“Food is the ultimate joy of life”
Now, how many of you strongly stand by this statement? Well, I can tell with all certainty that many of us can. Among the many pleasures offered by life, one is a sumptuous meal. People work day and night to be able to afford many necessities and luxuries, and food is one of them.
Be it at a usual food stall, food market, restaurant, high-profile eating places, we just all love heading there, isn’t it? But seriously can anything beat that experience of enjoying your favorite meals sitting in the comfort of your home, chilling alone or with family & friends, or watching Netflix or reading a book? Like, heading out and eating is fun occasionally, but that does not happen every day. And this is the reason behind the humongous prominence of delivery and food delivery app development.
These on-demand mobile solutions let people place orders for their favorite food from their choice of the restaurant simply at the ease of their fingertips. Life can’t get any better, can it?
Well, why not make the most of the trend and enter the market with the most promising Food Delivery App Development in Singapore can have?
Before you decide to sail the boat, first let’s have a better understanding of the concept and working of the mobile app.
Understanding the Concept of Food Delivery App Development
Food delivery application development companies have been ruling the food industry for a few years now. Though they started from the big cities, today these apps have even reached small towns & cities, and are offering food delivery services from every nook and corner of the place. Among the many known food ordering apps out there, Deliveroo, UberEats, Postmates, GrubHub, FoodPanda, Zomato, happen to be the most prominent names. These mobile apps have a permanent spot in the mobile phones of most smartphone users.
Today, the millennials are deviating towards bringing the dining out experience into a dining setup, where they like their food to come to them rather than they go out for it. Restaurants and eateries around the world are more than eager to cash into this phenomenon. They collaborate with the best Food Delivery App Development firms that bring together features like a wide range of eateries, restaurants, cuisines, & payment options under one roof to make the order placements a lot easier for the foodies.
Quite literally these apps and services have the potential to change the face of the food ordering & delivery industry, and hence all businesses and start-ups that are entering the food industry need a mobile app more than they need a website.
So if you are a business that is looking to make a mark in the food delivery industry, then right now no option is better than hiring a food delivery app developer.
To further learn how these food deliveries mobile apps help in the growth of your business and to understand the process of creating one for your business, continue reading.
Market Statistics & Research Regarding Food Delivery Apps
The current market of food delivery app development companies is expanding globally. China is the number one leader with a user base of 650 million people worldwide, while the next giant in this industry is no doubt the USA with a worth of $26.5B across the world. If the research is anything to go by, this transition of the food business from offline to now online is huge and today it is a worldwide trend. Online food delivery statistics reveal that in the year 2020, the most used food delivery services in the United Stated were UberEats, DoorDash, Yelp, GrubHub, Postmates, and Amazon Restaurants since then there is no looking back. The graph has shown exponential growth from that time.
Needless to say, there are numerous benefits of these apps-aggregators – for both the food consumers as well as the suppliers. The forecast reveals that each year, the entire revenue of the food tech market is growing at a great pace.
Creation of a Food Delivery Mobile Application
With the advent of countless tools & technologies, food ordering mobile app development has become a lot easier. However, as per the kind of food delivery app you want to create for your business, there are certain guidelines that you need to abide by. So, here let’s explore them.
Target Market:
When experts develop food delivery apps for your business they make sure the aesthetics attract your target audience.
Usually, the choice of target market depends on the goals & needs of the users. Like, a food delivery mobile app may choose to deliver healthy and low-calorie food only (such as salads, soups, etc.) with specifically curated menus as per customers’ diets comprising recipes & ingredients. Other food ordering apps may choose to offer multi-cuisine food (like Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Indian cuisine).
Then some businesses hire experts for food delivery app development where they deal with grocery products delivery, or it could be delivering products directly from the fisherman & farmers. What a food delivery platform can do is that it serves various types of users, like:
- People who have no time to cook
- People who like to order in their food for weekends
- Holidays/Events
- Student parties
- Corporate Dinners
Hence, it is clear that these platforms have a great choice for finding the right target audience/market for their apps.
Competitors Analysis:
The competition in this food delivery arena is immense, and if you don’t want to fall on the list of failures, then competitor analysis is a must before your restaurant’s mobile app development. You can base your research on the competition platforms according to services, location, customers, profit & loss, and success stories & failures. Then, as per this data you can then provide desired and unique solutions that meet the goals & needs of the users. This way, it gets easier to count on market leadership.
