The online food delivery industry has seen unprecedented growth in the last few years. As people are increasingly looking for ways to get their meals conveniently, especially with busy working schedules and lifestyles, the demand for on-demand food delivery has increased expeditiously. Moreover, by 2029, the food delivery industry is anticipated to reach $320 billion, offering many lucrative opportunities for budding entrepreneurs.
 
It is indeed the right time for entrepreneurs to leverage this growth opportunity by building an online food delivery platform and being part of this multi-billion industry. For building your food delivery app you need to have knowledge of various aspects essential for building a successful app. Hence, in this article, we will take you through the steps and everything else you need to know about on demand food delivery app development. 

Table of Contents:

• Benefits of Creating an On-Demand Food Delivery App For Entrepreneurs
• Key Players in the Industry
  ― Uber Eats- A Big Player in The Industry
  ― DoorDash- A Global Giant in Food Delivery
  ― Postmates- A Food Delivery Pioneer In The US
  ― Grubhub- A Popular Food Delivery Platform
• How an On-demand Food Delivery App Works
  ― Customers
  ― Restaurants
  ― Delivery Personnel
  ― Admin
• Steps For On-Demand Food Delivery App Development
  ― Step 1 – Idea Curation
  ― Step 2 – Research and Analysis
  ― Step 3 – Decide The Features
  ― Step 4 – Know the Monetization Strategies
  ― Step 5 – Choose A Development Approach
  ― Step 6 – Launch and Market
• Development Cost Of An On-demand Food Delivery App
• Launching A Successful On-Demand Food Delivery App
• Conclusion

Benefits of Creating an On-Demand Food Delivery App For Entrepreneurs

There are numerous benefits of an on-demand food delivery app for entrepreneurs who want to establish themselves in the food delivery industry. Some of them include:

– A wide user base

– Multiple revenue streams

– Diverse marketing channels

– Easy management

– Actionable data and analytics

These were some of the benefits entrepreneurs can avail of with an on-demand food delivery app. 

Exploring the success of popular online food delivery platforms can provide you with invaluable insights into the online food delivery industry. Therefore, in the next section, we comprehensively analyze the key players in the market and their growth journey. 

Key Players in the Industry

Let’s take a look at the top players in the online food delivery industry.
 

Uber Eats – A Big Player in The Industry

Uber Eats is one of the most popular food delivery platforms with more than 85 million users. This platform connects customers with a wide array of local restaurants offering multiple cuisines in one place. Uber Eats is available in several countries including Australia, Germany, Japan, Canada, and many more. 

Launched in – 2014

Revenue – $11 billion in 2022

Headquarters – California, US. 

Area Served – 45 countries, 6,000+ cities

Active Users – 85 million

DoorDash – A Global Giant in Food Delivery

DoorDash is a leading food delivery platform that partners with local restaurants and food entrepreneurs enabling them to deliver diverse food options to consumers. The food delivery platform is based in the United States and is a big name in several countries around the world. DoorDash serves around 4,000 cities across the US, Canada, and Australia. 

Launched in – 2013

Revenue – $6.6 billion in 2022

Headquarters – California, US. 

Area Served – US, Canada, and Australia

Active Users – 32 million 

Postmates – A Food Delivery Pioneer In The US

Postmates is a US-based delivery app that offers its services in around 4000+ cities across the US. This food delivery app offers services in food, drinks, groceries, and more. Around 600,000 restaurants partner with Postmates to provide their services to customers. 

Launched in – 2013

Revenue-  $1 billion in 2022

Headquarters – California, US. 

Area Served – US

Active Users – 9.3 million

Grubhub – A Popular Food Delivery Platform

Grubhub is a prominent food delivery platform serving thousands of food enthusiasts across 4000+ cities in the US. This platform partners with more than 365,000 restaurants and works on a commission-based revenue model. Additionally, Grubhub offers advertising opportunities to restaurant partners to help them attract customers. 

Launched in – 2004

Revenue – $2.4 billion in 2022

Headquarters – Chicago, US. 

Area Served – US

Active Users – 28.3 million

As you can see, there are several players in the food delivery industry that are flourishing. By understanding your competitors and what is their unique value proposition, you can create a better-equipped food delivery platform of your own. 

Now that you have a better understanding of the key players in the industry, next, let’s analyze the working of a food delivery app. 

How an On-demand Food Delivery App Works

By having an in-depth understanding of the working of an on-demand food delivery platform, you can better plan and create an online food delivery app that meets the needs of your target audience. Let’s understand how a food delivery app works.

Customers

Customers browse through the listed food items/restaurants on the platform or can search based on their location, cuisine names, keywords, and more. Once they select the food item, they enter their delivery address, make payment, and confirm their order. 

Restaurants

Restaurants register themselves on the food delivery platform by providing the necessary information. They receive orders, manage their menus, set up the price, and others through the platform. In addition, restaurants can also view sales reports, analytics, customer ratings, and reviews on the app.

Delivery Personnel 

Delivery personnel use the app to receive and manage orders. They can view the details of the orders along with customers’ addresses, estimated delivery times, and navigation routes.

Admin

The admin is responsible for managing the entire platform and the users. Business owners can streamline the management of user accounts, restaurant registrations, delivery personnel, and customers. The admin can also track orders, revenue, customer feedback and many more at one place. Additionally, an admin can view reports and analytics to analyze the growth and performance of their business. 

Going forward, let’s see in detail the steps to build an on-demand food delivery app. In this section, we will explore various aspects of building an online food delivery platform from idea curation to launch. These steps will help you develop a robust and scalable food delivery app to kick-start your online food delivery business. 

Steps For On-Demand Food Delivery App Development

Building an online food delivery app could be a complex task to begin with, however, by following a step-by-step approach as mentioned below, you can simplify the process and ensure a successful launch of your online food delivery app. 

Step 1 – Idea Curation

The first step in on-demand food delivery app development is to have a better understanding of your business idea and vision. This can be achieved by identifying the pain points of your target audience. Once identified, you can brainstorm ideas for how to address those pain points through your online food delivery app. This might involve offering an intuitive user interface, the best features to users, and more. 

Step 2 – Research and Analysis 

Once you have defined your idea, the next step before launching any business is to assess the demand in the industry. It is essential to conduct thorough research and analysis of the industry to identify potential opportunities and challenges that you might face in the future. In addition to that, you must also study your competitors, learn from their weaknesses and strengths, analyze market trends and demands, and identify legal considerations if there are any. Proper research can help you make a reliable and robust food delivery app.

Step 3 – Decide The Features

After doing proper research and analysis, the next step is to know about the essential features that you must integrate into your food delivery app to make it a success. To make your on-demand food delivery app stand out in this hyper-competitive online food delivery industry, you must consider integrating popular features that can cater to the needs of users on your platform. 

Features of a food delivery app can be divided into several categories, some of which include:

After clearly understanding the features that make an online food delivery platform successful, let’s explore the monetization strategies that can help you turn your food delivery platform into a profitable business venture. 

Step 4 – Know the Monetization Strategies

The food delivery industry is not only rapidly expanding, but also is highly lucrative. Take a look at these numbers– Uber Eats generated a revenue of $11 billion in 2022, surpassing the revenue of $8.3 billion earned in 2021, whereas, DoorDash earned a revenue worth $4.5 billion in 2021, which was almost double the previous year’s revenue. In 2022, DoorDash’s revenue increased even more to reach $6.6 billion. 

The reason behind such success is multiple monetization strategies implemented by the major on-demand food delivery platforms. Here, we list the most popular revenue streams for an online food delivery platform. 

Commission fee

Platform owner can charge a percentage of the fee from the restaurants out of the total order value placed through their on-demand food delivery app. 

Delivery fee

A delivery fee can be charged by the platform from customers for delivering orders to their doorsteps. 

Advertising fee

Platform owner can also generate revenue through advertising. They can offer push notifications, and in-app ads to restaurants and other businesses interested in reaching out to a wider customer base, in return for an advertising fee. 

Featured Listing

Platform owner can offer sponsored listings to restaurants. They can appear at the top of the search results, on the app’s homepage, or on any other prominent location on the platform. This helps restaurants boost their visibility and eventually increase their revenue.

Paid passes

Paid passes are relatively a new monetization strategy implemented by some of the popular online food delivery platforms. For example, DoorDash provides its customers DashPass for a monthly or annual fee which offers a $0 delivery fee and exclusive discounts to customers throughout the subscription period. This is an attractive revenue stream as it provides a predictable source of recurring revenue. 

It is always recommended to opt for multiple monetization strategies to maximize your revenue opportunities, hence, you can choose relevant revenue streams depending on your business goals. 

After deciding on the revenue streams, now comes the most crucial step which is to choose a reliable software to build and launch your online food delivery platform. With multiple options available in the market, it can be overwhelming to determine which solution could be the best fit for your business needs. However, we have gathered all the relevant information to help you make an informed decision. 

Step 5 – Choose A Development Approach

There are majorly two development approaches prevalent in the industry for on-demand food delivery app development. The first option is to custom-develop your platform from scratch. For this, you would need to hire a team of developers, designers, and technical experts who could build the platform for you. This development process is time-consuming and can take from a few months to years to actually let you launch your food delivery platform.

Another option is to opt for a ready-made software solution. Ready-made software are off-the-shelf solutions that can help you launch your food delivery platform hassle-free.  Here, you need not have any technical expertise and you can just pick a suitable software based on your business needs and can launch your business in quick time. Efficient ready-made software comes pre-integrated with essential features and functionalities required to seamlessly run an online food delivery business.

Step 6 – Launch and Market 

The last and final step is to launch your online food delivery platform in the market and promote it. You can make a good marketing strategy to promote your app and attract more users to your platform. 

By following these steps you can easily develop and launch your online food delivery platform. Now, you must be wondering, how much it is going to cost you to build an on-demand food delivery app. We have tried to answer that question for you in the next part. 

Development Cost Of An On-demand Food Delivery App

The cost of developing an on-demand food delivery app will depend on the development approach you have chosen to launch your platform. Ready-made software is a more cost-effective option and costs you around three times less as compared to custom development. 

Moreover, the cost will also depend on factors such as complexity, customizations, technology stack, API integration, platform’s features & functionality, and more.

How Yo!Yumm Can Help You In Launching A Successful On-Demand Food Delivery App

Yo!Yumm, a readymade food delivery software by FATbit Technologies can help you in launching your online food delivery platform hassle-free. It is an efficient software solution that can take care of all needs of an online food delivery business. It enables entrepreneurs to easily optimize and streamline their business operations. 

