None can doubt the fact that Uber has turned out be one of the most successful ventures and inspired thousands of other young budding minds to think innovatively.
The likes of Uber, Ola or Gett have really transformed the traveling experience of the people making the journey more convenient and comfortable.
Uber got a tremendous response and such a delicious taste of success in a taxi booking app that the company further expanded its customer services and penetrated into the arena of online food delivery- UberEATS, which is also another on-demand app gaining popularity worldwide.
Now before we move on further, let’s get some stats on the board to show how the on-demand food delivery app has already got the attention of food lovers.
According to one of the surveys, it has been found that 20% of the people in the United States use the food delivery apps once in a week to have their favorite cuisine from the preferred restaurant.
Now that is the tactic operating behind the working of apps such as UberEATS; it allows uses to book any dish from a wide choice of eateries and the item gets delivered at their home at lighting speed.
UberEATS, similar to its taxi booking app – Uber, has expanded its business throughout almost all the major continents and nations.
One of the major benefits that the online food ordering apps have given to the wide audiences is that they have tantalized their tongues with various cuisine items. You can order almost anything including Mexican, Thai, Italian, Indian, and Chinese to pamper your taste buds enjoying the meal.
Moreover, it has also been seen that it is because of online food delivery apps, the increase in sales of the restaurants have gone up.
According to Morgan Stanley, the total market share of digital food delivery would increase to 11% by 2022 in today’s comparison to 6%.
What UberEATS has done, it has partnered with a number of local restaurants of the cities that are highly recommended by the customers for their delicious food.
The users only need to go through the menu items and then place their order in accordance with the quantity of the food. The payment is usually made online using the payment gateway or via credit and debit card.
Composition of the Development Team
It is imperative to discuss and throw some light on the development that is usually involved in the making of online food delivery app.
The team would ideally comprise a couple of app developers (Android or iOS) based on a choice of platform, a pair of each UI and UX designer, backend developers, quality assurance team and experienced app testers.
Developing a Food Delivery App Similar to UberEATS
An experienced app developer will be well familiar of the fact that most of the popular and widely downloaded apps such as UberEATS are predominantly found on both the popular platforms – Android and iOS. The cost will vary on both platforms.
So, when you sit down to commence a project of making an online food delivery app like UberEATS or Food Panda, basically you need to concentrate on three important spheres. It includes:
- The Customer Side App
- The Owner/ Restaurant Dashboard
- The Admin or Control Panel
Developing an Attractive Customer Side App
The first and foremost task that you have to undertake is developing an attractive customer page or a platform from where the user can place his order online. This page can be categorized into different sub categories.
Login or Registration
The journey for the customer and also for the app developer begins by developing the sign-in page. The user can avail the services of your app after entering a few vital details such as the name, email id, mobile number, user name and password.
This allows you to keep a track record of all your customers and build a strong bond with them offering personalized services.
You need to make a user-friendly platform where the customer can log in into his account just by entering username and password. In addition, you can also provide them a space where there they add their card details for the online payment process.
If you want to add more personalized features, you can ask them to give the names of cuisines they prefer most, favorite restaurants and all.
Search Menu or Food Category
Like every restaurant has a menu card for selecting the food item to be ordered, similarly, the app developer also needs to create a list of menu for a restaurant.
In this all important food category, the content includes the names of all cuisines along with their specific images and prices.
It would be better to categorize the menu into different sections such as Indian or Chinese, Thai etc.
For instance, if a customer chooses Indian he may get options such as North Indian, South Indian, Gujarati or Bengali and so on. Besides, it may also contain the ratings and reviews of the particular dish.
In fact, you can directly add the food category wherein the customers will not have to scroll down the menu to find their favorite dish. They just need to tap the search to type the name of the food item. This will help in saving a lot of their time as well.
Custom-made Food Items to Pamper Taste Buds
As a restaurant owner, you know precisely that most people who place their order from on-demand food ordering app do so because they want to pamper their taste buds with a different cuisine.
So, if you are smart enough to add one additional but a key feature in the form of customized food or specially made to order item, it would a good asset for the future.