Ensure Effortless Cooperation:
So, eventually, the one thing that ensures the success of the food delivery platforms is trusted & smooth cooperation between the business & restaurants, local farming, or the food vendors. Your choice of future partners would depend on your food delivery business model.
For example, GrubHub, an intermediary firm, works in partnership with the restaurants, where the restaurants are paying the commission fee for the orders, customers – for delivering. As a result, the partners are receiving more orders and getting publicity as well, whereas a delivery app garners a rapid increase in the user flow. This way, the strong relationship and smooth cooperation with the partners, allow the firm to attain success in this arena. With online food delivery app development on the same concept, we make sure that you get the best results on your investment.
Tech Features & Solutions:
A robust food delivery platform requires implementing the functionalities that meet the drivers, restaurant staff, and customers’ needs.
When talking about ‘how to make a food delivery app’, there are a lot of aspects that you need to fix. To satisfy all the parties or three groups of tech features need to be developed.
- The customers require having a streamlined website, easy online food ordering, easy restaurant lists, and a simple menu layout.
- In the case of the restaurant side, they require having an order-in management platform, CMS & CRM systems, maximum process automation, and minimum human interference.
- Then comes the Drivers’ side. Here, they require having access to a list of orders & required external services.
UX/UI Design:
As the app design comes into perspective, it needs to be ensured that it is entirely user-friendly and encourages user engagement. Also, keep the design frame in mind as per the number of platforms you are choosing for your app, whether you want to go for a single platform, or multiple platforms with iOS, Android or both.
These are a few aspects of food delivery app development that one needs to consider, to make a strong presence in the dominant market. If you want to take your business high then, hire the online food app development team.
Business Models to Create a Food Delivery Mobile App
Finally, we have reached the stage of food delivery mobile app development. But before we dig deeper, you should understand these two basic approaches to create and operate a food delivery app. As per the service providers you are involving, your app is going to fall into two of the major types:
Aggregator Application:
Here the app does the job of connecting restaurants & their customers, where the app can be considered as a marketplace, where the restaurants are offering their services, while the customers choose & pay. The restaurants are responsible for the food delivery themselves using the service they are most comfortable with.
App with delivery service:
Here, apart from the restaurants and the customers, there is a third user group of the app, i.e. Delivery service providers. Here, the app is taking care of food delivery; hence restaurants don’t need to maintain their delivery personnel. Here, the deliveries are arranged within the app via on-demand delivery service providers, who are also having the same app.
By now you must have understood that the main difference between the two types here, is in the first one-two groups of users are there: Restaurants & Customers, whereas in the second one there is one added group of food delivery service providers. So, in a second, you need to build one added interface for drivers and arranging for delivery service.
Market Leaders
- UberEats: Also known as Uber Delivery is growing at a rate of 130% in the analysis of 2020, by a bank. They have adopted a unique acquisition channel for their business.
- Swiggy and Zomato: They are the food industry unicorns, with a revenue of $3B and $5B respectively for food delivery at the doorsteps across the world.
Essentials Features to Include in Food Delivery Mobile App
When it comes to talking about food delivery applications, it becomes quite easier for the development team to list down the features. A feature-laden application can help you bring your customers together.
The food delivery mobile app consists of two or three user panels depending on your app type.
- Customer Panel
- Restaurant Panel
- Delivery Panel
Now all the platforms would consist of specific features, but registration with the application is one feature that remains common in all the platforms. For any of these personnel to communicate with the app properly, the online mobile food delivery app team makes it easier for the team.
Registration: Be it food customers, a restaurant, or a driver, whoever wishes to participate in the app, needs to register in the app and make profiles. Here the registration is done by using the email ID, phone number, or via social networks.
Features for Restaurant Panel:
This food delivery app panel is used and managed by the restaurants that are participating in your service. Here the food delivery app developer ensures the restaurant takes care of everything from posting the menus to accepting orders, processing payments, and food delivery.
- Loyalty Programs: Restaurants need to run several schemes to ensure that the customers return to their restaurant, and for the same, they can offer loyalty programs as well. Here, the program stores order history, amount paid by each customer, orders frequency, tying all statistics to customers’ profiles. Accordingly, the rewards are distributed to the customers in the form of discounts, bonus points, etc. The food delivery app development industry has made it quite interesting for people to order food online and earn great points.