Yo!Yumm is best described as an all-inclusive solution for your online food delivery business needs. Most importantly, this software offers advanced features to smoothly run an online food delivery platform. 

Here are some of the features offered by Yo!Yumm that can help you build the best on-demand food delivery app. 

• One-year free customer support 
• Lifetime ownership with no recurring charges
• Complete control over appearances and feel of your online platform
• Actionable data and analytics 
• Pre-integration of popular APIs
• Offers intuitive mobile apps and websites 

Conclusion

The development of an on-demand food delivery app opens up endless possibilities for entrepreneurs in the online food delivery industry. Creating the right food delivery app with all reliable features is extremely important for the sustainable growth of any business. By following the comprehensive guide we have provided, you now have a solid understanding of the considerations involved in creating a successful food delivery app. With careful planning and the right software solution, an online food delivery platform can be created hassle-free.

Last Updated: 29th December, 2023

The past decade witnessed the emergence of unique eCommerce businesses. A few of them are meal prep websites, led by incumbents like Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, and Plated. There are various reasons behind the success of meal prep businesses, some of which are still relevant in 2024.

Firstly, the Millennials and Gen X population are the top demographic profiles amongst meal prep consumers, comprising around 63.7% of all buyers. They also constitute the population with maximum control over their monetary decisions. Secondly, the general consumers of meal prep businesses belong to high-income families with an average annual income up to $80,000, making the business highly lucrative.

Why are consumers attracted to meal prep websites?

According to Numerator, a leading market intelligence organization, the three primary reasons why people like to order food from meal prep businesses are:

Such a business has three primary models as explained below:

• ordering from meal prep sites saves time in meal planning
• reduces time in grocery shopping
• introduces food from diverse cuisines

Apart from these, the Ikea effect (stating that people add value to things that they help create themselves) also justifies the consumer psychology and desire behind ordering ready-to-cook meals.

All aforementioned stats and factors indicate the immense business potential in the meal prep industry. Considering the favorable market scenario and lack of meal prep businesses in several towns and cities, it is safe to conclude that 2024 is a right time to set foot in the meal prep industry.

Table of contents

• Latest trends of meal prep business in 2024
  • Plant-based/vegan meal prep business model
  • Kids’ meal prep business

• Viable business models for a meal prep website
  • The meal-kit delivery model (followed by Freshly and Hello Fresh)
  • Goal-oriented meal delivery model (followed by Magic Kitchen and Fresh N Lean)
  • Pre-cooked storable meal delivery model (followed by Healthy Choice and Smart Ones)

• Things to Consider Before Starting an online meal prep business
  • Financial planning
  • Licenses and permits
  • Competitive analysis
  • Software technology
  • Server and hosting
  • Managing human resources
  • Business insurance
  • Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy
• Conclusion
• FAQs

Latest trends of meal prep business in 2024

Businesses that cater to demand that is gaining traction amongst consumers have an increased opportunity to onboard customers. Considering the advantages of starting with popular meal choices, listed below are latest trends of the meal prep business in 2024:

Plant-based/vegan meal prep business model:  

Consumers who follow a vegan diet avoid all animal products. For instance, meat, dairy products, eggs, and even honey.  Such meals require only vegan-friendly ingredients that are selected carefully and are at times hard to find.

These meals are peculiar with long preparation times and extremely expensive when consumed on a daily basis. Vegan meals are crafted with care, as missing ingredients may put people on vegan diets at nutrient deficiencies. The plant-based/vegan meal prep model assists consumers in adhering to their special vegan diets by bringing forth meal kit subscriptions lasting a week or a month-long. Such meal subscriptions are more affordable as compared to placing a single order every time.

Through a meal prep business the following provisions can be made for consumers following a vegan diet: 

• Consumers can eat their meals with the assurance of the authenticity of the vegan ingredients used to prepare the meals.
• Vegan meal delivery reduces the meal prep time by saving costumes time to shop for exclusive ingredients.
• A vegan meal prep business can connect chefs who specialize in vegan meals to consumers who wish to follow the vegan diet on its platform. 

Kids’ meal prep business

The business of kids’ meals is gaining popularity as it lessens the efforts of parents regarding planning and preparing meals for their kids. Customers can easily subscribe by choosing the type and number of meal kits they want to get delivered per week and the business gets them delivered accordingly.

Through a kids’ meal prep business the following value can be added for customers wishing to order meals for children: 

• Customers will be able to  select from a list of meals as per the kid’s nutritional requirements and tastes. 
• It can make it easy for customers to give a proper diet to children with their busy schedules.
• It can save customers’ time on meal planning.
• It can bring variety to the child’s food and makes meals an exciting part of their routine.

Viable business models for a meal prep website

Entrepreneurs interested in starting a meal prep business require to understand its viable business models. The existing meal prep businesses are relying heavily on the following models and as per our expertise in the eCommerce industry, we also suggest you to assess them for your business.

Note: Though the actual business model varies from organization to organization, its workflow remains similar. Business owners need to scrutinize and replace some processes in the model to align it with their organization. They also need to ensure that their meal prep software supports the selected business model.

1. The meal-kit delivery model (followed by Freshly and HelloFresh)

Under this business model, consumers demand meal-kits on an on-demand and subscription basis. In subscriptions, they can select how many kits they want to be delivered per week and the business delivers those kits accordingly.

Business flow:

• Consumers browse recipes/meals on meal prep websites
• They add a recipe/meal to their cart or select how many meals they would like to be delivered along with the frequency of delivery
• Consumers make the payment and the business owner delivers the meal(s)

How does this model work with multiple vendors?

1. Various vendors/chefs register on the eCommerce platform and enlist their recipes/meals
2. Consumers browse the enlisted recipes/meals 
3. They add a recipe/meal to their cart or select how many meals they would like to be delivered per week
4. Consumers make the payment and the business owner deducts a commission before transferring the rest to the vendor
5. The respective vendor/chef delivers the meal(s)

Why the meal-kit delivery model holds value for consumers?

• It saves their time on meal planning
• Meal-kit delivery saves time shopping
• Makes it easy to cook festive meals such as on Easter and Christmas Eve
• Teaches exciting recipes
• Pre-cut veggies/meat, accurate proportions and disposable packing reduce clutter and shorten clean-up time

2. Goal-oriented meal delivery model (followed by Magic Kitchen and Fresh n Lean)

Consumers with special diets and health goals require cautiously prepared meals made with handpicked ingredients. Not only these meals have long prep times but are also expensive for daily consumption. Goal-oriented meal delivery model assists the consumers requiring special diets by subscribing them to week or month-long meal deliveries.

Meals subscriptions also tend to be more affordable in comparison to placing one-time orders on food delivery platforms. Some examples of goal-oriented meals for consumers with health issues are:

• Diabetic-friendly meals
• Gluten-free meals
• Low sodium meals
• Low fiber meals
• Low uric acid meals
• Vegan meals

Similarly, gym and fitness enthusiasts can subscribe to lean-protein, high carbs and keto diet meals as per their fitness requirements.

Business flow:

1. Consumers browse goal-oriented meals on the meal prep marketplace
2. They subscribe to a meal
3. Consumers make payment and the business owner delivers the selected meal(s) routinely

How does this model work with multiple vendors?

1. Various dieticians/nutritionists/chefs register on the platform and enlist goal-oriented meals
2. Consumers browse the enlisted meals
3. They subscribe to a meal and make the payment
4. The business owner deducts a commission from the payment and transfers the rest to the respective vendor
5. The business owner or the respective dietician/nutritionist/chef ensures the routinely delivery of meals

Why the goal-oriented meal delivery model holds value for consumers?

• Does not require consumers to be health-conscious while eating meals
• Goal-oriented meal delivery saves time shopping and reduces the meal prep time
• Pre-cut veggies/meat, accurate proportions and disposable packing reduce clutter and shorten clean-up time
• Assist consumers in achieving their health goals

3. Pre-cooked storable meal delivery model (followed by Healthy Choice and Smart Ones)

Despite the ease and flexibility meal-kit delivery and goal-oriented meal delivery models provide, they are not preferred by extensively occupied consumers. Working professionals and students living alone cannot always be available at their residential address to accept routine delivery of meal-kits containing various raw ingredients. Thus, they are more inclined towards pre-cooked frozen meals like:

• Instant noodles and rice
• Lentils and beans
• Porridge
• Steak
• Mashed potatoes
• Condensed soup
• Frozen burritos
• Frozen pizzas

Pre-cooked storable meal delivery websites differ from grocery delivery websites as the products sold on them require the bare minimum efforts to prepare for eating (like reheating or adding seasonings).

Business flow:

1. Consumers browse pre-cooked meals on the website
2. They add meal(s) to their cart and select the order quantity
3. Consumers make payment and the business owner delivers all the meals at once

How does this model work with multiple vendors?

1. Multiple restaurants, food services, and eateries register on the platform and enlist pre-cooked meals
2. Consumers browse the enlisted meals and add them to their cart
3. Consumers select the quantity and make payment 
4. The business owner deducts a commission and transfers the rest to the vendor
5. The selected restaurant or food services deliver the meal(s)

Why the pre-cooked storable meal delivery model holds value for consumers?

• Easy to preserve and requires bare minimum efforts to prepare for eating
• Pre-cooked storable meals save time shopping
• Properly packed containers ensure the least possible clean-up time
• Assist consumers in achieving their health goals
• Suitable for consumers with busy life schedules
• All meals are delivered at one-time delivery

Checkout the following figure to view the revenue streams compatible with the aforementioned business models.

Things to consider before starting an online meal prep business

In an ever-changing world, it gets difficult for business owners to select the correct options to launch a new business. The presence of so many variables, like supply chain setup, delivery process selection and funding options, make it difficult to validate the pre-launch actions. Thus, to speed up the business launch and refine the startup process for entrepreneurs, we have shed light on the constants that are nearly applicable on all eCommerce businesses. 

1. Financial planning

Financial planning assists business owners in estimating and meeting the business’ financial requirements. To begin, you need to calculate the gross margin of your meal prep business, which is the total sales forecast minus the cost of delivering meal prep orders (cost of ingredients and preparation also in case of single-vendor meal prep businesses).Based on the gross margin, you can create a budget of all expenses (such as software cost, licensing cost, delivery cost, building maintenance, utility bills and salaries) and maintain a balance sheet. Doing so will allow you to track your expenditure on various assets and liabilities.

2. Licenses and permits

The official registration of a meal prep business will ensure legal protection. It will validate the business obligations towards the government and vice versa. Once a business owner obtains the license, he/she can avail tax benefits and government schemes to acquire leverage over non-registered businesses.

