How to be successful with food delivery apps

Covid-19 has seen a big boom in the online commerce. Because of restrictions on cities, lockdowns and in general for concern of their health, customers have rapidly embraced online ordering systems. Not only customers love to order from the convenience of where they are, what they want, how they want, but also when they want their products. Therefore, there has been big booming business in the area of having online ordering and delivery and tracking systems.

Some of the best known and very successful apps in this sector are — Doordash, Deliveroo, Foodpanda, GrubHub, Seamless, UberEats, Zomato etc. [listed alphabetically]

With just a few clicks, customers can order what they want to eat and any customizations that go for their food, along with the dietary preferences [if any]. Restaurants, Bars and other foodie places are able to survive the brutal aftermath of Covid-19 because customers have gone online. Restaurants can prepare the food for online orders as it comes, and bring the steaming hot tasty food delivered to the door for the time that the customer wanted it.

For a hospitality business it is very important to understand customer needs very clearly so that the end result is a happy customer. If customers get what they ordered, and it is delivered correctly, their appreciation for their favorite restaurant increases many more times. Leading researcher for the hospitality industry say that satisfied customers are 65% or more likely to order from their restaurant if the satisfaction levels are very high [ref: ResearchGate.net, ScienceDirect.com, Scielo.conicyt.cl, Tandfonline.com]

Therefore, it is very important for businesses to get their restaurants reachable through websites and mobile applications for online ordering and delivery. Getting this formula right is critical for the success of the order and delivery mobile apps which run on iOS and Android phones. Also the companies whose business is the food pickup & delivery service, for them, it is very important to develop these mobile applications perfectly and also operate 24x7 in a professional manner, maintaining good quality just like their own food.

Keeping apps fresh is as important as the food itself.

Some of the most important aspects in powering an online ordering and delivery mobile application are:
1) Mobile application
Mobile applications should be simple to use, work without any guessing required, and most importantly should respond to the customer’s clicks. More than 90% of your business success will depend on how the mobile app looks and feels like. Keep your targeted customer base in mind when designing your mobile apps.

2) API [Application Programming Interface]
Also called as backend system, APIs allow your mobile apps to communicate securely and internally with your servers. When developed properly, APIs will respond very fast to every single request either to save data in database, or get data from the database.

3) Payment Gateway
This is very important factor in the game because customers need to be able to make payments for their foods or other products

4) Administrative Backend Web Application
When the orders are booked, there needs to be a portal for your staff with views for different functional departments — such as Orders Processing, Food Preparation, Food Packaging, Orders Dispatch, Orders & Customer Service Tracking etc.

There is a need to create secure interface for your teams so that each order is routed efficiently and immediately and to the right place, in right amount of time.

Some of the major technologies that are used for creating mobile apps are: Android, Angular, AWS, Code Igniter, Firebase, Laravel, MongoDB, MySQL, Node.JS, Python, PhP, React.JS, React Native, Swift, Vue.JS

Costing
Costing of your application development depends on what features you require, what kind of technology is used and most importantly, how soon you want the app to be developed.

It has been a pleasure to share some tips & techniques. Thanks for your time.