Building Your Own Food Delivery App

For the modern person, a food delivery service is something that is hard to live without. Everyone wants to place orders quickly, at any time of the day, and see the entire range of available dishes and products on their smartphone screen. Cafes, restaurants, and stores that provide this opportunity through a mobile app have a high chance of success.

From this article, you will learn more about how to make a food delivery app. You will also understand how to promote such apps and what marketing tasks their owners face.

The Booming Food Delivery Industry: Opportunities for Entrepreneurs

Statista forecasts active growth in the online food delivery industry over the next few years. According to their research, starting from 2024, the CAGR will be 10.1%. By 2028, the market will reach US$1.79tn.

Knowing this trend, you can confidently invest in a food ordering app and soon receive a solid profit from your project.

Which Businesses Need a Food Delivery App?

If you have your own small business in the cuisine preparation or sales industry, then you should learn more about the benefits that a food delivery application can offer.

1. Restaurants and Cafés. An app helps expand the customer base beyond the location of the establishment.
2. Ghost Kitchens. This business is already linked to food delivery services. New opportunities include increasing the number of orders.
3. Chain and Franchise Restaurants. The ability to consistently serve customers in different locations is a key priority for such organizations. Developing a food delivery app in this case would be a good solution for optimizing the business.
4. Health and Wellness Services. Meeting the needs for dietary products is a special niche in the grocery delivery market. It can see significant growth in food ordering through the creation of a mobile app.
5. Grocery Stores and Specialty Food Shops. Serving customers through on-demand food delivery is a profitable niche in retail.

But that’s not all. An app is also beneficial for courier services and intermediaries between the seller and the buyer — aggregators or food delivery platforms.

How to Make a Food Delivery App: 9 Steps to Success

To understand how to create a food delivery app, it's important to determine what specific benefits you want from the final product. It’s also useful to consider the main and additional features of the solution and how it will be monetized.

But most importantly, you must envision how it will stand out among dozens or hundreds of similar apps. 

Research Competitors and Market Needs

All entrepreneurs currently operating in the cuisine delivery market strive for one main goal: to find their customer and retain them. Some succeed better than others.

It's essential to analyze your competitors' business models and identify their weaknesses and strengths. Remember, it’s unlikely you'll quickly conquer the market and achieve a high level. For this, you'll need to consider the current demands of your target audience and the specifics of the market.

Define Your Unique Value Proposition

A food delivery app is like a small restaurant or café in the user's pocket. Your task is to bring something new, special, that isn’t yet on the market. This could be a unique feature for selecting dishes based on preferences, delivery much faster than competitors, or a lucrative loyalty program.

Keep thinking about your idea, try to analyze trends and directions in this industry, and look for opportunities to adapt the app to the specific needs of consumers. Take the most interesting features from competitors and add a touch of what you do best.

Choose the Right Business Model

If you consider the entire vast industry of online ordering and food delivery to customers, three main business models can be distinguished. Each has its specific features.

• Aggregator

This model involves combining several sellers on one platform. The aggregator acts as an intermediary. The main goal of such sites or apps is to facilitate user access to information from various sources.

On the platform, users can quickly compare menus, prices, and reviews. When ordering cuisine on such a resource, no additional fees are charged to the buyer. Aggregators only collect a fixed margin from sellers' orders.

• New Delivery

These services provide sellers with both aggregator and delivery services simultaneously. The owner organizes logistics and creates their own courier service. The delivery fee is set by the delivery service provider.

Generally, the model allows users to compare various offers and order dishes both through the mobile app and the website. 

• Fully Integrated

This is the most flexible business model available on the market. It is an ideal solution for many facilities. But for this, you need to invest in unique food delivery app development.

Your own service not only retains profitability from dishes but also significantly expands the audience. In this case, customers evaluate the work of the specific establishment, not the intermediary. As a result, the rating of the café, restaurant, or store can significantly increase.

It's important to choose the optimal business model, taking into account the following criteria:

• convenience of delivery for customers; 
• alignment with your core business goals;
• the scale of planned technological achievements.

Whatever you choose, the competitiveness of your enterprise will increase in any case.

Create a User Interface 

Once you’ve made the right decision and plan to create a food delivery app, the main task is to create a simple and clear user interface for ordering cuisine.

A well-constructed interface will play a big role in the correct assembly of orders by the seller. It’s also important to ensure convenience for the third party (e.g., the courier service) in tracking the order status and accessing other options related to delivery.

Choose the Right Tech Stack for Custom App

This is a combination of various tools needed to build a food delivery app, as well as a set of specific programming languages. Why pay attention to this? To create an app that fits your business exactly.

The choice of tech stack usually depends on:

• Functionality. This is the set of features you want to see in your final product.
• Development time and cost. The chosen tech stack can significantly affect the time needed to develop a food delivery app.
• Scalability.  If you want your product to efficiently handle an increasing number of users and requests, the tech stack allows you to adapt to these changes without compromising the app's performance.
• Maintainability. The simplicity of maintenance, updates, and debugging are likely relevant issues throughout the lifecycle of your app.