Several private investors also offer funding to registered businesses only, which is a massive advantage of obtaining a license. Business registration and licensing details can be acquired from state or industry-specific statutory bodies.

Some important licenses and permits that are required to launch a meal prep business are:

• Business license
• Employee Identification Number (EIN)
• Liquor license (in case if an entrepreneur wants to deliver liquor through his meal prep business)
• Food establishment permit
• Seller’s permit
• Employee health permit 
• Building health permit

Visit this page to view the complete list of business licenses and permits.

3. Competitive analysis

In-depth competitive analysis is required to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of other businesses in the same industry. The analysis will allow entrepreneurs in the meal prep industry to identify key competitors, understand competitor pricing, analyze the existing customer experiences and evaluate the competitors’ unique selling points. Based on these details, a startup can devise a marketing strategy and revise prices to take over the existing businesses in  targeted market(s).

4. Software technology

eCommerce websites developed using page builders have a captivating front end. They are decent for creating eye-catching websites but lack the dedicated features to conduct smooth online business operations. For a meal prep business, back-end features are required for order management, catalogue management, user management, and handling deliveries. Websites developed by page builders often don’t have the required backend support and the website owner has to rely on third-party meal prep software.

Another issue that arrives when selecting the software technology is budget restrictions. Scratch development of software to support a meal prep business involves programming and testing of too many features. These features vary in prices. Thus via the scratch development method, startups and SMBs can only afford a few essential features, not all. A simple solution to this problem is to opt for readymade meal prep software that require minimum customizations to get started.

5. Server and hosting

There are different ways by which a business can host its website. Information technology firms describe them as hosted and self-hosted. When a business owner opts for an eCommerce software with a hosted server, the software provider firm is responsible for managing the server and hosting. The firm ensures the uptime of the website and maintenance and upgradation of the server.

However, a downside of hosted eCommerce solutions is that the website can go down when the server crashes. The solution for this problem is self-hosted services. Solutions that are labelled as self-hosted, leave the choice of hosting with the customer. He/She can opt for any type of hosting he wants.

The most popular types of self-hosting services for which entrepreneurs opt for are SaaS hosting, cloud hosting, dedicated server hosting and on-premise hosting.

Check out the following table to understand the benefits of these hosting types.

6. Managing human resources

Depending on the marketing strategy and estimated sales of a meal prep business, the owner will need to hire various employees. A big challenge that the business owner may face is to make business professionals trust his startup. Without the trust, it can get difficult to acquire talented individuals, which will be followed by the problem of low employee retention.

The following options can assist startup meal prep businesses overcome the aforementioned staffing problem:

• Recruit managers who have experience working in startup firms
• Hire a virtual assistant for daily administrative work such as scheduling appointments, making phone calls, allocating tasks, accounting, handling payroll and managing social media handles 
• Tie up with a human resources firm to assist fill positions for non-managerial roles such as delivery personnels, office boys, warehouse assistants, etc.
• Hire remote dedicated teams or professionals for digital marketing, graphic designing, customer support and IT. Dedicated teams will reduce expenditure on providing hardware resources and daily utilities like water, restroom and electricity.  
• Hire freelancers on websites like Fiverr for one-time designing, marketing and programming. (If you are hiring a virtual assistant, you can let him/her find and manage freelancers for your business.)
• Use an employee referral program to encourage existing employees refer their friends and previous colleagues to become your employees

7. Business insurance

Business insurance is extremely valuable for startup businesses. It has various advantages for a meal prep business, like cover against major losses and damage to important business assets.

Several business insurances also provide coverage for third-party liability, i.e., if your business causes unintentional damage or loss to a person, business or property. Other than benefits, coverage for filing lawsuits, unintentional violation of third-party copyrights and damages and losses due to natural disasters is also included in business insurance.

Note that all insurance policies are not equal and may not carry the same benefits for a meal prep business. For this reason, a 10-days or longer free-look period is provided with the insurance to policyholders. Within this period, policyholders can review the terms of the insurance and make any amends they want. They can also cancel the policy without facing any penalty in the free-look period.

8. Go-to-market (GTM) strategy

The Go-To-Market Strategy involves the identification of the value proposition that a business wants to provide to its consumers and a deep understanding of buyer personas. GTM strategy involves how you want to roll your meal prep business in the market and the impression you want to create on your buyers. The GTM strategy is inclusive of several factors such as the development of MVP, pricing, selecting value proposition, marketing, etc.

The 7Ps of go-to-market strategy will help you understand it better:

• Product

To launch an online meal prep business, entrepreneurs require a website, which is the firstmost requirement in GTM strategy of an eCommerce business. The website will both validate the business idea and attract the first few customers. The easiest way to get a website for idea validation is either MVP development or using a readymade software.

• Price

The next step in the strategy is to set the pricing of the product in order to maximize profit margin. In case of a multi vendor business, the website owner should select the amount of his/her sales commission.

• Place

In the eCommerce sector, place refers to the channels through which a business distributes its services and products. In 2024, selecting an omni-channel approach is the most relevant. Omni-channel approach includes distribution via social media websites, third party advertisement, IVR system and several other online and offline channels.

• Promotion

This step refers to the identification value proposition and formulation of marketing strategy. For startup businesses (both multi-vendor and single vendor) in the meal prep industry, we have outlined the following approach for business promotion.

• People

A business must identify the minimum skills and experience its employees should have to make the business viable. By outlining the key requirements for employees in both major and minor roles beforehand, a meal prep business can hire the employees required to speed up the market launch.

• Processes

Processes refers to the steps and measures taken to deliver the services and products to the end customer. It involves the finalization of the business model with all changes and personalization, preparation of a sales funnel, selection of payment methods and delivery procedures.

• Physical evidence

Physical evidence is the proof of successfully conducted business operations. The proof is required for various reasons such as research and analytics, funding and for statutory reasons. The physical evidence for a meal prep business can be receipts, invoices, packaging order tracking information, etc.

How to attract consumers on a meal prep website?

1. For startup businesses, the first marketing objective is to make the consumers aware of the existence of business. For this, publishing ads in newspapers, magazines, billboards and social media profiles can help. Publishing press releases and paid promotions via Instagram and Facebook influencers is also a tested strategy for introducing newly launched businesses.
2. Once the business is introduced, it should convey the value proposition, i.e., the offerings of your meal prep business to the consumers. Successful meal prep businesses are providing the following propositions:
   1. First time discounts
   2. Free first meals
   3. Reward points for successful friend referrals
   4. Insulated food packaging
   5. Video directions for meal cooking
   6. Gift cards
   7. Student discounts
3. Once the sales begin, the meal prep business can retain customers by dropping offers in their inbox. It can also create a VIP subscription or offer corporate discounts.
4. Quality of photos used to describe the food will play a quintessential role in attracting consumers. Media plays an important role to build temptation and anticipation by providing customers with the necessary visual feedback. Steller photo-editing service providers such as fixthephoto.com that specialize in food photography can give your meal photos the requisite professional edge.

How to attract vendors on a multi-vendor meal prep business?

1. After introducing the business via advertisements and press releases, the next challenge is to convince vendors to register on the marketplace. This can be done by offering them assistance in uploading listings on the platform as vendors already selling on other websites would be reluctant to do double efforts in uploading their product catalogues.
2. As the marketplace owner, you can deduct smaller commissions from vendors or charge no commission for the first few orders.
3. Use email marketing to attract chefs, dietitians and nutritionists on the platform. When approached properly, they will take pride in selling their meals through your meal prep business. If these people are not business owners, you can also promote your meal prep website as a lucrative side hustle to them.

Conclusion

According to a survey conducted by the global business consulting giant McKinsey, Millennials are 6 times more likely to find new brands more innovative. They are also 400% more likely to avoid purchasing from big brands than their parents. Ensuring continuity to disruptive patterns, the above-mentioned statistics highlight the scope for new businesses to enter in the meal prep industry and compete with the incumbents.

To match the customer experience of existing businesses, newly established meal prep businesses require to focus on the value proposition, customer support and scalability of their eCommerce site.

FAQs

How to start an online meal prep business?

For an overview of the blog, see the steps below:

• Do financial planning, accounting all factors such as gross margins and expenditure on licenses, utility bills, operation costs, etc.
• Obtain business licenses and permits
• Do a competitor analysis to find out the pricing and customer values offered by your competitors.
• Invest in a software technology to launch your meal prep platform
• Deploy the platform on a server and go live
• Purchase business insurance to secure your business from third-party liability
• Prepare and execute a Go-to-Market strategy to finally step in the market

Is starting a meal prep business a profitable business idea?

Considering the annual revenues of meal prep businesses like Hello Fresh, Freshly, Blue Apron and Fresh N Lean, along with the highly impressive growth rate of 17.7% in the forecast period 2023-2030 as per the Globenewswire report, launching a meal prep business is a profitable business idea in several global markets.

The food industry is transforming with each passing day and the introduction of the online ordering system in this domain has worked for the convenience and benefit for both customers and food businesses. More than 50% of US customers prefer ordering food at home every week. 93% of Gen Zers and 87% of Millennials are satiated with the contemporary online food ordering system.

An online food ordering system allows food businesses to accept and manage food orders that are placed online by customers. Customers can check the menu of the restaurant, select the food, and make payments without any contact with the staff of the restaurant.

A highlight to notice in this whole system is that, despite the lack of interaction between the customers and staff, the food orders can be placed more efficiently and quickly without any errors. An online food ordering system also creates more sales opportunities by easing the food ordering process for customers.

Hence, we can say that an online food delivery system is the right solution for many startup restaurants and budding entrepreneurs to expand their businesses. Many restaurant businesses are widely investing in online food delivery systems as it lets them serve the current market demands. This article explains detailed insights into the working and benefits of a multi vendor food ordering system.

Table of Contents:

• Multi Vendor Food Ordering System
• Importance of a Multi Vendor Food Ordering System
  – For Admins
  – For Restaurants
  – For Customers
  – For Delivery Drivers
• Workflow of a Multi Vendor Food Ordering System
  – Step 1: Customer visits marketplace website or mobile application
  – Step 2: Customer chooses his/her favorite dish from his/her favorite restaurant listed on the website
  – Step 3: Add food items to the cart
  – Step 4: Making payment and placing the order
  – Step 5: Processing of food
  – Step 6: The delivery process
• Essential Features and Functionalities of an Online Food Ordering System
  – Reliable, Safe, and Timely Delivery
  – User-friendly Graphic User Interface(GUI) For Easy Navigation Through The App
  – Well-Displayed Menu Catalog
  – Geo-Fencing
  – Easy Contact and Live Chat
  – Live Tracking Of Order
  – Reviews and Ratings
  – Discount Coupons
  – Payment Methods
• Third-Party Integration Via API
  – Payment Gateway
  – Delivery API
  – Marketing API
  – Mailing API
  – SMS API
  – Accounting API
• Why Choose A Ready-Made Multi Vendor Food Ordering System?
• The Best For You!

