Quick Summary
Whether you're diving into food delivery app development for the first time, seeking to enhance your current offering, or exploring alternatives, this blog is your roadmap to a successful online presence. You will understand what it takes to make a great app and why using the right food delivery software is crucial.
Are you an ambitious startup, a visionary restaurant owner, or a seasoned professional in the food business?
Have you observed the dominance of industry giants like UberEats and DoorDash in food ordering and delivery applications?
If you are planning to develop a food delivery app like UberEats and become the next big brand, there are critical factors you can't afford to overlook.
The success in your industry is rooted in the consideration of these key elements during food delivery app development.
Whether you are looking to create an app from scratch, refine an existing one, or replace your current platform, your journey to success hinges on these factors.
In this blog, you will explore the 18 core components that can make your food delivery app the talk of the town.
Statistics that support your decision of food delivery app development
The global online food delivery services market is expected to reach $192.16 billion in 2025.
The overall food delivery app industry is expected to reach a $165 billion market size by 2029.
By 2027, the food delivery market in the USA is estimated to reach a 500-million mark in US dollars.
The food delivery industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.5% between 2021 and 2026.
The numbers themselves are speaking about how significant it is to go online and make a food delivery app. These are the strong figures that are enough to tell that you have made a great decision to develop a food delivery app.
Now, you may be wondering what makes the app so powerful that drives these magic growth figures. Well, below, you will explore every single factor. Keep reading.
18 Important factors to consider while developing a food delivery app
1. Decide your business model
Remember, your business model is unique. Before you start the process of on-demand food delivery app development, you need to identify what model your business comes into.
Usually, there are two types of business models:
Restaurant to customers - In this model, Restaurants and customers are directly connected from ordering to delivery. Customers order directly from restaurants and restaurants offer a complete service from accepting food orders to delivering hot meals on time to customers' doorstep.
Platform to customers - Here, the customer orders food using a platform like UberEats. The platform is responsible for serving the customer including delivery.
2. User-friendly design of your app’s interface
How many apps have you downloaded and uninstalled just because of the bad design, complex navigation and poor performance? Well, you don’t remember or are many, right?
In the same way, if your app does not have a user-friendly interface, your customers will uninstall it too. Having a user-friendly interface is one of the most important factors you need to consider.
Your users prefer a simple and intuitive design with clear calls to action.
Research says that, on average, every $1 invested in UX brings $100 in return. This is what you can get by providing a good UX with a simple yet intuitive app interface and getting an ROI of a whopping 9,900%.
Vice versa, if your app has a bad design and customers are having bad experiences, 70% of customers may abandon purchases from your app.
A well-crafted UI/UX covers these 4 factors that will help your users come back for more.
- Intuitive and user-friendly app navigation
- Clear and visually appealing food menu layout
- Seamless order placement process
- Easy payment options and checkout process
If you are covering all these core factors in your online food delivery software and making your customer navigation super easy like a walk to his drawing room from his bedroom, you will record a high ROI.
3. Real-time order tracking
For you and your customers, it is one of the most important features of the food delivery app. This feature helps you ensure transparency to your customers and also improves the overall experience.
UberEats, Zomato and other popular companies already have this feature in their application.
With this feature, you can provide:
- Real-time order tracking for your customers
- Live status updates for order preparation and delivery
4. Push notifications
Customers want a double confirmation about their placed orders, order pickup update, and delivery confirmation. When you provide these updates to your customers, they feel valued and assured.
Another thing, your regular customers love to hear about your new arrivals, offers, and discounts. When you send them a push notification about these, it grabs their attention instantly. It further results in an increased customer base and order.
You can use the push notification for order confirmation, delivery updates, personalized promotions and more.
5. Ensure security in payment and data
In this digital era, hackers are the new thieves. Not just your customers but we all worry about paying online. No one likes to share or reveal their personal payment information like credit or debit card or another mode of online payment.
In your app, you should have an iron-shield payment security for your customers. Remember, ensuring robust payment and security measures is the cornerstone of trust between customers and businesses.
Here is what you need to know about the security and what your app should offer:
- Integrate only the secure payment gateways and encryption
- Ensure data privacy and compliance with regulations
6. Offer easy payment options
Along with the payment security, your customers expect an easy checkout experience. Would you like to input your payment details on the website or app every time you visit where you have made a purchase once? No, right?
Nor would you like it if the app is offering only one or two types of payment options. If the app does not have your choice of payment option, you will leave the app and the app owner will lose you, which means a customer and sale.
In the same way, your app should have multiple payment options. Your app should be able to:
- Offer multiple payment options like (credit/debit cards, mobile wallets, etc.)
- Saving payment information for quick and secure payment transactions
7. Offer multiple ordering methods
The internet is free. Your customers are consuming it more than your food. He is everywhere, on Android phones, iOS, websites and several other channels.
Do not limit your app by making it compatible with only Android and iOS. Instead, make it compatible with other channels like desktop apps and highly responsive to all screens.
8. Decide your app development budget
Nothing is free in the economy. Your app too would need finance and will have an amount. Budgeting is the first step and also the last step if you are in a planning phase. Once you are done with the planning and have defined successfully what you need and how you need it. You should prepare a budget.