For instance, if you are offering a specialized pizza or say sweet Indian dessert, you have to pay extra heed to what customer demands.
He may ask you to add extra cheese or double cheese on the pizza or he can ask you to garnish the sweat with some additional toppings such as cream. So, you have to comply to his orders accordingly and strictly.
Apart from that what you can do is set or prepare the menu list of your restaurant as per the particular timings of the day. Usually, in the morning people have their breakfast.
Therefore. You can add breakfast items say from 6 am to 10 am and display the lunch items that of course will be a full meal diet.
And likewise, you can follow the same procedure for dinner. It must be remembered the price of the food items will be changed according to the customization he is opting for and he has to pay extra, which will be added in the bill.
Addition of Order into Cart
Once you have selected the food item, you want to enjoy it’s time to move further with the checkout process in which you manage your order before the payment of the bill. You can increase or decrease the items just by tapping on plus or minus.
After completing with the process, you will get the final bill for paying for the order. This is the specific time when you can apply your discount coupons or the promo codes in order to get rebates.
The online bill is generated that includes the total amount to be paid inclusive of all the taxes. The customer also gets the estimated delivery time when the food will reach its destination.
Indeed, it’s a wonderful feature to add on that keeps the customer informed in real time about the time of delivery. Each of the details is updated at this stage.
Choosing the Payment Method and Paying
Once the customer is convinced that everything is alright with the order, he will have to proceed with making the payment. As a developer, you will have to provide him with some options such as payment gateway like PayPal.
Others may include payment via credit or debit card, net banking, mobile payment like Apple or Google Wallet. You can also offer the Cash on Delivery (COD) option.
Read also: Things To Consider Before Integrating Payment Gateway in a Mobile App
Tracking your Order
The fast pace of the technology has enabled us to track the order right from the time we make the payment till the time, it is delivered at the doorstep. You can make use of the GPS technology.
In fact, it is one of the most effective tools that only assists the customers to trace their order but also helps the courier boy to find the exact location of the user.
Ratings and Reviews
Another important feature that must be added to the customer dashboard is the rating and reviews. You know most of the customers today necessarily go through the ratings of the restaurants and the dishes served before making an order.
In fact, you can also know which the most preferred eateries are from where most users are placing order.
Read also: The Most Valuable Tips to Get 5 Star Ratings and Reviews for Your App
Customer Support and Help
It is imperative for the app to offer all kinds of support whether technical or any other support regarding the restaurants and the food items. You can go for an online chat or through email.
The Dashboard of the Owner
After completed the customer page, the app developer should divert his/her attention towards creating a beautiful dashboard for the owner.
The Login Process
The owner is different from that of the user login id. The owner can login from his personal account using even a smartphone. He can receive the orders directly and manage accordingly. Apart from that you can also make adjustments to the orders.
Management of the Food Items or Menu List
It is extremely essential for the restaurant owners that they are managing their menu list or the food catalogue item appropriately. The owner has to showcase the cuisines precisely with the wide spectrum of choices to choose from.
Even the descriptions of each of the items shown along with the images should be as clear as crystal. The customer should have no confusion while making the choice because of inappropriate pictures or content. It should be presented categorically.
Managing the Orders
You have to keep the track record of the orders that are coming in from various customers for different restaurants. You should regularly check the orders and the quantity of the food ordered along with any other information.
It’s time for the delivery boy to note down the details of the order and the destination of the customer. Plus, you also need to inform the user about how much time it would take to reach the spot.
Besides that, you also have to maintain the record for the expenditures such as offering salary or incentive to the delivery boy, vehicle expenses and so on.
Checking the Customer Reviews Regularly
The restaurant owner should essentially make it a point to go through the ratings and reviews of the customer on regular basis so as to know which type of restaurants are doing well and what cuisines are getting better ratings than the others.
Push Notifications
Push Notification has always been identified as one of the most pivotal features as far as the on-demand apps are concerned.
It acts as a valuable information for the user that his order is just about to arrive and in case he has opted for the Cash on Delivery option, he should be ready with the money.