Multi Vendor Food Ordering System

A multi vendor food ordering system allows business owners to bring together multiple restaurants on a single platform expanding their reach and providing wider food options for customers. This system comprises a dedicated admin panel to help business owners manage their marketplace activities conveniently. This system comes with ready-made apps and web portals for buyers, customers, restaurants, and delivery agents.

Let’s see the importance of a multi vendor food ordering system for all the stakeholders in a food business. 

Importance of a Multi Vendor Food Ordering System

The multi vendor food ordering system has gained popularity among food businesses as it provides ease and brings convenience in managing and organizing food orders and delivery. There are numerous benefits of using a multi vendor food ordering system for business owners, restaurants, and customers. Let’s explore a few of them:

For Admins

1. A multi vendor food ordering system allows the admin to easily manage and streamline the operations of a food business.
2. With a multi vendor food ordering system, admins can earn money through different revenue channels like commission on orders from restaurants, premium listings for restaurants, delivery service charges, etc. Moreover, admins have the flexibility to decide their own commission fee they want to charge.
3. Admins can provide seasonal offers and discount prices to restaurants and customers registering on the platform to boost their brand visibility.
4. Multi vendor food ordering systems let admins retrieve customer data such as their order preferences, restaurant preferences, etc. This data helps admins make strategic decisions for their businesses.
5. An efficient food ordering system lets the admin send automated notifications to customers, restaurant vendors, and food delivery partners related to order placement, payments, etc. 

For Restaurants

1. Restaurants get a dedicated merchant dashboard to monitor their restaurant operations in one place. 
2. Security & Online Payment Gateways integration make transactions easy.
3. Restaurants can easily build a menu and list their cuisines on a multi vendor food ordering and delivery platform. 
4. Because of the online platform, restaurants can deal with a lot of customers in less time. 
5. Restaurants can advertise their services and brands worldwide and can grow their business. 
6. Restaurants can provide their customers with lots of discounts, deals, and vouchers to gain customer loyalty. 
7. A great food ordering system also lets restaurants track their sales, profits, and customer information.

For Customers

1. A multi vendor food ordering platform provides multiple food choices to customers. They can compare prices, ratings, and reviews for the food and make an informed purchasing decision. 
2. As many restaurants are offering their services on a single platform, customers get numerous deals and offers because of the competition. 
3. Customers can filter their search results based on their food and brand preferences.
4. Customers get multiple payment options for a seamless payment and checkout process. 
5. With GPS enabled in the food ordering system, customers can track their food and estimated time of arrival. 

For Delivery Drivers

1. Delivery personnel get instantly notified about assigned orders.
2. GPS integration in the online food ordering system lets delivery drivers reach the delivery location on time with the help of optimized route suggestions. 
3. Delivery drivers can also track their earnings on the food ordering system itself. 

Related post: Online Food Delivery Business Models- A Detailed Guide

Workflow of a Multi Vendor Food Ordering System

Now that we have explored the numerous advantages multi vendor food ordering systems offer to all the stakeholders of a food business, now let‘s understand the step-by-step workflow of a multi vendor food ordering system.

Step 1: Customer visits marketplace website or mobile application

When a customer wishes to order food, he/she simply visits the website or application of the marketplace. Several restaurants are listed on the portal along with their menus displayed in the catalog, giving the customer a large variety of options.

Step 2: Customer chooses his/her favorite dish from his/her favorite restaurant listed on the website

The customer can choose from a variety of listed options by categorizing restaurants or dishes. The advantage of a marketplace is that a customer can find almost all types of food he/she is looking for on a single portal. The customer can also re-order his favorite meals by visiting the history tag.

Step 3: Add food items to the cart

Adding food items to the cart is an important step in the workflow of the system. The customer adds the chosen dishes to the cart with just a click. The cart displays all the items to be ordered along with the quantity. The customers also get the option to add discount coupons provided by restaurants and admins.

The functioning of the portal allows ordering from only a single restaurant at a time.

Step 4: Making payment and placing the order

The next step is to make the payment using multiple payment methods available in the system. Secure transactions through third-party payment gateways or wallets are easy ways to transact money for food orders. The payment made by the customer is transferred to the admin. The admin then transfers the amount to the restaurant after deducting the commission.

Step 5: Processing of food

Once the payment is received by the restaurant, an acknowledgment notification is sent to the customer in the form of an email, message, or app notification. As the orders pile up at restaurants with every coming customer, a priority list is maintained to provide orders on a first come first serve basis.

The status of the food being prepared is updated to the customer on the application or the website. The delivery fleet assigned to the order can belong to either the merchant or the admin depending on the choice of the merchant.

Step 6: The delivery process

As soon as the food is prepared, it is picked up by the delivery rider and the customer is notified of the same. An add-on feature provided by some online food ordering systems is tracking orders through GPS. It gives the customer a sense of control to know the tentative time for delivery.

Customers can now keep check of their orders through the website or the mobile application.

Essential Features and Functionalities of an Online Food Ordering System

A feature-packed online food ordering system can help you stand out from the competition in the market. It is crucial to look for a food ordering system that can ease the food ordering and delivery process and offer a great customer experience. Below are the must-have features in a food ordering system for a better user experience on your platform.

Reliable, Safe, and Timely Delivery

Providing timely delivery is crucial for customer satisfaction and can be achieved by bringing orders to the customer’s doorstep safe and hassle-free. In a multi vendor food ordering system, the delivery fleet is owned by the marketplace and it is optional for the restaurant to use its delivery service or rely on the marketplace to provide the same.

Both admin and restaurant owners are at liberty to use third-party services to manage delivery.

User-friendly Graphic User Interface(GUI) For Easy Navigation Through The App

A convenient ordering experience relies on the comfort of the customer. A user-friendly GUI helps the user to move around the application with ease. On the other hand, if the navigation is tricky or requires a certain amount of expertise while navigating on the app, most of the customers would exit the app even before looking at the USP your brand is offering.

Well-Displayed Menu Catalog

The main aim of any online food ordering system is to sell the food items to the customers. Now, if the menu is not well displayed or synchronized, it will pose difficulties for the customer to find his/her required dish. Segregating the menu using tabs and filters aids in a smooth navigation and ordering experience for the customer.

Geo-Fencing

Geo-fencing helps the admin to define limits to the areas where the service of the online food ordering system can be availed. The delivery services remain unavailable outside the virtual fence. The limits of the fence can be redefined whenever required. This feature can be easily embedded into a system through customization.

Easy Contact and Live Chat

There are times when a customer needs to connect with company personnel. It can be due to several reasons, for instance, refunds related to delayed delivery of food, unacceptable condition of food delivered, and many more. In such situations, a live chat is a very effective way for customers to contact.

Live Tracking Of Order

Live tracking brings a sense of control to the customer. They can easily track their orders and know about the estimated time of arrival of their food. Tracking also helps the delivery fleet to manage their orders and improve the turnaround time of the order.

Reviews and Ratings

A customer can have numerous issues when dealing with your business. As a business owner, you should always welcome criticism and be ready for improvement. Reviews and rating features allow the business owner to pave his path to satiate his/her customer.

Discount Coupons

Customers are very attracted to discounted meals, especially short-term ones. It inculcates an exhilarating feeling in the customer to grab the discount before it ends, increasing online traffic. In a multi vendor food ordering system, discounts can be offered by restaurants and admins.

Payment Methods

Your website or application should support various payment methods. It can be through a wallet, credit card, third-party APIs, cash on delivery, and so on. Having a variety of payment methods makes it comfortable for the customer to pay.

Apart from knowing about the important features and functionality of a food ordering system, another important thing to consider is to know whether your food ordering system is pre-integrated with some of the popular APIs or not. Let’s know more about APIs. 

Third-Party Integration Via API

API integration to the system provides seamless communication between the main system and the third-party software. Let’s know more about some of the popular APIs that are essential for a reliable multi vendor food ordering system.

Payment Gateway

A payment gateway API enables your system to make secure payments. It incorporates into your existing digital system and connects the customer with a payment-acquiring network, as soon as the customer checks out in the system to make payment for the items in his/her cart. Some of the popular payment gateways are Stripe, PayPal, Authorise.Net, and many more.

Delivery API

Delivery is a very important feature of an online food delivery system. One of the most common and popular APIs for this is Google Maps. It’s an extensive service that helps the customer track the location of the rider and get an estimated time duration required for delivery.

Marketing API

The API used for marketing is an HTTP-based API, used to create and manage advertisements, and perform various other tasks. Some of the popular marketing apps are Facebook, Firebase, Google, and many more.

Mailing API

An Email API allows the website to have access to an email platform to send and receive emails. It also enables template manipulations and gives access to email metrics. The most popular mailing API is Mailchimp.

SMS API

An SMS API is a software integration interface that allows you to send personal and broadcast messages through a personalized SMS channel. A very popular API for sending and receiving messages is Clickatell.

Accounting API

Some of the common APIs used to integrate the system with the accounting software are Xero Payroll API, Concur API, Twinfield API, and the list goes on.

We have covered almost all aspects of a multi vendor food ordering system above and by now, you must be feeling motivated enough to go for a multi vendor food ordering system for your food business. Further, let us guide you in choosing a reliable solution for your business. 

Why Choose A Ready-Made Multi Vendor Food Ordering System?

Considering the major advancement and technological revolution in the food industry, online food delivery and ordering have crossed leaps when it comes to economic growth. And, a multi vendor food ordering system is capable of generating high profits for restaurants and online business owners in this current scenario.

The success of a multi vendor food ordering system depends on the way it is developed. There are numerous ways to develop a multi vendor food ordering marketplace but opting for a ready-made solution is the best option. A ready-made solution provides quick implementation and launching of your multi vendor marketplace.

This solution is indeed less expensive as compared to a custom-built solution. In addition to that, it comes with all the essential features to cater to the needs of a food business. These solutions are also highly scalable and help you manage your business efficiently as it grows. 

The Best For You!