- Multiple Payment Integration: Integrate the app with a secure and transparent payment integration system that includes everything from the prominent debit and credit cards, and payment systems like Stripe or PayPal. For full customer satisfaction and smooth service, you can include a delay mechanism, unlock payment to a restaurant only once the food order is delivered & confirmed by the customer.
- Manage Content: The CMS (content management system) allows adding and editing the entire content that is related to the restaurant’s business, consisting of the restaurant menus, specialties, contact details, promotions, prices, etc. Ensure that the restaurant delivery app also supports the image upload feature as this allows restaurants to add pictures of their food and cuisine.
- Order Management: Hire an on-demand mobile application development team, to build your food delivery app, it becomes quite important for them to give you the ease of accepting and declining the orders. Also, check the most ordered dishes and the day’s output in general.
Restaurant panel features are to be quick, comprehensive, and fast. While in traditional methods keeping records of the orders placed and orders delivered was quite difficult. Let your customers record the orders delivered and received, update the menu, add loyalty programs on their own without reaching a tech-support person directly.
For this our online food delivery, mobile app development team trains your team and is always available if you need any assistance.
Features for Admin Panel:
This tends to be the most complex panel, as it is responsible for a lot of aspects – taking food orders from customers, communicating with the delivery team, menus, and estimations of food preparation time. Admin Panel is for the dispatcher who has to keep this whole process together, and hence it has to be easy, intuitive, provide real-time information and be configurable. Admin must be able to view incoming food orders, set time estimates for food preparation, update order status, and make alterations on the go if required.
- Connect with Driver and Customer: For any confusion, it is the admin’s responsibility, to connect with various panels, and come to a certain conclusion. Sometimes a few accounts are blocked or suspended, these all are done by the admin of the application. If there is a point of difference then the admin comes up with a solution.
- Listen to Customer Query: The complaints go to the admin as well as the restaurant and then further action is taken. Our online restaurant food delivery app developers make it a point that you get exactly all your customers and associates on the same page in case of any confusion.
- Arrange for the Drivers: The food delivery apps are designed specifically for restaurants that do not have their delivery systems. Thus, it becomes an important responsibility of the admin of the food delivery app owner to deliver results that can help your customers get the food from their favorite restaurants at the ease of their homes.
Well, over the years we have worked with a few food delivery app businesses and they are quite impressed with the features that are added to their products.
Features for Delivery Service Panel:
In case your app offers delivery service including drivers and couriers, then it requires an additional user panel in the form of a delivery service provider. Here, these serve as a link between restaurant & customer and thus have access to certain information from both.
The features that your food delivery app development service provider needs to integrate into this panel are:
- Customer Rating: This feature is useful for drivers & couriers as this way they can rate the customers. There could be issues caused by customers, such as providing an inaccurate address, unpleasant conduct, or delays in order collection, all of which earn the customers a low rating and cause them frequent order rejections. This way, customer ratings increase driver satisfaction with your service.
- GPS Navigation: GPS helps delivery guys to get the right directions and judge distance from their current location to both pickup & drop-off locations. This way it gets easier for them to decide whether to accept an order and know the estimated delivery time. Then, it enables the customers to track delivery in real-time. And last but not least, it also shows the nearby drivers and this probably can be helpful with delivery, if an emergency arises.
- Order Management: The delivery executive must be given all the required information to deliver the order, such as size, contact number, customer address, pickup location, etc. Additionally, they are required to update order status as well – accept or reject, show the order as it is in progress/picked-up/on the way/delivered.
The driver panel may seem a little simple but it does require a lot of effort and a comprehensive approach to building a panel that takes care of the needs. The online food delivery mobile app developers can make it quite easier for you to get the best solutions for your business.
Features of Customer Panel:
- Search: This is an essential feature in the customer panel, as this way the customers would be able to find their favorite food item or cuisine they are keen to eat. Try including a filter system by – name of Dish, Restaurant Name or Location, Cuisine Type, Ingredients, Price, and Dietary specifics. This way, it gets easier to ensure that the users can successfully find what they’re looking for.
- Order Tracking: This functionality serves as a counterpart of GPS navigation mentioned in the delivery panel. This allows the customers to track their food orders on a map and thus they can plan their further activities, instead of waiting for their orders for hours without being able to leave for even a few minutes. However, now the customers can easily see their food moves on the map and manage the time accordingly and easily.
