Food delivery is not a new concept as the world’s first pizza was delivered way back in the year 1889. The on-demand food delivery service market now rising at a rapid pace. What are the best applications for food delivery in your country? DoorDash is the best food delivery app in the USA and one of the largest by sales, market cap, and has recognition as a brand in the world.
If you have some pressing questions for a food delivery business app like these:
- What do you need to look for in the food delivery app?
- Next, do you have enough resources to manage the whole process?
- What all will be your technical requirements?
- How you will be managing the deliveries?
- How will you deliver your orders on time?
KnowBand has prepared this blog to answer all your how’s and why’s. The food delivery business requires proper planning and a structural approach. Initially, you have to decide the area (location) in which you are going to deliver your food.
This article is specially curated for entrepreneurs interested in launching a food delivery app. Let’s start with statistics and the development of the online food delivery industry.
Statistics and developments of the global food delivery market
The overall annual growth in the food delivery market is expected to rise by 3.5% in the next five years.
- It is estimated that the food distribution industry will cross USD 200 billion by 2025.
- Once a week, 60 % of customers order delivery or takeout.
- At least twice a week, 31 % use these third-party distribution services.
- Since 2014, digital ordering and delivery have risen 300% more quickly than dine-in traffic.
- Also, 87 % who use food delivery services offered by third parties believe that it makes their lives easier.
- Rapid digitalization and growth in both online customer base and spending will assist India’s online food industry to become an $8 billion market by 2022–increasing by 25-30 % CAGR.
You must have heard the names of the world’s famous food delivery apps.
Famous food delivery apps 2021
US
- Grubhub
- Doordash
- UberEats
- Postmates
- Instacart
- Delivery.com
- goPuff
- ChowNow
UK
- Just Eat.
- Food Hub.
- Deliveroo.
- Hungry House.
- Uber Eats.
- Quiqup
- Amazon Restaurants
- FEAST
- Henchman
Most important features to make a food delivery business successful:
Look for the demand and trends in the market
The demand for the delivery of food has increased significantly over time. People are changing their preferences towards online shopping and food ordering, with many more technology-driven developments coming into the frame!
This trend is only expected to see higher growth with fast food becoming a standard in the country. So if you’re a seller who doesn’t want to tie up with start-ups in food tech or just start with your food tech company, you need to have creative and influential features.
You can rely on social media platforms and add virtual assistant-based ordering facilities, create your mobile app and build up your community if you want to make your food delivery business exclusive.
Use social media to target
For almost all online tasks, such as searching, referencing, and even placing orders, individuals use social media. What if your restaurant app includes a facility to position orders via the social media pages of the client?
Today, very few restaurants offer this feature in the food delivery app, and therefore if the app has this feature, it can get an advantage over other similar apps. This feature will help you draw more individuals to your food marketplace.
Provide virtual assistance to foodies
A virtual assistant is an autonomous contractor that provides clients with administrative services when working outside the office of the client. The virtual assistance in a food delivery app can be a unique feature if you provide it to the customers.
Incorporating AI in an app is advancing the technology. The virtual assistant also provides an approximate delivery time for the food order delivery.
See what your competitors are doing
Extensive research on the apps of your rivals and their promotional efforts need to be done. It will give you the ideas to make your app famous and flawless. You should come up with an app that fixes the vulnerabilities of your rivals’ software.
The delivery boy app by KnowBand is developed with the needful features. It is compatible with mobile app builder and is available for PrestaShop and OpenCart platforms.
More about online food and grocery businesses:
Online Hyperlocal Delivery Business Model | Complete Guide for Food and Grocery Marketplace
PrestaShop Delivery Boy Mobile App making Delivery Management easy for Mayida!
New Online Grocery Stores must have These Website Features
Top features of the food delivery app:
A food delivery app should have features that make online food delivery simple and easier. You can create a food delivery marketplace and connect with local restaurants and earn a commission from them. There is an article for a food and grocery delivery article that might help.
To manage the deliveries make sure to have the following features in your delivery management app.
Design and layout
The food delivery app should have options for front-screen customization. It should allow the app manager to add the brand name, themes, and change the look and feel as per the requirements.
Login and Registration
With this feature, a delivery person should easily be able to register himself. It takes into consideration signing up using a basic username and password and checking with Apple, Google, or other social media site.
Proficient Search Tab
Customers should be able to check and compare numerous restaurants, deals, cuisines, and apps for food ordering. They should be able, according to their convenience, to search by place, cuisine, price, ratings, review, restaurant names.
Manage content
In addition, the restaurant owners need to manage their restaurant’s name, email, address. They also need to edit images, menus, rates, promotions, etc. All this is done by the admin panel of a food delivery program.
Manage orders
The restaurant receives an order with information such as the location of the order, name of the item, payment, and delivery time. Consequently, the admin then handles orders according to priority and schedules.
Managing deliveries
Also, it is delegated to the delivery personnel as soon as an order is prepared. With this function, from the time he leaves the restaurant until he delivers the order, hence the admin keeps track of the real-time position of the delivery staff.
Order Placing and Checkout
The customers should be able to check and compare various restaurants, deals, cuisines with the food ordering app. They should be able to search by place, cuisine, price, reviews, rating, and restaurant names as per their convenience.
Payment Gateways
Your food delivery app should have enough payment gateway options. Clients get offended about sharing their credit or debit card details. Hence, you can provide digital payment options or offer COD if it suits your management model.
Personalized Notifications
If there are any changes in the order location, the order gets canceled, or for any other last-minute change, the delivery boy should receive notifications. So, he should be able to update the customer and administrator about each order’s pick-up and drop-off.
Real-time Order Tracking
The integrated GPS allows the customers and the food delivery app manager to track the orders in real-time. This helps the delivery boy to reach the location without any error or misleading.
Reviews and Rating
Social proofs increase customer’s trust and loyalty towards your brand. Allowing customers to give feedback to the food and delivery agent can help you manage the delivery system. Accordingly, you can remove the delivery boys with a poor rating and food quality improvement can be done.
Help Centre
Also, have a customer care number to help your customers. Be it a chatBot or 24/7 customer assistance. Read this article for the best customer communication channels.
Loyalty Program
You can run a loyalty program on your food delivery app. Loyalty programs or reward point programs increase customer retention and overall sales.
Look for a cost-effective solution
Efficient delivery management software with all the necessary features will keep your customers happy. The food delivery apps should have exclusive UI and UX design. It must have a real-time order tracking system for on-time delivery.
A module like ‘Delivery Boy’ developed by KnowBand can be cost-effective as compared to creating a website with the developer’s help. You can read the user manual of ‘the delivery boy app’ for more information. It is compatible with the mobile app builder and gives real-time order details if integrated with it.
Final Tips
- Create a website for your brand with a brand name and a catchy tagline.
- Identify your niche before creating the website.
- Do market research to analyze the target audience.
- Build a strong social media presence using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.
- Marketing is the key to success- Do content marketing, social media marketing, or email marketing to track the existing customers and the potential ones.
- Partner with delivery services active in your locality.
- Offer timely deals and discounts in the form of coupons.
Wrapping up:
Briefly, the future of the food distribution industry is very bright and full of opportunities to create. In order to survive the enormous rivalry, delivery giants must fight the challenges coming their way. Keeping these facts in mind, a smart and fully equipped food delivery app is needed to handle deliveries without hassle.
To become the next industry leader, exploit the immense opportunity that the online food ordering and distribution company has to offer and take the right steps. With your new entrepreneurial adventure, we wish you luck.
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