Yo!Yumm is one such popular ready-made food delivery software that helps in building a multi vendor food ordering platform without much hassle. It is a fully customizable solution where you can add your logo and branding, and launch your online food business in no time. The order management provided by this solution lets you manage your multi vendor marketplace conveniently.

Yo!Yumm provides intuitively-designed dashboards for admins, customers, restaurants, and delivery staff for the smooth functioning of the operations of a food business. The solution also comes pre-integrated with all popular payment APIs like PayPal, Authorize.net, Stripe, etc. for seamless transactions on a multi vendor marketplace. Additionally, Yo!Yumm provides 1-year of technical support for timely troubleshooting of errors and bugs.

Yo!Yumm has already helped so many entrepreneurs establish their online food businesses like Bulldog Delivery, Afritastes, OYO cater, Biterider.my, and Petabhari, and is eager to help many more. 

Positive client testimonials and reviews on Yo!Yumm’s official website shows their transparency and helps you in making an informed decision. The solution comes at an affordable price range and provides maximum customization options.

Last Updated: 2nd February, 2023

The increasing accessibility of the internet and simultaneous technological innovations offer fertile ground for the growth of modern businesses. This is particularly true for industry segments where internet technology forms the backbone of all the key operations viz. Online food delivery.

The global online food delivery market was valued at $106.1 Billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $223.7 Billion by 2027, exhibiting a growth rate (CAGR) of 11.44% during 2022-2027. The market is highly competitive, and some of the leading players offering online food delivery services include Deliveroo, Just Eat, Delivery Hero, GrubHub, and Uber Eats.

Seeing the growing popularity of this business, we have consolidated the list of the top food delivery software to build websites and mobile apps. However, before going through that list, let’s have a look at the evolution, challenges, and benefits of a food delivery business.

Table of Content

• How Food Delivery Has Evolved In The Past Decade
• Challenges in Food Delivery Ecosystem
• How a Food Delivery Software is Helpful
• Leading Software in the Food Ordering & Delivery Industry
• Our Methodology
• Bottom Line

How Food Delivery Has Evolved In The Past Decade

Food delivery has evolved to become one of the fastest-growing markets. Food delivery, a system whose origins can be traced back to ancient Rome, has evolved to a whole new level of delivery of food.

It has changed with the advent of technology, especially communications technology including smartphones and POS (point of sale) systems, and has become quite easy and simple – a few clicks and the food is delivered to you.

Companies like Pizza Hut allow customers to customize and order pizza from their websites. Many food delivery services at present, not only help customers order food but also offer a whole new world of convenience and culinary delights.

Challenges in Food Delivery Ecosystem

Shifting Customer Preferences

Every food delivery business’s main aim is to grow its customer base by offering the best value at an affordable cost. The rise of marketing tactics has spoiled customers for choices as the competition grows. This impacts brand loyalty significantly and makes the customer base unstable toward the business.

In pursuit of controlling customer attrition, food businesses need to deploy various marketing strategies to increase engagement.

Unstable Market Prices

The food delivery industry is becoming increasingly competitive with new players joining every day, making it difficult to crack the right pricing strategy. While the startups decide to work with less or even no profit, the existing players need to focus on implementing aggressive and defensive pricing strategies to compete with their rivals.

This puts more pressure on margins and affects profitability.

Lack of Efficient Logistics

Given the increasing popularity of food delivery, businesses need to have sufficient logistics to keep up with this ever-increasing demand. Else, the huge influx of orders makes it difficult for them to provide on-time deliveries. Expansive delivery radius, huge number of vehicles, large order numbers, maintaining food quality, etc. are some of the critical logistics challenges that hamper the proper functioning of startups.

Coping Up With Customers’ Expectations

Customers these days are quite informed and have huge expectations when it comes to food delivery. If the business fails to satisfy the customers’ needs, the business is a failed attempt. Moreover, not just the restaurant is accountable for working towards meeting customers’ needs, the food delivery business holds equal responsibility in doing so. Both need to work together proactively in order to fill in the gaps.

How a Food Delivery Software is Helpful

Since the demand and popularity of food delivery have grown and reinvigorated the food industry, food delivery software is a necessity that cannot be ignored by the food delivery businesses. Businesses that are not leveraging the benefits of food delivery software are missing out on vital benefits.

They fail to accommodate their customers properly, affecting the bottom line of their business significantly. Let’s go over the essential benefits offered by food delivery software.

Delivery Process Automation

Using food delivery software reduces the chances of manual errors and increases the automation of the delivery process. Different useful features like route optimization, customized branding, real-time tracking, COD management, etc. increase the efficiency of delivery processes ensuring successful and timely delivery.

Smart Data Analytics

Many food businesses underestimate the power of smart data analytics. Managers and data analysts will not be able to perform this activity as efficiently as food delivery software with smart data analytics. A food delivery software can easily analyze and present tons of data from different aspects to help you understand the inefficiencies of your food delivery process so that you can take relevant measures to improve it.

Real-Time Monitoring of Expenses & Inventory

Food delivery software updates the supply list, inventory, and expenses in real time. The business owner can review these to keep track of and manage everything more proactively. All these details come in handy while checking the sales of menu items, determining the best-selling menu items, tracking inventory, and ordering supplies.

Delivery Route Planning

While food delivery businesses strive hard to minimize the expenditures of last-mile delivery, it is considerably dependent on managing the number of stops and idle time. Food delivery software allows for forward-thinking route planning, real-time modifications, delivery time, and live ETA.

Seamless Communication

Communication is essential in the delivery process to reduce misunderstandings and lags in the delivery process. Food delivery software offers a strong communication channel between customers. Restaurants and delivery partners complete the delivery process in a quick and affordable manner. The software sends constant updates to customers, restaurants, and delivery partners to keep everyone updated about the delivery.

Customer Experience

Customer experience is what matters for an online food delivery business. It not only depends upon the taste and affordability of food but on the ordering & delivery experience as well. Food delivery software makes the whole ordering and delivery process so smooth, elevating the customer experience to a whole new level.

Leading Software in the Food Ordering & Delivery Industry

As the popularity of online food delivery is advancing, the software to build food delivery websites and mobile apps are also growing in numbers. The following article throws the spotlight on top food delivery software for aspiring entrepreneurs in the food industry. We have evaluated everything from ease of use to the features to help you pick delivery software for your business.

Yo!Yumm

Yo!Yumm is an advanced customizable food delivery software designed for entrepreneurs who are planning to launch a business around online food ordering and delivery. This feature-packed software is built with modern technology and integrated with several third-party APIs to expand the functionalities of a food delivery business.

Business owners can build self-hosted food delivery marketplaces and can take control of their food business from a centralized platform and save time and operational costs with this white-label food delivery software. The intuitively designed admin panel helps business owners manage their marketplace activities conveniently.

Recognized as an efficient and best software to build food delivery websites and mobile apps, Yo!Yumm delivers an enriching customer experience with robust backend and front-end designs, and strong website management capabilities. The software has been purpose-built with core food delivery-specific features to capture growth opportunities in this flourishing sector.

Highlights:

• No Recurring Fees
• Daily Sales Updates
• Reviews & Ratings
• Multiple Delivery Management
• Support for Restaurants
• Geolocation
• Real-Time Order Tracking
• Payment Tracking
• Menu Management
• Multiple Payment Methods
• Discounts, Offers, & Reward Points
• Push Notifications
• Mobile Apps
• Multilingual
• Multiple Restaurant Management
• Marketing Tools

Pricing

• GoQuick – $999
• GoQuick Boost – $3499
• GoCustom – Get a custom quote

The Andriod and iOS mobile apps are also available for the software.

*The amount to be paid for any package of Yo!Yumm is one-time fees.

Tookan

This is a delivery management platform that helps food businesses streamline operations and facilitate communication between restaurants and delivery partners. The platform has a wide variety of direct POS integrations to facilitate a seamless delivery experience. The administrative dashboard of the platform enables the users to track the orders in real-time.

Features like order tracking, geo-fencing, wallet, transaction log, etc. make it an ideal platform to meet the diverse requirements of a food delivery business and manage cumbersome administrative processes. Tookan assists to launch, run, and scale a food delivery business that not only attracts shoppers but also helps them in their complete food ordering journey.

Highlights:

• Geofencing
• Real-Time Order Tracking
• Route Optimization
• Offline Sync
• Agent Scheduling
• Agent Wallet

Pricing

Tookan can be purchased monthly or annually. The annual plans of Tookan are a bit more cost-efficient than the monthly ones.

Annual Plans

• Early Stage – $17/month
• Startup – $53/month
• Growth – $113/month
• Standard – $215/month
• Enterprise – RFQ

Monthly Plans

• Early Stage – $21/month
• Startup – $59/month
• Growth – $137/month
• Standard – $257/month
• Enterprise – RFQ

GloriaFood

This is software to build food delivery websites for restaurants to streamline point-of-sale operations and manage orders, table reservations, promotional activities, and more. The system provides free and premium solutions for increasing restaurant revenue via online branding, online ordering, and online table reservations.

The admin panel of the system is intuitive which allows the admin to select multiple delivery locations, define minimum order amounts, and set zone-based delivery fees. The menu builder module in the system allows businesses to customize digital menus by adding categories, photos, and pricing. The admins receive automated notifications of new orders and can accept/reject orders as per food availability.

The integrations with third-party applications such as QuestTag, ItsaCheckamte, Orderlord, and many more allow business owners to expand the functionalities of their food business.

Highlights:

• Website & Mobile Ordering Widget
• Real-Time Ordering
• Table Reservations
• Order Ahead for Reservations
• Vacation Mode
• No-Contact Delivery & Minimum Exposure Pickup Options
• Schedule Orders
• Detailed Reports
• Discounts & Promos

Pricing

The pricing of GloriaFood is not clearly mentioned on the website, as its price varies on the services selected, like:

• Online/Credit Card Payment Service
• Advanced Promo Marketing
• Sales Optimized Website
• Mobile Apps

Delivety

This robust all-in-one food ordering and delivery management software for restaurants transforms the cumbersome order flow process into delightful order management. Specifically built for multi-brand and multi-location ghost kitchens, Delivety boosts the efficiency of food delivery operations: from order taking to food preparation and from dish assembly to order delivery.

The software helps food businesses to deliver faster than their competitors at less cost and invest in growing the customer base. It enables restaurateurs to plan the workflows and manage the orders in real time for better performance and customer experience. Allowing food businesses to reduce human errors to zero, it helps them to stay ahead of the competition.