- Payment Options: Same as on the restaurant platform, here as well, the multiple payment modes integration allows the customers to choose between credit cards & payment systems.
- Social Share: This feature is certainly an all-time favorite for the customers, allowing them to share their experience instantly with their family and friends, via their social media accounts. Now keep in mind that it also paves a way for viral marketing, as the customers are not just sharing their experience, but in a way are promoting the restaurants and the entire service as well.
- Order History: This feature allows customers to have a look at their previous orders. This way they can easily remember what they liked earlier or didn’t like any, follow price dynamics, and in case they are participating in any loyalty program running, then they can reconcile the bonus points earned.
- Rate the drivers: Apart from rating the restaurants and services, customers also like to rate the drivers. If the driver has received negative reviews and ratings, for an order, then he won’t get any further orders in the future for delivery.
- Ratings & Reviews: This is the most loved feature of customers as whenever they are in the mood to try out something new, they look for the reviews. They like to see what others are saying about a specific dish or they can read reviews on service quality. Often customers also like providing feedback on their experience with a restaurant or service as a whole, thus these features prove essential.
For now, we have explored the essential features and functionalities for a food delivery mobile app, it is time to discuss the cost to create an app.
What Factors Influence Cost of Development of Food Delivery Mobile App?
If you want to create a food ordering app for your business in Singapore, then you would first want to know about the whole cost of the app development process. Now there are several factors on which the cost of creating a Food Delivery Mobile app depends.
Technical Aspects
It is vital to choose the right technology before beginning with the development work. Now as per the budget, features, and platform (or platforms) it can vary from PHP to ruby. Other factors are whether you are going for Android or iOS, hybrid apps, native apps, using third-party integrations like app clones, SDKs, and APIs. No matter what choice you make, it will certainly affect the cost as well as the effort required for the app creation.
Another crucial part of technical aspects is the UX and UI of a mobile app. One aims at making it smooth, fast, and flawless, integrating payment modes, order selection, and menu processing. This is best to give a personalized experience to the users, encourage the users to enhance app engagement, and keep visiting it in the future for food ordering. All of these technical aspects do impact the cost of the app.
Features & Functionalities
Ultimately, it would be the features that you provided within your app that would set you apart from the rest. There are several features that a food delivery app can be integrated with such as In-built Tracker, Geo Location, Push Notifications, Search button, social media logins, and many more. These features are essential to make your app likable to the users and user-friendly. Now the cost of the app will certainly depend on the features and functionalities you add to the app. In case you are on a limited budget or unsure of your app’s certainty, you can try going for the MVP model, to begin with.
Budget
Ultimately all comes down to the app pricing and only then can one go ahead with the things. So, as it comes to deciding the pricing and budget for the development, keep a few things in mind, like:
- The number of features to include in the app to provide to the users.
- Are you going for Android or iOS? Keep in mind that Android usually costs less?
- Are you going for backend development or are there any third-party app integrations? In the case of backend development, they cost more but are best for the long-term, whereas third-party is apt for a short budget but in the long-term, it adds up to the huge costs.
- Will you integrate your app with social media and will there be an admin panel in your app.
- The costs to develop a cross-platform mobile app are lower when compared to creating a native mobile app.
- The team hired by you will take a massive amount of your set budget, so restrain from going overboard while hiring the overqualified personnel.
- If you desire your app to be visually flattering with a complex design, the higher is going to be the cost.
- The app will require maintenance post-release as well as upgrades.
The cost to develop a food delivery mobile app
If you are planning to develop a basic food delivery app with simple and plain UX/UI, simple search, and basic functionality for your app, then the food delivery app development cost would be lesser if you choose to go for the mobile app development company. The maintenance costs are also minimal for basic apps.
Then for the apps with advanced features and functionalities, social media integration, payment gateway integration, push notifications, navigators, the cost may vary.
As per your development budget, you can make a choice. However, the average cost with basic team members such as Project Manager, UX/UI Designer, Android/ iOS Developers, Quality Analysis Experts, Backend Developer, would be lesser for app development and it would be $25-30/hour with development time ranging around three to four months.
The Final Words
When talking about food delivery app development, it becomes quite complicated, to bring a solution that can beat the existing competition. We have come a long way over the years in providing unique and interesting solutions to clients. If you want your food delivery application to stand out from the completion, just reach us and share your business idea with us for engaging solutions.
