FOOD! An essential element for every human being. Every individual, in the busy schedule prefers to order food online. It’s convenient, time saving, timely deliveries, offers discounts and different payment options.
There are already many online food delivery platforms in the market. So, you can say, it’s a quite competitive marketplace to build and launch a new platform for food delivery can be pretty tough.
Yet, new platforms attract new customers and give new and old restaurants better exposure in the marketplace. A new platform will give the customers, as they prefer, the chance to order from multiple restaurants using a single portal. This app lets the customer see the ratings, service systems, food quality along with a verified picture of multiple restaurants.
But, what if you want your own individual app for ordering? An individual app where customers can directly order from your restaurant and from any branch, without any third-party being involved. Some of the best food delivery app development companies are WordPress, Wix, Shopify etc. Especially, during these troubled times restaurants have to get sales going. The best way to keep your business going during covid is delivery and pick-up service. So, an online app only for your own business will be helpful.
Being open isn’t enough right now, why?
- Phone lines are getting jammed, causing guests to give up or wait.
- Online ordering is more aligned with the guests.
- It is more efficient and creates a call to action with a direct outcome in your current marketing efforts.
BUILDING THE APP
Coming to the app building part, there are stages and elements involved. Firstly, let’s talk about the solutions to make an app for the food delivery service. Mainly you have three solutions –
- Free solutions often means you will spend a lot of time to build and implement so, you build it in your free time. On the other hand, if you’re really busy and your time costs an awful amount of money, you may want to consider that free isn’t necessarily the right way to go, unless it is a FREE already existing solution.
- How about paid solutions? Careful there. It can go from almost free to really expensive if you get into paying food delivery app development.
- When you’re attempting to do it for free and by yourself, it might end up with more of a hybrid. They end up with a piece of this, a piece of that, and all the different components fitting together to come up with some kind of a thing that gets them through and does what they need it to do. That is usually where you end up when you go FREE with a hybrid.
Now, let’s discuss how the app works. Precisely, when customers are ordering food online there are few stages involved. Same goes with when you’re developing the app. There are three basic yet, main and components you need for a complete food delivery system –
- Food Ordering App
The first and foremost component is the food ordering app. You need to have the same ease of use Mobile Food Ordering App experience. You can save some time and money here by having a mobile responsive online order menu, that you share as a QR Code menu, or short URL, but it will need to offer a similar online ordering experience as the other established food delivery apps.
- Food Delivery App
Second component is the food delivery app. It should have features like the delivery tracking app, so the customer knows where their delivery person and their food are. There is good news that both the ordering app and the delivery app can be made into ONE SINGLE APP.
- Driver Tracking App
Finally, you should have a driver tracking app. You can technically get away with the driver tracking app, if you do not care to let the customer know where their assigned driver is with their order and also you don’t want them to know where the driver is. This is the one that does all the GPS tracking of the driver’s location and would enable Delivery Driver Sharing between multiple restaurants. So, if you actually want to pair up with a couple of your friend’s restaurants in the area, you can all share the same delivery tracking app depending on the software you used or going to use.
How to make a Food Delivery system for FREE?
As discussed earlier, Free or Not to Free? That’s the question. Of course, there is always an urge to find a free solution. Often free means spending time, not necessarily spending money, but spending an awful amount of time. So, we are going to some of the ideas to cobble them up together for free or the solutions that are out there, most of them don’t get you to the delivery app side, but let’s take a look.
- WordPress PlugIns
There are plenty of online order menu type plugin’s available, if you can live without a delivery tracking app. So, not your own restaurant delivery app, but more your own food ordering system, which can increase the sales significantly, actually about 30% just by the telephone orders. It’s still very worthwhile to look into if you are just looking for what you can do as the first step to have the maximum returns. This would be it and WordPress Plugin could work. You are going to know how WordPress works, if you do fantastic and if you don’t, chances are the person who developed your website can do it for you. But, then it won’t be free anymore.
So, that’s the double edged sword with WordPress. It is free, if you know how to use it, and somebody charges if you don’t know how to use it.
- App Builders
There are a bunch of really cool stuff that allows you to smack together a really cool mobile app. You can just google, “Free App Builders.” to start your journey. The key is to find the one that’ll do everything you want to, that does not have a hidden reason after you put all your efforts to charge you. So, be careful!
A lot of them seem free, but when you get all in to go, you push a button and it’ll say you can use it four times, then you need to pay $500. So, just be cautious when you’re choosing any app builders.
What are the paid options to create a Food Delivery System?
So far, we’ve discussed the free or inexpensive options. Let’s talk about the paid options –
- Food Delivery App Development
These are the big and expensive deals. You need to set your budget for two separate apps, your combined food delivery app and food ordering app and your delivery tracking app. You will read in many online articles that the cost is not that bad, but the truth is even the lowest cost of the offshore app development would be around $5000 USD, and with a full North American team at $50,000 and a blended team where a lot of management style but the coding is actually done in a less costly area about $12,000. The numbers just get bigger from here.
- Website Developers
Website developers can help, but you will likely need to find your final piece, the delivery tracking app somewhere else. It is quite a technical one in order to do all the GPS tracking and reporting that is required for your driver tracking as well as your customer seeing where your order is at.
- Existing Delivery App Systems
There are many Online ordering systems, Online menu systems, QR menu systems for touchless service. The hole in the market seems to be the delivery tracking app. A little time on google will give you the solutions for tracking the orders, which is convenient for your customers as well as the drivers, as long as you plan to do your own deliveries.
BENEFITS OF APP DEVELOPMENT
The benefits of having your own delivery app for your own restaurant are quite compelling.
- You can save the 30% – 40% surge fee that the third party apps will charge you.
- It will not only save you the loss of undelivered or damaged foods, but will increase customer satisfaction too.
- It will decrease the number of upset guests in your restaurant since it’s less busy.
- The customers will feel connected to your restaurant.
- Increase sales. Being visible to customers at all times is the best way to boost sales. A good mobile app can facilitate quick checkout for a purchase, which ultimately leads to a sales increase. Apps can offer a more convenient way to browse and shop, allowing customers to make purchases from anywhere.
- Improve Stickiness. An installed app can create a direct marketing channel, offering easily accessible information right at their fingertips. Mobile apps are better suited for user retention and re-engaging with clients than just a responsive website. It’s always on your home screen and always logged in. Apps also allow companies to notify their customers about new deals, products, events, and so on, pulling them back into the app.
- Compete in a specific market. If customers facing business want to compete with others in their market, they must hold a strong presence on mobile devices. The more often you can get customers interacting with your app, the more likely they will buy your product or service. In advertising this is called the “effective frequency”.
CONCLUSION
Online food delivery markets are increasing on a daily basis due to busy schedules and for its convenience. Not only it gives you business more exposure but the customers will actually order from your restaurant more often, because when your own delivery person gets to deliver their orders, it will create a sense of reliability and build trust in your customers.
About The Author
Hermit Chawla is a Marketing Manager at AIS Technolabs Pvt Ltd which is Web design and Development Company, helping global businesses to grow by top responsive web design services. He loves to share his thoughts on Social Media Marketing Services and Game Design Development etc.
