They say that great bonds are built over a meal together. In fact, food has been connecting people and cultures around the world since time immemorial in a way that nothing else can.
So if you are in the food business, you have made a good choice. And if you are in the food industry, you must have thought about how to create an app like Uber Eats, one of the best food delivery apps the market has seen.
Food delivery apps are growing rapidly as more and more people opt for the luxury of having food delivered to their doorstep. Think about it, why not skip straight to a gourmet meal and avoid the time-consuming steps in between, such as preparing and driving to the restaurant of your choice?
As a business owner who wants to connect food to your end users faster and more efficiently, you would naturally think about a food delivery app development.
In this blog, we will take a quick look at the relevance of online food delivery apps, the main features and functions that your food delivery app must have, and how you can create an app that will help you reach more food enthusiasts.
How to create a food delivery app?
Creating a food delivery app that has the ability to reach a large audience is not an easy task, but it can be done if you approach it the right way. And as you already know, the right way to approach any new task is to get as much information as possible before you get down to the real work. This brings us to the first step in building an app like Uber Eats:
1. Do your research
There are no shortcuts to success. Before venturing into the food business, you need to know your business idea and its potential like the back of your hand.
2. Finalize the budget
Budgets are important and help you avoid overspending in one place or spending on the wrong things. When you get down to the actual development of a software product, you may have to stretch the budget a bit, but you still need to set the budget as if it were final.
3. Identify your audience
Before you start developing your app, it’s important to identify and understand your audience. Proper market research can help you with this. If you don’t know who you suit, you won’t be able to decide what features and options to equip your app with.
But more on that later! So keep reading!
4. Choose a business model
Choose a business model that will help you generate the revenue needed to meet your financial projections.
5. Figure out the logistics
Once you know your audience, you need to figure out how to get food from their kitchens to their tables. Consider questions to help you understand the support staff and equipment you’ll need to cover the last mile of your business process.
6. Tenancy law
Your food delivery app is only as good as the good team that created it. Check out our tips on how to hire the right mobile app developers to help you develop your mobile app.
7. Design your app
When designing your application, consider the user experience you want to provide. You can design great user flows if you get UI and UX designers who know the market.
8. Develop your app
Finally, you will enter the development phase! Once your food delivery app looks good on paper, it’s time to bring it to life with the help of your development team.
9. Test your app
Before launching, make sure your app works and has no significant bugs.
10. Run the application
Market your app on various social media channels and launch it for the whole world to enjoy! You can check our blog for the best time to launch the app.
11. Adapt, adapt and evolve
At the end of the day, it’s about making innovation and technology your best friends. If you want to stay relevant, keep developing!
Why does your grocery business need a delivery app?
As cliché as it sounds, the world is definitely going digital. And because consumers crave convenience, you need to keep up with changing trends in the food industry if you want to stay relevant in the market. Check out the statistics showing the significant growth of the food delivery market over the last five years.
It is also not enough to prepare delicious food that melts in your mouth. After ensuring a certain quality of food, the restaurants and hotels involved should make sure that their food reaches their audience.
while it’s still hot.
Truth be told, the logistics involved in building a food delivery app like Uber are certainly complex, but it can be done. And with the right support team, it’s easy to do. So go for it!
What are the main features your app must have?
It’s really not enough to create an app like Uber Eats that can offer food delivery services.
Your application must also respond to the needs of all stakeholders. That means you need to develop a food delivery app that benefits your customers, participating restaurants, and let’s not forget the heroes who make it all possible – your delivery boys and girls.
When developing an app like Uber Eats, keep these key features in mind:
1. Customer Oriented Side:
The front end of your app is what your end users, the people buying food, see first. You need to make sure that you are providing an app that will reach your end users and make them buy food from the restaurants that you list.
Here are some of the main features that the user side of your food delivery app must have:
- An easy-to-integrate platform with minimal sign-up procedures.
- Once a user registers your app, they need to be able to quickly find what they want. This is where your listings page comes in, which is basically a catalog of all the grocery stores that deliver to your user.
- So yes, you need to ensure smooth navigation and a clutter-free interface so that your users don’t get confused and give up on their quest for good food.
- You’ll need geolocation features to help your users find restaurants or other food outlets near them, as well as help them track their food after placing an order.
- Once your user finds a restaurant to their liking, they’ll need a functional cart to place their food in (practically, of course). It’s also good to give your users the freedom to place multiple orders from a variety of restaurants at once, rather than just one restaurant at a time.
- Make sure you have the right payment gateway integration to allow users to pay seamlessly. Remember to focus on making your payments in a safe and secure environment.
- Your customers will also want to track their food and once the food is delivered, they will want to rate the delivery staff as well as the quality of the food. So order tracking and rating and review systems are features you can’t overlook.
- You can also include features like order scheduling, provisions for downloading order history and repeat orders and push notifications to get the best deals and offers to your users.
- And last but not least, don’t forget to add a robust help and support system to your app so you can stay connected to your customers’ needs.
2. The side facing the restaurant:
Now that we’ve covered the features your app should have to delight your customers, you need to think about the restaurants that prepare the food.
Let’s take a look at the features you need to include in food outlets that serve food through your app:
- The primary function any restaurant would look for is order management. So that they can manage multiple jobs at the same time.
- Your restaurant clients will also appreciate a good financial and accounting module that will help them keep track of all the financial transactions they’ve made using your app.
- Another feature you can add to keep restaurant users happy is a centralized dashboard that allows them to get a 360-degree view of the orders they’re processing, such as new orders, canceled orders, and completed orders, among others.
- Let’s not forget that you will have to give them a choice to accept or decline the orders that come their way.
- You also need to make sure that users on the restaurant side can easily update their listing page to keep their end users up to date with new dishes, discounted prices, and food availability.
- As always, payment gateway integration plays a huge role in keeping clients on the restaurant side, and they’ll be even more pleased when you help them manage their brand across multiple locations.
- You can also add additional features such as new order alerts and notifications, payment tracking, order reports, and staff management modules.
3. Party delivering persons:
Your commitment to providing exceptional food delivery experiences should also extend to participating delivery workers. After all, if it weren’t for hard-working delivery partners, the great food your customer order would simply go stale in restaurant kitchens.
Here are some features to keep in mind when building an app like Uber Eats to keep your delivery drivers happy:
- The most important features to help your delivery staff include a quick and easy registration process followed by a streamlined process.
- You need to help them get an assignment of order requests from restaurants that are near their location and also help them track the deliveries and corresponding payments they process.
- One of the main capabilities a delivery person needs is the ability to stay connected at all times – both with the restaurant and the end user. So make sure you include a thriving chat support feature that syncs online and offline.
- It’s also a good idea to equip your delivery people with features to manage orders, track status updates, and accept or reject orders.
- Now here’s something that most people overlook – the feedback feature. The ability to give ratings and reviews shouldn’t be limited to your front-end users. You need to empower your delivery staff to provide feedback on their delivery experience as well as ensure that all your stakeholders are satisfied.
Take away
Food never goes out of style, so it’s always good to explore the relationship between food and evolving technology.
You will find that food delivery apps like Uber Eats will not be a luxury but a necessity in the coming years.
So, if you want to dive into the food delivery business, now is the time!
If you need to build a great food delivery app and make sure all parties involved are happy, just tell one of our experts and we’ll help!