Highlights:

• Operator Dashboard
• Kitchen Display System
• Assembly Dashboard
• Food Ordering Website
• Menu Builder
• Recipe Editor
• Reports & Analytics
• Data Export

Pricing

• Pro Plan – $49/month
• Ultra Plan – $99/month

SpotnEats

SpotnEats is a software to build food delivery mobile apps that allows entrepreneurs to start a mobile-app-based food delivery business without any hassle. Keeping in mind the amount of time, effort, and money spent in building a food delivery app, the company has made this readymade script to reduce the time to market and ease the workload of entrepreneurs.

The knowledgeable and technically strong team of professionals of SpotnEats has the ability to incorporate all kinds of features in an easy and efficient manner. With the objective of launching a food delivery business within a matter of days, this customizable software includes an adaptive workflow that allows customers to place their orders effortlessly.

Highlights:

• Opening Hours Management
• Dedicated Admin Dashboard
• Instant Notifications
• Real-Time Delivery Tracking
• Commission Management
• User Management
• Payment Reports
• Menu & Food Category Management
• Pricing Management

Pricing

Not available on the website

Foodesoft

This is an UberEats clone to build an on-demand food delivery business. This fully-featured software to build food delivery websites is ideal for food delivery businesses that are looking to scale without much hassle. Foodesoft delivers future-ready food delivery marketplaces with immersive user experiences acting as a catalyst for new growth in online food delivery.

Highlights:

• Mobile Apps
• Order Management
• Order Tracking
• Auto Dispatch
• SMS Gateway
• Payment Gateway Integration

Pricing

Not available on the website

Kopatech

Kopatech offers a multi-restaurant online ordering system to build a multi-restaurant food delivery marketplace. With a suite of integrated features, the online ordering system of Kopatech empowers foodpreneurs to build online ordering platforms like UberEats. The leading technology set up and back the supply chain of your online ordering platform.

Built around a scalable architecture, this software to build food delivery mobile apps can be extensively customized to offer each feature and deliver a contextual user experience for each user journey. With mobile apps and web portals for buyers, sellers, & delivery staff, it makes it easy for startups to set up their online food delivery marketplace that is simple to use and navigate.

Highlights:

• Customer Insights
• Email & Push Notification
• Guest Checkout & Cash on Delivery
• Multilingual
• Real-time Restaurant Status
• Order Status & Delivery Status

Pricing

Not available on the website

Noshway

Noshway is an online food ordering and food delivery management system that has been built to cater to all the concerned stakeholders of a food delivery business – business owners, customers, and delivery partners. To smoothen the initial struggle of setting up a food delivery business which includes establishing, break-even, and optimizing finances, Noshway aims at providing stakeholders with a high-tech platform.

The software is easy to use and affordable that streamlines processes and increases productivity. The features and customer support of the software are quite impressive and the team is committed to delivering projects within time and budget.

Highlights:

• Contactless Menu & Delivery
• High-Speed Installation
• Pre-Built Payment Methods
• Order Tracking
• Table Reservation
• Advanced features

Pricing

Not available on the website

Our Methodology

Choosing software for the food ordering and delivery business is not a quick or easy process. Many business owners are put off by the number of products available and the time needed to evaluate each one. Getting it right in the first instance is important as businesses cannot afford to make a mistake.

That’s why we compared dozens of online food delivery software that can accommodate the requirements of SMBs as well as enterprises. We made sure that our listed platforms are reliable and useful for the business owners and therefore, we considered various factors while selecting them. Below listed is our criteria for selecting the food delivery software.

Features

Important to note is that every online marketplace has a unique set of features, each tailored to its own target audience. We understand every food business’s distinctive needs and therefore, evaluated and prioritized all the features required for a food delivery marketplace and ranked the software according to them. 

Add-Ons

Aside from basic features, we also looked for thoughtful touches that bring more for the same price and robust features that help the software stand out. We highly value all the software options with extra add-ons that help businesses when starting a food delivery platform.

Ease of Use

The success of every food business depends a great deal on speed and efficiency. That’s why today’s food delivery management software provides access to intuitive dashboards, user-friendly apps, and preset templates for making the whole process hassle-free. The software with one-on-one installation guidance, training video tutorials, and diligent customer support that’s available round the clock are ranked high in this list.

Integrations

Software with third-party integrations or the capability to integrate with third-party extensions help food businesses manage everything from a centralized platform. We understand that third-party extensions expand the functionalities of the platform and therefore, have ranked software that offer pre-integrated extensions or direct integration with popular extensions, high in the list offering.

Pricing

While many of the software listed do not have their pricing available on their website, we have tried to include also the ones with affordable prices for startups. Our list also includes the software that offer monthly as well as annual subscriptions for businesses to make informed decisions.

Bottom Line

The online food delivery industry is only getting stronger and more popular every day, which means startups must strive to stay on top of trends to build their position in the market. All the software listed above are feature-packed to help food delivery businesses to keep up with the current trends and experience a potential increase in sales and revenue.

To begin with, let us interpret what a vegan diet is. Any diet that consists of food prepared from plant products is termed a vegan diet. It includes all foods of exclusively plant origin. Such diets require appropriate planning – to provide the requisite health and nutritional benefits.

The last decade has witnessed a surge in the number of people following vegan diets, however, staying focussed on vegan meals is strenuous considering a long list of delish alternate meals. This is where a meal kit delivery service comes into play. It pays dividends by delivering the appropriate ingredients required to prepare an exclusive meal at home along with a step-by-step recipe by professionals in this niche.

According to Statista, a vegan meal kit delivery service is a trending business venture, with an expected revenue surge of around 24.14 Billion USD by 2027, making this a promising niche for a food delivery startup.

The following article brings forth the factors contributing to the rise of the vegan meal kit industry and a step-by-step guide to building a vegan meal prep business.

Table of Contents

• Factors Contributing to the Growth of Vegan Meal Kit Delivery Kits.
• Business Model
• Big Market Players in this Niche
• How to Start Vegan Meal Kit Delivery Kits Business
  – Know your Customers
  – Make a Business Plan
  – Acquire License, Permits, Insurance
  – Marketing strategies
  – Use of MVP Approach
• Must-have Features in the product
• Challenges in a Vegan Meal Kit Delivery Kit Services
• Conclusion

Factors Contributing to the Growth of Vegan Meal Kit Delivery

In this section, we shall discuss various facets propelling the growth of the global vegan meal delivery service market.

Following a vegan diet can be a rewarding experience healthwise. Its various benefits for its end users are major contributing factors to the growth of this industry.

Preparing vegan meals can be overwhelming and time-consuming, thereby making it even more difficult to stick to them. A general pain point of people following such diets is keeping up with it for the long term. Owing to this, vegan meal kits being delivered to consumers’ doorsteps can be considered an easy, time-saving, and convenient alternative.

A major factor contributing to the growth of the vegan meal kit industry is that it has weekly and monthly vegan meal subscription boxes, making it a cost-effective solution for the consumer. It is one of the most suited ways to demonstrate the quality and flexibility of meals being delivered to the customers. Such subscriptions become an important factor for retaining a customer base.

Another important factor about veganism is the quality of food. Consumers following plant-based diets are very particular about their meals and the ingredients used to prepare them. Bringing variety in your organic plant meals along with maintaining an adequate nutritional value daily can be strenuous. A plant-based meal kit can be of huge assistance as it delivers high-quality ingredients with apposite safety measures. They add variation to the meals to keep the consumers enthusiastic to adhere to their diets.

Moreover, preference for homemade meals is increasing at a rapid pace among the younger generation, and vegan meals being a fantastic source for ensuring optimal health are best if cooked at home. These kit services help in avoiding specific nutrient deficiencies whilst facilitating a perfect homemade meal. Since a vegan meal comprises a large variety of whole plant foods, it naturally helps the consumer to intake a limited number of calories, facilitating weight loss.

While dealing with cooking food at home or a restaurant, food wastage is a very common factor. To minimize such wastage, the consumer population strives to attain an environment-friendly lifestyle. Vegan meal kit delivery facilitates this scenario in two ways, firstly by delivering proportioned plant-based foods and secondly by bringing significant reduction in carbon emissions and waste byproducts due to less consumption of animal products. The last decade has witnessed a surge in the inclination of consumers towards plant-based meals due to health, animal welfare, and other environmental concerns.

The vegan meal industry has huge opportunities for startups and entrepreneurs.

A few factors in this regard are shared below:

• A new Revenue Model: It has come as a great opportunity for startups and restaurants struggling to find a footing in the industry.
• Less Operational Cost: The business has considerably less operational cost as compared to a traditional dine-in restaurant. As the cost of meal preparation and overhead expenses of a restaurant is almost negligible, making it one of the lucrative industries in the present times.
• Customized Meal Kits: A strong customer base is a stepping stone towards the success of a business. Businesses with customized meal kits have proved a great way to attract customers in this niche.

Business Model

Meal kit delivery business plan meals on a weekly basis to deliver ingredients to the customer, eliminating the hassle of grocery shopping. A plant-based meal prep business works in the following manner.

• The website displays several vegan meals and recipes along with well-planned menus for weekly and monthly subscriptions.
• Consumers browse through the website either to order a single meal or subscribe to a meal plan.
• The selected meals are added to the cart and respective payments are made.
• The business then delivers the meal(s) to the customer’s doorstep.

Big Market Players in this Niche

The meal-kit industry is expected to show a huge leap in revenue generation with a compound annual growth rate expansion of 13% from 2021 to 2028.

Given below are two major players in this niche:

Purple Carrot

It is a plant-based meal and meal kit delivery service. It is well known for its exclusive variety of recipes every week. It allows the consumer to select among 8 dinner recipes along with several lunch and breakfast recipes. It allows the customer to customize their menu. Purple Carrot has an estimated annual revenue of 14.6 Million USD per year.

Veestro

It is a pre-prepared plant-based meal delivery service since 2013. Its mission is to provide plant-based food to consumers in a convenient way. It is now a 7 Million USD/ year profitable enterprise.

How to Start Vegan Meal Kit Delivery Business

When planning to start a vegan meal kit delivery service, an in-depth knowledge of this niche will help you achieve desired results or success. As mentioned earlier in this article, vegan meals are exclusively prepared from plant products.

Therefore as a business owner, the key requirements would be, awareness of stores to find raw material for such meals along with bringing chefs onboard with niche expertise. Moving further we shall provide a step-by-step guide on how to start a vegan meal delivery.

Know your Customers

Understanding your target customers can go a long way when planning to start up a business. 

Consumers opting for vegan meal kits majorly have the following requirements:

• Consumers require ready-made meals or meal kits to save time.
• In order to adhere to their healthy lifestyle and maintain a diet routine
• A way out to avoid wastage of food.

