The need for apps that facilitate food delivery is on the upswing. Since 2014, the growth of digital orders and deliveries has outpaced dine-in revenues by 300. Statista projects that the global ‘platform-to-consumer’ delivery market will grow to $96.7 million by 2024.
This expansion will continue for the foreseeable future despite the effects of COVID-19.
Due to social isolation protocols and widespread fears of contracting COVID-19, there has been a rise in demand for food delivery services. For aggregators like Uber Eats, Deliveroo, and DoorDash, 2020 may have been the beginning of a golden age in the food delivery industry. Instacart, a company that promises to deliver groceries right to your door, recently announced that it had completed its 2020 goals three weeks early.
The presence of established competitors shouldn’t put off new entrants to the food delivery sector. There is a good probability of success if you have a unique idea and use high-quality, feature-rich software. You can develop a fantastic solution by analyzing competitors and looking for holes in their service offerings.
This post will be a useful introduction to the app development process for food delivery services. But before we go into that, let’s quickly recap how the COVID-19 outbreak shook the business and how the food distribution system adapted.
What functions do people want most from their meal delivery apps?
It is obvious that you, as a firm, must offer honest pricing and superior service, regardless of your approach. You must consider more than just the basics to ensure that your app delivers what its users want. Let’s review what you need in your grocery delivery app development plan, from the fundamentals to the cutting-edge.
Specifics of mobile apps for food delivery
It is necessary to create three distinct apps for customers, couriers, and restaurants if you plan to start a food delivery network that links diners with local eateries and enables delivery (like GrubHub or DoorDash). Every app needs the same core functionality to ensure a positive user experience and a timely delivery. Below, we’ve summarized the most important aspects of each program.
The Consumer-Focused App
The menus of neighboring eateries and their locations should be easily accessible within this app. The app might be more useful by incorporating search filters and order-tracking features. Think about adding the following functions:
- Social media account creation and authentication
- Filtering options for your search (such as cuisine, price range, and estimated delivery time)
- Putting in a menu order
- Several different ways to pay
- Live tracking of packages in transit
- Alerts sent immediately
- The Origins of Commands
- Assess and comment on
- Support for customers around-the-clock
Parcel delivery software
The delivery app is like the one used by the customer. It must have a built-in GPS navigation feature for pick-ups and drop-offs and give delivery employees quick access to available orders. Other essential functions of delivery apps include:
- Signing up and modifying your profile
- Processing purchases (verifying order information, agreeing to or declining a delivery request, etc.)
- The current standing (accepted, picked up, or delivered)
- Alerts sent immediately
- Order fulfillment record-keeping
App for the restaurant industry
A restaurant app’s principal function is communicating order status updates to the platform’s associated dining establishments. Managers may use the app to find a nearby courier and send them the order once it’s ready.
Using the data analysis tools offered by some of these systems, eateries may track important metrics that can be used to keep customers coming back. In addition, the following components should be included in your restaurant’s mobile app development roadmap:
- Updates to content (such as images and menus)
- Making loyalty campaigns (including couponing and advertising discounts and other deals)
- Economic reporting
- Alerts sent immediately
- Interoperability between user interfaces (between customers and delivery drivers)
Robust software development kits (SDKs) and tools are required to create all of these functions. A discussion of the tools and methods used to create apps for food delivery will follow. However, it’s important to consider the following tendencies to assist you in dominating the industry.
Food Delivery Trends to Watch in 2023
Companies in the food industry are no longer restricted to a specific workforce. They are using some clever new developments to improve the speed and dependability of online meal delivery.
- The Arrival of Tech Giants
2017, Amazon purchased Whole Foods, setting off this chain of events. After that, Uber introduced Ubereats, its meal delivery app. Since then, major technology companies have continued to enter the market. And in 2023, we anticipate this pattern to persist.
Google has recently added meal delivery to its products, including Search, Assistant, and Maps. The tech titans continue to grow and branch out into other areas.