The Admin Panel
This is the last must one of the indispensable parts of the online food delivery app that the app developer should not skip at all.
Admin Login or Control Panel
It is a platform through which the admin keeps control over all the activities and operations of the online food delivery. He manages the restaurant and the courier boys. He can also add sub admin if he wants to.
Managing the Restaurants
Since admin is the main controller or the boss, he has the power and authority to add a new restaurant, entering into a partnership.
On the other hand, he can also remove any other restaurant if he sees that it is not getting good ratings and reviews from the customers from its list too.
Managing the Application
It must be remembered that admin reserves the right to add, delete, block or edit any user, restaurant or a delivery boy from its set of database. He is the one who can view the site banner and manage the mobile app.
Management of the Payment
The app developers should also provide the admin with a separate dashboard which allows them to know how much payments they are receiving from each of the orders and what their sources are.
Providing Discount Offers and Coupons
The admin can also send specific massages based on discount offers and coupons and request the user to take the advantage. It can also extend the duration of the discount offers or even remove it.
Offering Technical Assistance
As such the users may get the general assistance from restaurant owners, but the technical support is offered by the admin. It will send updates when the user has to upgrade his app or address any issue related to software.
Implementation of the Technology
As mentioned earlier the methods of designing online food delivery apps like UberEATS will differ for Android and iOS platforms. For instance, the facility of tracking the status of food delivery, both Google and iOS have provided different tools.
If you are an iOS user, you can make use of Core Location Framework and for the Android users, it will be Google based API. Similarly, if you want to detect the exact direction and location, the Apple device users can install MapKit and Android phone users have the luxury of using Google Maps API.
Apart from that there are various techniques, tools and software that can be implied by the app developer so that the app can run seamlessly without any complaints.
For example, the Foursquare’s API is considered best for adding new restaurants into your list. The login can be done through Facebook SDK or any other social media page.
So, the developer has a wide range of software tools that he can put to use to design the app that can grab attention of the users.
Pay Attention on the UI/UX
The User Interface and User Experience are certainly the most important aspect of the on-demand app like food delivery. The user interface should have an appealing outlook with a sleek and thin design. It can increase the traffic generation to your app.
Estimating the Cost to Develop An On-Demand Food Delivery App
As it is evident that it is difficult to exactly figure out how much you will have to spend for getting an online food delivery app similar to UberEATS.
Generally speaking most of the app development companies charge their clients on the per hour basis and this charge or price you may say varies from one nation to another.
For instance, in United States, a client usually needs to pay $100 -$200, whereas in European nations it differs and lowers down to $50 to $150. But if you are hiring Indian app development firm, your job will rightly be done at an much affordable price ranging from $20 to $50.
If you are really interesting in figuring out an approximate cost for on-demand food delivery app development, then it can be said that will largely depend on what type of app you are building and inclusion of features.
It may cost you around $17,000 to $25,000 on an estimate. However, the figures may change.
So, it would highly recommended to get across the best App Development Company and get free quotations from the same.
Read also: The Biggest Challenges Faced by Food Delivery App Business
So wrapping up the Discussion
You know that online food delivery apps like Food Panda, Dineout, and UberEATS etc. have already established their reputation and are going great guns these days. And if you want to sail on the same boat as they, then your topmost priority is getting the on-demand app.
However, going for an extensive research is also equally vital at the same stage because you will get to know what kind of cuisines people are ordering more and which restaurants have hogged the spotlight.
FAQs About Food Delivery App Like UberEATS
The cost of developing a food delivery app like UberEATS depends on different factors such as the type of functionality, development platform, the location of a developer, etc. However, on average, an app like UberEATS may cost around $17,000 to $25,000.
There is no simple answer to this question because the time requires to develop an app like UberEATS mainly depends on the type of functionality and experience level of the developer. It may take around 500 to 650 hours on an estimate.
The food delivery app like UberEATS makes money in many ways such as a delivery fee, cancellation fee, commission fee, restaurants pay for advertising, restaurants pay for the listing, etc.
