How To Build A Food Delivery App

The Food Industry has been one of those sectors that have always flourished under any circumstances. The growth of the restaurant business has been nothing but thriving. Over a period of time, dining-in became a time-consuming affair. Then came the concept of take-away. However, in the late 90s, the Restaurant Industry got a massive game-changer. Pizza Hut launched the first-ever online ordering website in 1994. Since then there has been no turning back and now online food delivery has become a billion-dollar business.

The below stats shows the growth of the online food ordering industry versus dining in.

The advent of online food delivery platforms has made the lives of commoners so much easier. Maybe it’s the aftermath of at-home dining or just pure impatience, consumers don’t want to cook every meal or pick it up. Whatever the reason might be this industry continues to be one of the largest and the most competent in recent history.

Per Statista: In the Platform-to-Consumer delivery segment,

The number of users is expected to amount to 965.8m by 2024.

All these facts and numbers indicate that getting into the food delivery business now will prove to be of great benefit in the coming years. Giants like Zomato, Swiggy, Uber eats have already seized the opportunities and are leaving their footprints all over the globe. So, wondering how to make an app like uber for food delivery?

This guide has been curated for that very purpose. It will help you build an effective app that is unique and churns high revenue.

Let’s get started!

Building a food delivery app consists of a lot of planning, preparation, and great accuracy in execution. Let’s break it down into steps so that we can tackle them one by one.

1. Validation of your food delivery app plan
2. Choose a food delivery business model
3. Aggregate all the requirements
4. Finalize the features
5. Decide your tech stack and the infrastructure
6. Choose the right development partner
7. Determine the cost

Before we get our hands deep in the topic let’s see what are the types of food delivery apps you can build?

There are basically two types of delivery apps in the market. Namely,

a) Third party or the Aggregator model:

Apps that are built using this model allow its consumers to choose from an array of restaurants. Customers have access to their menus and reviews, based on which they can place their orders. Once chosen and order is placed with the selected restaurant, it is the restaurant’s responsibility to deliver the food to their customers within a stipulated time frame.

The only drawback in this model is that it works great for an established restaurant, whereas for a startup food joint it is not feasible to invest in separate delivery business.

Example: Zomato.

b) Logistics or the Delivery Service model:

Very similar to the Aggregator model, the only difference being that the order delivery is handled by the application itself.

It’s a win-win for both established and a start-up restaurant as it saves the expenses of a separate delivery system and only adds to their profits.

Example: UberEats

Now that you are aware of the types of application models you can choose to build, let’s now see what are the major requirements for an Uber Clonefood delivery app.

All you need are three basic dashboards.

1. The customer dashboard:

Your business depends solely on the services you provide your customers. Hence, this dashboard is of utmost importance and of great priority. You should make sure that this application has the best of the User Interface providing a smooth User Experience.

They will be using this application to surf through the restaurants and reviews and select from the array of the menu the hotels offer.

The main features this dashboard should have been,

1. Registration
2. Profile management
3. Easy browsing
4. Featuring preferences on the homepage
5. Order tracking system
6. Smooth payment gateway
7. Easy canceling and refund processes
8. Reviews and Ratings
9. Rewards and Loyalty benefits
10. Push notifications

2. The admin dashboard:

This is the dashboard that will be used by the food delivery app authorities to maintain the whole operation. And hence it should be planned and developed with great precision.

Through this application, payments, delivery, orders, and other logistics are managed.

Even the slightest bug will cause great financial and reputational loss to the owner of the business.

The main features this dashboard should have been,

1. Restaurant sign-up page: comprising a description of the restaurant, location, timings, estimated cost, contact information, etc
2. Content management page: consisting of menus and photos of their cuisines
3. Order tracking system
4. Cross communication interface that allows the restaurant to speak with both the customer and the delivery partner

3. The delivery person dashboard:

This app is solely for the delivery personals. All the features that will enable smooth delivery should be coded into the application. In brief, this application should notify them of any new orders which they can either accept or reject. Along with that, they should also be able to find out the drop location of the order, and the route map to that place.

The main features this dashboard should have been,

1. Sign-up page
2. Order management page: to manage order real-time and to get details regarding the order such as- location, order size, and customer’s contact information
3. Option to estimate the delivery time
4. Cross communication interface that allows the delivery partners to speak with both the customer and the restaurant
5. Order history Option

The next important step in building your own on-demand food delivery app is to choose the apt Technological Infrastructure.

This is the most crucial decision of your business plan. You can do this in two ways.

1. Build it from scratch – on your own or by hiring an efficient tech team
2. Integrate ready-made Uber clone software’s

Both options have their pros and cons. However, the second option is what we would recommend for aspiring entrepreneurs given the time and financial aspects of app development.

There are few tech stacks in the market readily available. Some are listed below.

1) Payment integration:

• Braintree, Stripe, E-Wallets for online payments.
• Have an option for COD as well

2) Database storage:

• AWS
• Google Cloud

3) Framework:

• Android
• iOS

4) For tracking:

• Google Location API for Android
• Core Location Framework for iOS

5) Navigation:

• Android Maps API
• Mapkit for iOS devices

6) For listing menu:

• Foursquare
• Grubhub API

7) Login and Registration:

• Social media login such as facebook, Instagram, etc or
• Mailing account

8) Analytics:

• Google Analytics
• MixPanel

9) Push notifications:

• Amazon SNS
• Urban Airship
• Firebase Cloud Messaging

Now that you have all the required elements for your app. The last on your preparation list is to know the cost estimation for your on-demand food delivery app.

It is a simple calculation based on the formula,

App Development Cost = Total Number of Hours * Hourly Rate

However, this completely depends on all your choices. From choosing what technology to what features you will integrate to which developer you will hire or if you will develop it on your own.

All said and done, investing in the food industry has never resulted in any kind of loss. In fact, it is the right time to start your journey and lay your own path and leave your footprints in the industry of food delivery!

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• The importance of web application architecture when designing an app for your business
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• Why Are Product Labels Important in Your Food Business?
• How to Design Impressive Food Packaging for Business?