For project implementation, programming languages such as JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Java, Kotlin, Swift, and Objective-C are used. Popular frameworks and libraries include:

• React,
• AngularJS, 
• Vue.js, 
• Ruby on Rails, 
• Express.js, 
• Next.js
• Nest.js,
• Django, 
• Flask.

The workflow takes place in integrated environments such as Visual Studio Code, Sublime Text, and Atom. 

The testing phase is carried out using tools like Cypress, Selenium, Postman, and others.

Implementing Functions for Delivery Mobile App for Client, Courier, and Administrator

To build a food delivery app, it is necessary to develop three separate versions: client, courier, and administrator. Each of them is filled with its key features.

Client Version

Besides being visually appealing and easy to use, it should have the main features:

• profile creation;
• order management;
• payments;
• ratings and reviews; 
• Push notifications.

Additionally, the mobile app owner may decide to add other desired features, such as a search filter, the ability to modify dishes, etc.

Courier Version

The work of the courier service is a crucial link that determines the overall efficiency of the establishment, so this version of the app should include the following features:

• profile creation;
• order management;
• order status tracking; 
• map creation with locations and routes.

The courier version should not be too overloaded but should be clear and accessible.

Administrator Version

Administration is not only about accepting and processing orders but also about solving problems and conflicts, controlling the work of couriers, and much more. The features in the administrator version should include:

• access to personal profiles of clients and couriers; 
• content management;
• order processing; 
• receiving payments. 

Other features are selected individually and mainly depend on the specific characteristics of the establishment.

Comply with Food Delivery Business Requirements

There are guidelines outlined in the “New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint” project, specifically designed for food industry and food service companies. This project ensures the safety of meals delivered directly to consumers.

Currently, the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is in effect. It was introduced after millions of foodborne illnesses were recorded in the early 2000s. Its main goal is the safety of food products delivered to consumers, especially prepared meals.

Regarding mobile applications, there is a law on user data privacy. This law regulates the collection and storage of only the client data necessary for their intended purpose. Food delivery apps are not allowed to collect excessive or irrelevant personal data.

Adopting such an approach by the app owner not only ensures compliance with legal obligations but also increases user trust.

Promote Your Food Delivery Mobile App

So, your mobile app is finally ready to be released. It has gone through all development stages, including testing. You may have already launched its beta version to test all major functions before the main release.

Making a food delivery app is only part of the work. Now you need to create a strong marketing plan to quickly and effectively attract customers to your business using the new mobile solution.

Firstly, make sure that your newly created product works as you intended, and all shortcomings and errors are properly fixed.

The next points of your marketing plan will be:

• Engage various channels. The goal is to create hype and encourage people to download the app. This can include social media, affiliate programs, advertising in local news resources, and more.
• Use special offers or bonuses. This will encourage your potential customers to try the app as soon as possible and place an order.
• Plan the release for a specific day. A coordinated launch that has been well-advertised will quickly attract interest in the new app.

Keep in mind that launching your digital product on marketing platforms like the App Store and Google Play doesn’t happen overnight. Your app must go through a review process to meet the requirements of these services.

Monitor and Improve the Mobile App's Performance

After releasing the product and earning your first profit, don’t stop there. You should regularly analyze user interactions with the app to continuously improve and enhance your service.

Firstly, you should be interested in visit statistics. This information will give you insights into the number of app users who have downloaded it. It will also allow you to analyze data and identify possible gaps.

Important information includes:

• number of active users;
• session duration;
• number of crashes;
• app loading time;
• order growth dynamics;
• increase in new clients;
• user segmentation by gender and age;
• rating and reviews.

Always respond promptly to reviews, especially negative ones. This will help you quickly identify and fix bugs in the app and adjust it according to the target users’ requirements.

 Such an approach will ensure more satisfied customers for your business, thereby increasing your revenue.

Key Features of Successful Food Delivery Apps

• User-friendly interface

A friendly interface allows users to easily navigate the app and move through it efficiently. The main goal of creating a convenient interface is to ensure an ideal user experience

• Real-time tracking

Order tracking in real-time is an important tool for a food delivery app. This tool uses GPS and logistics databases to determine the current status of the order and the location of the courier or vehicle at any given time.In a food delivery app, this tracking is useful not only for the seller, who needs to know the stage of each order, but also for the courier and, most importantly, the clien

• Secure payment options

Having this option in the mobile app builds trust with users. Reliable technologies should be chosen for payment processing to help protect people’s personal and financial data from various types of fraud.

Is your app already attracting new clients, but you want to increase your income even more? Analyze the main features you have equipped your mobile product with. Maybe something isn’t working as planned, or you’ve found a more interesting option and want to improve the program?

You might need to conduct a survey among users to identify the need to replace some design elements or fix the navigation. Always remember: a client's impression depends on their first few minutes in the app. Therefore, a clear interface and convenient features are crucial to success.

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