A meal kit service adheres to such requirements by weekly subscriptions and proportioned ingredients in the meal kits delivered at customers’ doorstep.

Make a Business Plan

Once you are clear about the niche and your target audience, the next step would be to formulate a business plan. Given below are some of the key components of a vegan meal delivery business plan.

• A precise description and concept of the company
• A well-planned menu
• A management and ownership structure
• Staffing needs of your business
• Detailed analysis of market and competitors
• Financial planning

A sound business plan can lay a strong foundation for your business. It can help a business owner make result-driven decisions and strategize your business accordingly.

Acquire License, Permits, Insurance

Before you begin any kind of business, it must be legally compliant. A vegan meal kit delivery business requires licenses, permits, and insurances to provide an uninterrupted flow of a business. 

Assistance from a legal advisor can help to avoid any delays in paperwork. The following list of licenses might be helpful while launching a vegan meal prep business.

The licenses to be filed depend on the area and location of your establishment, likewise, permits are area-specific as well. To gain deeper knowledge in this regard, it is advised to research before filling any kind of license and permit for your business.

Marketing Strategies

Once all the licenses have been acquired and the product is legally compliant, the next step would be to build a marketing strategy. Marketing a meal prep business can be approached in two ways.

One is the traditional way of marketing. This type of marketing will enhance brand visibility in the vicinity. As it’s a digital era, the preferred way of marketing should be digital, owing to vast customer reach. Digitization has given a boon to the meal kit industry, some of the digital marketing strategies are listed below:

• Marketing through social media
• Content marketing
• Marketing through advertisements 
• SEO approach

Use of MVP Approach to Building a Meal Prep Software

A meal kit delivery software brings a new dimension to the meal prep industry. The features embedded in the software allow the seamless working of the system by streamlining the meal ordering and delivery process.

MVP is the best-suited approach to any business startup. As an entrepreneur, you can take the idea of a plant-based meal prep software model to the customers and gather feedback to enhance the product as per the customer. The iterative development propels the product in the right direction and can even assure success for the product in the later stages. The final product built is in alignment with the consumer demands and brings huge perspectives for companies’ growth.

Must-have Features in the Product

This topic shall include all the features that make a vegan meal prep business serve its customers in the best way possible. These features bring out the importance and uniqueness of the product.

Let’s begin with the first feature that the customer comes across, it’s the user interface of the application. The first interaction of the user with the system lays a foundation of belief in the product.

The next important feature is menu management. A customer comes across the application majorly to order a meal kit, if the menu is well displayed and properly managed, it makes it an effortless experience for the customer.

Once the meal is selected and added to the cart, the payment becomes the next important feature to be addressed. Every customer wants a simple and easy payment method. Integrating third-party applications into the system for facilitating safe and secure payments will give a competitive advantage to the product.

A few other features to enhance the user experience as well as give a seamless management experience to the admin are subscription management, location-based search, rating, and review system, and email notifications.

Challenges in a Vegan Meal Kit Delivery Kit Service

Every business including the vegan meal-kit industry comes with a handful of challenges, some of which are discussed below.

Conclusion

For consumers who prefer a perfectly proportioned vegan meal, the meal-kit delivery services offer an easy solution to make their meals fun and healthy. They even allow chefs to bring creative ideas to the kitchen while cooking an exclusive plant-based meal.

As an entrepreneur, planning to build meal kit delivery software can be an overwhelming task. On the contrary, choosing a customizable platform to launch a vegan meal prep business can be a wise decision. It helps the business owner optimize their efforts in terms of time and money.

Customizable software allows modifications as per the requirements of the admin. They provide a competitive advantage to the business by making their meal kit delivery marketplace as per the contemporary on-demand meal delivery industry.

The introduction of an on-demand food delivery system has redefined customer satisfaction. The trend of on-demand delivery is not just confined to the food industry but has spread out almost the entire e-commerce industry. 

When working in an on-demand economy the idea is everything and spending a substantial amount of money only to find out there is no market appeal to the idea can be a huge loss. A food delivery marketplace with MVP Solution can help you avoid all that. In this blog on MVP development for the delivery marketplace, let us begin by understanding how to build an MVP along with various learning and optimizations along with the process.

How To Build MVP for Online Food Delivery Marketplace

A Minimum Viable Product is the version of a product, with essential launchable features. It is the earliest feasible solution with the main aim to validate the assumptions and the idea related to the food delivery business, along with attracting early adopters in the early stages of the product development cycle. A series of steps are involved in the launching of an MVP for a food delivery marketplace.

Test a Hypothesis for Online Food Delivery MVP

The process of building an MVP is whittling your way through various ideas, till the best of them eventually works out. It is advisable to consider a Riskiest Assumption test(RAT) before getting on board with your idea of building an MVP. 

The purpose of RAT is to test the ideas and hypotheses related to the development of MVP. The fundamental goal is to collect the feedback of customers as quickly as possible and check whether the idea of the product is feasible or not. A step-by-step approach to test a hypothesis for an online food delivery app is given below.

Formulation of ideas to solve customer problems

There is a huge difference between finding an appropriate solution to a customer problem and fitting a problem to an already formulated solution. When dealing with an MVP related to food delivery, customers may have issues related to timely delivery, order tracking, easy registration, and many more. 

Use the 5-whys model to dig deeper into your customer’s expectations and identify the pain points to find a suitable answer to their queries. The main aim of this technique is to narrow down the source of the problem by recurring the question “Why?”

The basic idea would include:

• The customer(buyer) app
• The delivery staff app
• The admin panel
• Merchant app

Identifying assumptions and finding the riskiest one

There are several assumptions related to a new product. While designing and testing an MVP, all these assumptions are listed and are whittled as per their feasibility in the current scenario. A few instances of many possible assumptions when building food delivery software are as follows:

• There is unlimited availability of food during working hours of the restaurant, no inventory management is required.
• Restaurants onboard do not have their delivery fleet, and will solely be dependent on the food delivery marketplace software.
• Customers will be able to view and receive delivery from restaurants within a particular radius.
• Ordering from a single restaurant at a time is allowed to the customer. 

A new idea always accompanies observation and intuition, which when validated in a controlled experimental atmosphere becomes the basis of a new finding or development. Once all the assumptions are listed the next step would be to find the one that would hinder the food delivery business the most.

Build a Hypothesis

To build a hypothesis, an assumption needs to be validated through a set of real-time scenarios. A hypothesis is a statement that will be true only if the assumption it is based on, holds. In the case of a food delivery app, if the assumptions hold, the hypothesis states that certain requirements given below must be met.

Functional Requirements

A Customer should be able to:

• Search for restaurants
• Items to cart
• Place order
• Receive Notifications
• Track the order status
• Cancel the order
• Make payment for the order
• Update profile.

A restaurant should be able to:

• Create, edit and delete profile
• Create and edit menu
• Send and receive notifications
• Update order status

Delivery Rider should be able to

• Create, edit and delete profile
• Send and receive notifications to restaurant and customer
• Track the order for pickup and delivery
• Notify issues if any

A few other requirements that should hold for hypotheses related to an MVP for a food ordering/delivery app are consistency, latency, availability, and so on.

Testing a hypothesis

A hypothesis for an MVP for a food delivery app may fall under three categories:

• Proven insignificant.
• Completely significant and as per customer needs.
• Falls somewhere in between the above two categories.

If most of the ideas fall under the third category, we can perform a cost-benefit analysis, and consider the case where the benefit exceeds the cost.

Learnings During the Development and Benefits of Food Ordering MVP

MVP, as per Eric Ries, the author of “ The Lean Startup” allows a collection of the largest amount of validated learning about customers with minimal effort.

The process of MVP development in itself is very informative and gives way to many learnings as below:

Sticking to the core

Most of the product owners tend to focus on secondary functionalities of the product, losing focus on the main functionality, MVP helps stay clear of such deviation and provides a perspicuous vision of the product functionalities.

Less cluttered interface

Keeping the focus on essential features gives a less cluttered space and lesser complications in software usage. Every feature can be easily tested and investigated for better enhancement of the MVP of the food ordering/delivery app.

Minimized risks

The most important aspect to be kept in mind while crafting a software product is that all polished large-scale apps require a lot of money and effort and take years to build. Almost every popular software product started as an MVP and gradually all the extensive features were adopted.

The MVP approach has several benefits including clarity of vision, quicker release, and many more. A few of the benefits are discussed below:

Clarity of Vision

Having a clear idea of the product’s final version is very helpful eventually. The entire team should be thorough with the basic functionalities and the journey of the product from its primary version to the culminating one.

An early connection with customers

It gives the advantage to connect with your customers at the initial development stages of the product. Early adopters will give invaluable feedback about your food delivery app and influence potential customers. Timely weighing up the customers results in effective development and better understanding.

Quicker release

An MVP allows the product owner to launch a product at a rapid pace. As the product has all the basic and essential functionalities, it is in itself a complete and workable version of the main product. An accelerated time–to–market allows the business owner to entice early adopters, enabling them to test the hypothesis on the first version of the product. Through a series of iterations as the product scales up it helps in gaining a loyal customer base.

Optimization of Hours Exhausted During Iterative Development

As we progress in the article, the next step is to deploy our learnings and experience achieved to optimize the time required to build the MVP without trading off the product quality. It can be very overwhelming to perpetuate equilibrium in the task loads and tight deadlines. 

This part of the article enlightens the developers with the ways they can achieve optimization which in turn will help the business owner in economizing during the MVP development process. The article further provides a list of certain factors that can be of assistance in accelerating the development process.

Step 1: Division into small teams

The idea here is to project by cleaving a colossal piece of work into small manageable portions and allotting small teams to handle the tasks. This way we can accomplish the company goals in a quick and optimized manner.

Step 2: Clarify requirements and build a road map

Planning a task by creating a road map will minimize the span required to plan the next task time and again along with reducing the risk of failure. 

Step 3: Set limits to Work in Progress(WIP)

 Too many tasks can be overwhelming and can hamper the productivity of the MVP development. The best way is to use the kanban board to manage the development process and to maximize the number of tasks in the list.

Step 4: Focus on actual requirements

Focusing on the work that truly counts will save a hefty amount of time. To increase the efficiency of your team it is better to build the software in small chunks and emphasize user feedback.

Step 5: Technical debt 

It might seem that you have speeded up the process but in actuality, technical debts swell the complexity of the system.

Step 6: Automation

Try using automation tools to ease down your developers. Some of the areas where automation can be rewarding are testing, CI/CD pipeline(Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery), and other workflow automation tools.

