurants or specific vendors. Real-time courier tracking enhances convenience, enabling users to estimate delivery times and stay informed about potential delays.
Courier’s info
A consumer needs to understand certain courier’s details: name, phone number, & vehicle to get in touch in case of necessity.
Order history
This feature holds significance for clients, vendors, and the admin panel alike. It enables the ability to review and retrieve orders, whether for checking details or potentially identifying dish names.
Restaurant’s Application
Sign up page.
Food businesses should be able to ensure their profile with the name, location, contact information, business hours, and menu.
Menu management
The responsible restaurant staff should have the capability to add, delete, and modify menu items. Including pictures is strongly recommended, as people often savor their meals with their eyes. Furthermore, providing descriptions and prices to complement the dishes is crucial.
Courier tracking
To ensure fast and convenient delivery a food establishment should possess the capability to locate the nearest available courier or one following the required route.
Chat
All three agents should have the ability to communicate with one another, and a chat feature can facilitate seamless and real-time communication, making it convenient for everyone.
Order status tracking.
Restaurants should be able to see upcoming, processing, and already delivered orders to correctly distribute work & evaluate the time of delivery.
Order management
Restaurants should be able to easily access orders to accept, change or decline them. Consider the option of changing the order status.
Payment management
Payment methods should be securely stored and managed on the admin panel, ensuring a high level of accuracy and security.
Special suggestions
These functionalities might attract more customers.
Analytics
This constitutes a fundamental component of every admin panel, offering valuable insights into application performance metrics. It enables tracking of inventory, orders, delivery times, marketing campaigns, revenues, and various other details.
Courier Application
Account creation
Couriers should also be given the option to sign up by providing their email, phone number, and potentially linking their social media profiles. Their accounts should undergo verification, ensuring that all essential documentation and information are provided.
Maps
Geolocation on the courier side of the application will permit delivery agents to find the best routes to the clients. Make your map looks professional & interactive, take UberEats as an example.
Order data access
Delivery agents must have access to order details such as delivery address, delivery time, order contents, as well as the user’s name and contact information.
Order status updates
Couriers should have the capability to update the order status when they arrive at the restaurant, collect the order, and depart for delivery, ensuring that the customer stays informed.
As soon as you know all the features to include or at least to consider for your food delivery app to be, let’s speak about the development process a bit.
Discovery phase
This marks a pivotal preparatory phase in which we thoroughly analyze the concept at hand, conducting comprehensive research into the niche and market, and studying the existing solutions and demand. This assists find out the pains of the audience, determine gaps, & provide that the idea is viable, feasible, and scalable. Technical requirements and constraints defined during the discovery phase assist us to speed up the development and to improve the final product’s quality.
Design
The app’s visual presentation is pivotal for its success; therefore, your solution should possess an attractive, user-friendly, and easily navigable design. Consequently, designers prioritize the app’s UI and UX during the design phase, crafting wireframes and prototypes to fine-tune the design before moving on to development.
Development
With a basic design in place, we proceed to the back-end development turning specifications into code that works & meets all the requirements and the highest standards. Once the back-end development is completed, the front-end and back-end components of the app are combined or integrated.
Testing
At Stfalcon we always thoroughly test the created decisions internally & externally before release to determine and solve problems and bugs. Later on, they can become more difficult & expensive to fix.
After corrections & re-testing when the software functions as intended, the application can be submitted to the application store for review.
Release
It’s a critical point when the software becomes accessible to the public and starts real-world usage. We consistently assist our clients during this phase, as we are well-versed in the intricacies and standards required for app submissions to both Google Play and the App Store.
Support and Maintenance
Ultimately, the support stage arrives, which may encompass resolving bugs and issues or updating the software to align with emerging technologies. Support can be managed by our proficient team or by the customer’s team, depending on their preference. Anyway, ongoing support & maintenance are critical to the success of the product. In such a way, it continues to include and improve over time.
Speaking about the cost to create a delivery application, we can only point some range between $90k to $150k. The cost of software development is contingent upon the list of features you intend to incorporate into your app.
Our Experience
Balabing
As a food delivery application development company, Stfalcon had the experience of creating iOS and Android applications for a food truck management campaign.
The assignment permits the customer to place orders online & pay for them, while Stfalcon’s customer can manage it via a web-based admin panel.
During the Android development, we followed the principles of Clean Architecture & utilized common Domain and Data modules for the customer and vendor applications to avoid business logic duplication. It assisted us to decrease the time of development & simplified the process of making changes later on. Read the full case study
The iOS version architecture mirrors that of Android, consisting of four modules. Data binding was achieved using RxSwift, and the Presentation Layer was implemented with the MVVM architecture. It’s worth noting that the app surpassed the client’s expectations, a testament to Stfalcon’s commitment to delivering exceptional results.
To Sum Up
The online food ordering business represents a rapidly expanding trend. Therefore, no restaurant, café, or food establishment should disregard the significance of food delivery app development services. What’s important, is that tech is continuously developing, so the competition between the decisions in the market is high. That’s why you should meticulously contemplate all aspects of your solution and place your trust in seasoned professionals. Stfalcon is ready to take on the new challenge & design a food delivery application for you. Feel free to contact us & discuss all the details.
Originally published at https://stfalcon.com.
