
Building a Food Delivery App
Building
a Food Delivery App: Important Aspects That Can Have An Impact
Smartphones play an
integral role in Gen Z-ers’ lives. Cooking a meal after a tiring work can be
the least finish one can get for the day. Stepping out to reach restaurants is
another back-breaking process amid the jam-packed traffic. What if there’s a
platform to bridge this gap between customers and restaurants? This need has
led to the rise of on-demand food delivery apps.
A food delivery platform
provides a win-win-win situation for the entire community. Restaurants can
boost their sales by signing up with the platform. Users enjoy their favorite meal
from the comfort of their homes. On the other hand, the platform owner
generates revenue from numerous sources. Such a beneficial and profitable
business opportunity is always an entrepreneur’s delight.
If you’re an
entrepreneur eyeing to launch a food delivery app, this blog will lay the
foundation of how you must approach the development process. Besides, we’ll
also look into specific aspects in an UberEats clone that can come in handy
and enable you to gain instant popularity.
What
should a food delivery platform offer?
Now, let’s look into the
minimum requirements of a food delivery platform.
- Instant
order booking and delivery
- Real-time
tracking options
- Payments
via multiple modes
- Feedback
mechanism
- Regular
updates and reminders
- Simple
app design for navigation
If a platform can
promise these characteristics, it is worthy enough to be recognized among the
audience. Being successful is another dimension that we’ll discuss later in the
upcoming sections.
A comprehensive food
delivery app solution involves a minimum of three separate entities. They
include,
- Customer
app
- Service
provider app
- Administrator
panel
Let’s discuss in detail
about the features and functionalities of these apps here.
Customer
app interacts with your target audience
Your entire supply chain
depends on consumers. Your business’s aim reflects on the customer app. The
more attention it draws, the higher are the chances of success. Let’s discuss
the app features here,
- Single-step registration: Users register with your app
to order food and not to apply for a job. Do not load the registration
step with irrelevant details. Enabling users to log in via their social
media handles can make it easier and efficient.
- Search and filters: Among the sea of food products,
users need to choose their desired meal. Surfing past the entire menu is
daunting and can exasperate the hunger to a whole new level. A search
column, aided by filter options, can help narrow down results, leading to
the ultimate product.
- Real-time tracking: Placing orders and waiting for
an eternity is highly unlikely in this fast-paced world. Ensure your
customers get instant updates on their orders. Besides, with real-time tracking
by their side, customers get to know the delivery executives’ exact
location.
- Multiple payments: What’s with an online platform when people cannot pay
via digital modes? Pre-loaded numerous payment gateways can enable swift
payments, boosting your profits.
- Order history: Besides invoice generation, the app must have a
separate functionality for order history. Users can verify their past
orders and re-order them on a future date if need be.
- Ratings and reviews: How will you keep service
quality in check? What if users do not like the restaurants’ packing or
delivery workers’ professionalism? A feedback mechanism is mandatory,
enabling users to rate and review their experience after every
order.
A
service provider app decides the platform’s reliability
Unless and until the
platform balances between supply and demand, success becomes a distant fruit.
The service provider here involves both restaurants and delivery executives.
You can either create a sub-category or have distinctive apps. The features
worth-considering in a service provider app include,
- Registration and verification: Customer satisfaction depends
on the quality of the services. No second thoughts. Instead of allowing
everyone who signs up with the platform to provide services, verify their
authenticity by conducting a background check. This verification process
can instill trust among customers.
- Availability and ordering dashboard: As soon as the customer places
an order, service providers receive the request. If service providers
aren’t in a state to provide services, they can go offline using the
toggle functionality. Once the provider accepts the request, they get
details on their dashboard. Restaurants process, prepare, and pack food
orders, while delivery executives reach the locations to pick up orders.
- Profile: Service providers can manage their profiles by adding
relevant information from time to time. Besides, they also have access to
their weekly/monthly earnings, real-time analytics, number of successful
orders, etc.
- In-app navigation: Timely services are crucial amid the neck-to-neck
competition. Delivery executives can reach restaurants’ and customers’
locations seamlessly through in-app navigation. Similarly, restaurants get
to know the exact location of delivery executives and can manage orders
accordingly.
- Push notifications: Instant activity isn’t
possible unless service providers respond in the shortest time. In their
hectic schedule, service providers needn’t open the app every time. They
get regular updates via push notifications, paving the way for better
order management.
The
admin adds a crucial ingredient - responsiveness
The admin of the
platform manages the UberEats Clone app activities from a
single place. If you opt for manual order dispatching, the admin has much more
responsibility to connect service providers with customers. Some of the
features of the admin panel include,
- Customer management: The admin resolves customer
queries from time to time by reaching out to customers’ ratings and
reviews. Besides, the admin manages disputes between customers and service
providers, paving the way for the app’s smooth operation.
- Transactions management: The admin transfers payment
between customers and service providers after the necessary commission
cut-down. Besides, the admin also has access to processed, failed, and
abandoned transactions.
- Real-time analytics: The admin can generate
real-time analytics based on customer ratings, peak hours, areas of high
demand, etc. This way, the admin can reroute professionals or make an
informed business decision, based on proven data and insights rather than
instincts.
Focus
on the things that ensure success
A considerable group of
entrepreneurs lose track of their end-product and settle for a product of
substandard quality. By having a clear vision of what you’re about to develop,
you can avoid running out of resources or funds. Here is a list of things that
need the utmost care. These things, coupled with your determination to succeed,
can scale your UberEats clone to greater heights.
- Gain technical assistance: Venturing into app development
can be quite lonely, especially when things do not turn up the way you
imagined. Having a dedicated team behind your back can help you streamline
your activities. You can also opt for the cost-effective clone app
solutions, eliminating the burden of developing the app.
- Opt for a minimalistic design: A complex design can make
things complicated for unfamiliar app users. Having a simple design,
seamlessly navigating users towards services can come in handy.
- Integrate numerous payment gateways: Customer convenience depends
on paying for orders as well. Integrating multiple payment gateways can
enable them to pay conveniently in the mode of their choice.
- Maintain the supply chain: Each stakeholder has a crucial
impact on your business. Any disruption to one supply chain will
invariably affect the other.
- Use customer engagement tools: Artificial Intelligence (AI)
and Machine Learning (ML) will rule the online world in the upcoming
years. Leveraging these tools can boost your customer engagement rates,
leading to enhanced leads and sales.
Conclusion,
A food delivery platform
needs to be robust, must create an impact, and has to evolve with the customer
trends. A feature-filled app can draw more attention to the site. Focusing on
the back-end (admin-end) is equally essential as the admin maintains the app
activity and resolves disputes instantly. Focusing on these strategies will
ensure your food delivery app’s success in the market.
Reach out to an app
development company, tell them your needs, and launch your UberEats clone right
away!