However, the delivery app development cost varies based on your requirements. It depends on:
- Choice of technology
- Experts you hire
- Frameworks you select
- The time it takes to develop
- And several other factors
Hence, before collaborating with a food delivery mobile app development company, you should prepare your budget keenly.
9. Choose the suitable framework
No matter if you are looking to develop a food delivery app like UberEats or Zomato, you must choose a suitable framework for your app based on your business model and requirements.
The most popular frameworks are:
- Android
- iOS
- Harmony OS
- Windows
Choose based on your customer's preferences. There are more users of Android than iOS. Windows is usually preferred for the web. Harmony is the leading OS with fewer users. If you are looking to go with native development, choose precisely.
However, there are other options for you. That is “Hybrid app development.” and “readymade food delivery software.” Choose a technology like Flutter or Xamarin or SaaS software that is used to build an app for both platforms (Android and iOS).
With one-time coding and less time and money, you can have your food delivery application ready that will be capable of working across the OS and screens.
10. Performance and scalability
Performance and scalability are the twin pillars that determine the success of your food delivery app. Performance refers to how quickly and efficiently your app is processing tasks and data.
Scalability is how you adapt your app to handle increased demand and growth. If your app is optimized for performance and scalability, you can deliver a seamless experience that will keep your customers coming back for more. They may also do mouth publicity for your app.
11. Legal and regulatory considerations
There are crucial legal and regulatory aspects that your food delivery software for restaurants must adhere to. If your business fails to comply with these regulations, you may have to face some severe consequences like legal liabilities, fines, and reputational damage.
12. Testing and quality assurance
Launching your app without testing and doing quality assurance may lead to losing the trust of your customers.
Hence, never launch your app without testing and quality checks. The testing process involves testing your app functionality, usability, quality, and identifying and fixing bugs.
It could be both manual and automated. When your food delivery management software is tested from all aspects and quality is assured that it is top-notch, the app will help you to build trust with your customers, improve their experience, and ensure the success of your food delivery app.
13. Offers and rewards
Every customer on the earth is looking for enticing offers and rewards. Apps like UberEats and DoorDash come up with exciting offers for their customers to attract new customers and retain the existing ones.
So, when you are building a food delivery app for your brand, make sure you ask your developers to create this unique feature. With it, you will be able to customize offers as per your needs and can promote them to customers easily.
14. Know your customers with analytics
UberEats, DoorDash and other popular brands make their business decisions based on their customer behavior. They know who their customers are, what they are doing, what often they order, how often they order, what is their favorite dish, and other information.
They get all this information with the “Analytic feature”. With this information, they organize data well, analyze it and use it to make informed decisions. And this is how they are the favorite of their customers. Which ultimately leads them to earn massive profits.
In the same way, when you plan to develop a food delivery app, make sure your app has this feature called “Analytics.” This will help you do all that popular brands are doing. You will also be able to know your customers from close. And will become capable of making result-driven decisions.
Read More: Readymade vs custom-built software: which is better for your business?
15. Have a strong USP
Remember: Your customers won’t buy, without a strong “why”. So it is highly significant for you to come up with a strong “why” that can make you stand apart from all your online and offline competitors.
To succeed in this digital era, your app should have at least one or two unique features or advantages that can attract customers to your app.
16. Build your website
Limiting your online presence to just a mobile app is not enough. Remember, the internet is free and your customers are consuming it more than the food. They are also using a big screen - A laptop or desktop.
Hence, you cannot afford to lose those customers too. To attract this traffic, you must create a website reflecting your brand's taste. Accessible to all your big screen-using customers. Make sure your website is mobile-friendly as the majority of your customers will view websites via their mobile phones.
Create a website that is unique, niche-based, and easy to use for foodies.
17. Start growing online locally
Let your local customers know first that you are online. Become a brand in your locality. Slowly and gradually, see what they are saying about you and your online presence. Get maximum feedback from your local customers, analyze them, continue doing what is good as per your customers and improve what is bad.
Once you have expanded your reach locally and have got 80 to 90% positive feedback, you can expand your reach. You can use this positive feedback as wings and fly out of your locality to expand your customer base across the borders.
18. Social media and SEO-friendly app
Customers are everywhere. Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media channels. Not every person under the sun will know your business or your app.
Your app should be such that if anyone types your name or any food item near your business locality, Google or other search engines can show your business or app details to your customer's query.
In the same way, your app should allow you to integrate your choice of social media channels. If your app is connected to these channels, you can drive traffic and direct orders easily.
This will help you grow at a consistent pace. In addition, you will be on the road to becoming a brand earlier than your local competitors.
How Yelowsoft can help you with on-demand food delivery software?
Yelowsoft offers comprehensive on-demand food delivery software for restaurants that cater to the unique needs of your food delivery business. With a range of powerful features and benefits, Yelowsoft's software streamlines your operations, enhances your customer experience, and boosts your business growth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, developing a food delivery app requires careful attention to user-friendly features like real-time tracking secure payments and more discussed above. If you are looking for rapid growth at a low cost, choosing ready-made SaaS-based food delivery software is the smarter option.
Recent stats show that SaaS solutions lead to a 63% reduction in operational costs and a 55% faster time-to-market. "Time is money," and white label software saves both. It offers tailored solutions which allow you to focus on customers and core operations. By investing wisely in white label SaaS software, you can conquer the competitive food delivery market efficiently and speedily.