- Restaurant-to-door delivery
Chick-fil-A has recently established a delivery service. Other eateries and fast food businesses would rather use their delivery team than a third-party service. Because the platforms make it harder to stand out from the crowd and compete with larger firms, they would rather handle delivery in-house.
For the major players, the trend of delivering meals straight to the user without an intermediary is here to stay. However, a small but significant subset of eateries rely on restaurant site builder services but still favor in-house delivery over third-party systems.
- Restaurant-to-door delivery
Chick-fil-A has recently established a delivery service. Other eateries and fast food businesses would rather use their delivery team than a third-party service. Because the platforms make it harder to stand out from the crowd and compete with larger firms, they would rather handle delivery in-house.
For the major players, the trend of delivering meals straight to the user without an intermediary is here to stay. However, a small but significant subset of eateries rely on restaurant site builder services but still favor in-house delivery over third-party systems.
- Drone-delivered packages
Many companies worldwide have experimented with the novel concept of online food delivery using drones. Since 2012, many businesses have offered consumers the option of having their meals delivered by drone.
- Robots making deliveries
Drones are one of many options in the food delivery market. Beyond that, by 2020, robots will be used in some of the most cutting-edge models of online food delivery.
Businesses increasingly delegate tasks to computers as artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more pervasive in today’s and tomorrow’s technological applications. There are numerous emerging patterns in online meal ordering, and delivery is just one of them.
Identifying the technological components
The essential components of your app determine the required technology stack. The large amounts of data processed by food delivery apps necessitate a solid and extensible infrastructure. A secure payment mechanism is essential when customers pay for their food via an app. APIs for listing restaurants provide extensive data on dining establishments, and GPS tracking of orders is possible with their incorporation.
Which software development kits (SDKs) and other development resources can be utilized to create an on-demand food delivery app? If you are interested in app development, contact a Food delivery app development company in NewYork. The following is a list of technologies you’ll need to develop a meal delivery app.
Backend
You’ll need a robust backend solution to store all the information necessary for reliable meal delivery. Tayble is an order-taking app for restaurants, and we recently migrated its prototype from Firebase to MongoDB, a document database with a reputation for speed, scalability, and safety. We could build a flexible, load-balanced, and scalable database using MongoDB. We were also able to make copies for specific areas.
Method of payment
Multiple online payment options exist, each with its specific format. It is recommended to implement a secure and dependable payment system. The software development kits (SDKs) offered by companies like Stripe and Braintree are ideal for use in apps that accept online payments.
With the help of Doshii, a cloud platform that aggregates disparate POS systems into a single API, we connected eight POS systems simultaneously in the Tayble project. The end cost was half as much as a conventional system involving a tablet and an external printer because the solution assisted with manual entries and decreased operational costs.
Listing of Eateries
Access to all the necessary information, such as restaurant addresses, working hours, menus, and so on, is crucial when creating a meal delivery platform with various eateries. Fortunately, many API options, like GrubHub, Zomato, and FourSquare Places, are available. Users may always find the most recent menu items and prices with the help of these external APIs. For instance, the Zomato API includes data on over 1.5 million eateries in over 10,000 cities worldwide.
GPS monitoring
Any meal delivery software worth its salt needs geolocation technology. Think about using tools like the Google Geolocation API for Android or the CoreLocation framework for iOS to track orders and find out where they are. You may give drivers directions using the MapKit and Google Directions APIs. Both the Android and iOS versions have the option to incorporate Google Maps.
Communication protocol
Effective communication is required for timely and trouble-free deliveries. The app’s built-in messaging system allows restaurants, couriers, and consumers to maintain open contact lines. Although Twilio is the market leader in its field, it is worth noting that other excellent communication platforms are available. Please look at our findings on including messages and calls into a mobile app to see which works best for your app.
Cost of food delivery app development
Similar to the factors that affect the cost of developing a mobile app for a restaurant, the scope of the project, the app’s launching platform, the number and complexity of features, the need for third-party integrations, and the developer’s hourly rate all play a role in determining the final cost of creating a food delivery app. As a result, the total price tag can be anywhere from $30,000 to $500,000, depending on the scope of your job.