The methods discussed above can help in speeding up the development process by optimizing the time dedicated to it. Moving forward, let’s weigh up certain factors on which the duration of the development process relies.

Factors affecting the duration of the development process

The methods discussed above can help in speeding up the development process by optimizing the time dedicated to it. Moving forward, let’s weigh up certain factors on which the duration of the development process relies.

Quality of the code

The quality of any work is directly proportional to the time dedicated to it. There is no circumvent to excellence. Cutting the corners will eventually give rise to many errors which will again require a lot of time to be fixed before you can deliver a fully functional code.

Size of the team

As discussed earlier, a small team will boost the internal communication of the team members. The team size from 4 to 8 is considered to be ideal for most collaborative teams.

Complexities of the development process. 

The various challenges faced by the development team may cost the company in terms of hours. These include the time associated with unreasonable deadlines, unclear project requirements and objectives, internet issues, and structural deviations. 

Human resources

The skill, experience, and motivation of each team member count. It can take some time for an employee to onboard with the system and eventually flourish to become the biggest asset for the company.

Early Adopters for your Online Food Delivery Marketplace

Early adopters are the first customers of the product. They are often referred to as the lighthouse customers, as they act as a beacon of light, giving direction to the other customers to follow. They try new products before other consumers and provide feedback to assist them in the refinement of features, design, and distribution. 

Firstly, let’s find out why early adopters buy at early stages as this will help the business owner to understand his first audience and help him entice them, further allowing him to scale up his business.

Adventurous nature

They are people who like taking risks by buying a new product as they want to stand out from the crowd. Their feedback helps other customers make wise decisions regarding the product.

Instinctive

Early adopters can judge the book by its cover and tell if the product has a future. Their instinct relies on years of product usage and technical knowledge gained with experience.

Exhibit fear of missing out (FOMO)

They usually comprise young people who don’t want to be the last ones trying out a new food delivery platform or any other product. Being social influencers they become a huge asset for a company’s success.

Tips and techniques for food delivery startups to cater to the early adopters

Moving further let’s discuss a few techniques food delivery startups should follow to give their early adopters the best experience of your product.

• Making special deliveries

A new customer, especially an early adopter is special for the company. To make the customer feel exceptional, special deliveries can be attempted. Special discounts are common, but if someone from the founders’ circle would make delivery, the impact would be phenomenal.

• Deliver with care

The quality of food delivered is very important. The delivery personnel should carry the food with utmost care giving customers freshly cooked food in proper packaging. Add small sample packets of other food products for advertising your best-selling food items.

• Timely delivery

The basic intent of a customer ordering food online is receiving timely delivery of packaged food. For a startup, it is an opportunity to find its way into the good books of the customer.

A few other techniques may include a thank you note addressing the customer and lastly, a small surprise would be an ever-lasting memory for the company as well as the customer.

Brand Building and Establishing the Online Food Business

For boosting your brand recognition and creating a cohesive and consistent brand name, strategize a marketing plan that stands out.

Marketing strategy for food delivery marketplace

• Creates a comfortable experience for your customers so that they can easily navigate through your website and place their orders.
• Make ordering, tracking, and receiving deliveries convenient by linking a third-party application to your mobile application.
• List yourself on Google My Business to boost your business.
• Promote your brand name on social media platforms by linking your website to profiles like Facebook and LinkedIn.
• Boot your food delivery marketplace MVP using significant tools like location-based Google advertisement and local SEO.

Conclusion

Lastly, to sum up, MVP for a food delivery marketplace is a product with minimum investment and features, although it is focused on providing a viable solution. It becomes the basic foundation on which iterations are run to deliver measurable outcomes for your food delivery marketplace. A hypothesis-driven approach to achieve a phased business value can only work when an MVP is designed in alignment with the business initiative along with gaining an insight into the riskiest assumptions. 

Optimization of working hours and building a good image for your early adopters are important measures for scaling up your business using an MVP food ordering/delivery app. It can be concluded that an MVP allows a product owner to decide whether or not they are ready for scaling up their business.

A focus on customer retention can catalyze the growth of online food delivery services by fostering customer loyalty and driving higher revenue. Acquiring new customers requires resources, but once a customer has experienced what a business has to offer, it costs much less to retain them.

Moreover, according to the Gartner group, 80% of the money a business intends to make is from 20% of your existing customers. Hence, customer retention strategies can drive more ROI from the marketing efforts and can underpin the success of a food delivery business. 

In this article, we discuss metrics used to measure customer retention along with the customer retention strategies for food delivery.

Table Of Content

• Parameters to measure Customer Retention
• Customer Retention Strategies For Multi-Restaurant Food Delivery Software

Metrics To Measure Customer Retention

Customer Churn rate is a parameter that helps in measuring the percentage of customers cutting ties with the company, restaurant, or any other business they have previously transacted with. It is inversely proportional to the customer retention rate. In simpler words, higher the churn rate, lower is the customer retention in the company and vice versa. To calculate the customer churn rate, divide the total number of customers who left the company by the total number of existing customers of the company.

Customer Retention Rate is the number of customers a company can retain or keep in a particular period. It is calculated by dividing the number of retained customers of the company by the total number of customers of the company.

Customer Retention Strategies For Multi-Restaurant Food Delivery Software

Given below are a few ways customers can increase the retention rate of the customer in the company. 

Create personalized forums on websites

A food business revolves around its customers. One of the most important benchmarks of any business roadmap is customer retention. Building forums for customers to connect is a brilliant idea. It helps them share their views and queries as well. Many food delivery websites are coming up with personalized forums. Food-related forums have a wide scope, enormous information can be shared on such forums, as given below.

Related to special diets: Such personal forums, provided by the food delivery websites, give an outlet to these emotions of the customer and let them connect on a personal level, sharing their diet-related experiences, targets, and achievements. 

New vendors and chefs: Customers like to try new dishes and cuisines, it has always been an attraction for customers. Many commis chefs are selling their talent in the form of delicious snacks, working in small restaurants. These forums are a great way to give them recognition.

New diners: Any new diner in the market is enticing news for such forums. It helps in advertising these new restaurants. Customers use such forums to post their views both good and bad.

Introducing a new cuisine: Some restaurants introduce new cuisines to increase their publicity. Such forums help in spreading such information and help in marketing new cuisines offered by these restaurants. For instance, restaurants delivering Thai or Italian food in a particular area tend to gain popularity for breaking the monotonous food options.

Deliver on time, with quality

Delivery is one of the most important parts of the food ordering ecosystem. Delayed deliveries harm the lifetime values of the customer. Offering timely delivery with quality delights the customer to order again on the same platform. 

What is On-time delivery?

On-time delivery(OTD) is a parameter used to measure the efficiency of the supply chain. It is a key performance indicator that shows whether a company is performing its delivery services as per the requisites or not. This metric measures both carrier performance and customer satisfaction. As per EY Research, 1 out of 5 customers never goes back to food delivery services that fail to deliver on time.

Most Americans are willing to pay a little extra just for getting their food delivered faster. It’s challenging for food delivery companies to deliver food to the customers whilst it’s hot. Planning the shortest and most efficient path during heavy traffic can be achieved with the help of the fleet management feature of a multi-restaurant food delivery software.

Social Customer Care – Nurture Your Customers On Social Media Channels

Social customer care is the service provided by contemporary businesses to their customers. A client need not call or place an email to get in actual conversation with the company, they can simply tweet, or connect with the restaurant through Facebook, LinkedIn, and various other social media channels. This trend is gaining popularity by the day.

Reaching out is the key to nurturing your customers to accomplish two main goals. One is to continue being in the good books of your existing clients by providing your services. Another is to establish your brand to attract more customers by marketing your expertise. A few ways to strengthen your relationship with your customers are as follows.

Establish a communication channel with your customers: Communicating with customers through phone and emails is an age-old method. According to a survey conducted by Q2 2016 Sprout Social Index, almost 34.5% of customers prefer communicating with restaurant businesses via social platforms. Communication requires a two-way channel. Social media channels allow company officials to have a dialogue with their potential customers. It allows you to know the most pressing and engaging issues relating to your rapport with your clients.

Choice of social media channels: There are many social platforms, but focussing your resources on the one that is correct for your business is the key. Choose a platform with your brand presence and skillfully weave yourself in the conversation. To enhance customer engagement make sure you do not leave your customers waiting with their queries. A survey by Conversocial states about 88% of customers avoid engaging with brands who leave the customer’s query unanswered. 

Starbucks & Uber Eats promoting food delivery on social media channels

Create Valuable Content To Educate Customers 

A customer feels connected when given a chance to know the backend working of a restaurant or an enterprise. This encourages faith and strengthens the customer relationship with the company. Allowing your client to your companies in and out, by sharing photographs and videos can give your company a customer-friendly face behind your brand. More than just creating content for your customers, the focus should be on the kind of content being posted. Certain types of content which can encourage customer retention are as follows.

Engaging Content: Beginning with informative and educative content may not allow interacting with the user. The purpose of such content is to appeal to the target audience before we bring forward the educative part. 

Educational Content: The next step is to present to your customers the actual potential of your product or service. The main purpose of content is to enhance shareability. It will allow you to reach out to a wider set of audiences and get them to bring their thoughts to you.

Inspirational Content: The key here is to publish resonating content which can pass on to as many readers as possible. For instance, the content about customer testimonials, case studies, and failure and success stories of individuals can be very inspirational.

Offer A Customer Loyalty Program 

Loyal customers are very important to the success of a business. Offering loyalty programs helps in retaining customers and prevents potential customers from turning to competitors. 

• Personalizing the customer experience: Use customer information to offer tailored products. It goes a long way in understanding consumers’ habits and choices. Moreover, it can help create a successful loyalty program.

• Simplify the Customer Experience: Storing relevant information for shopping, for instance, payment and delivery details simplify the customer shopping experience. In addition to this online offers and redeemable points allow customers to stick to your brand.

Put Together A Customer Referral Program

Before we move further, it is imperative to understand the meaning of a referral program.

Freego’s Refer a friend Campaign.

• What is a customer referral program?

It is a marketing strategy that encourages your current customers to cite their experiences with your brand with their family and friends. Customers are often provided with coupons and discount cards in return for their loyalty to the company. As per Forbes, referral programs bring the highest conversions as compared to all other marketing channels. Another statistic according to Neilsen states, 84% believe in existing customer referrals before engaging with a brand. A referral program helps in identifying your brand followers and also assists in tracking the website traffic.

• How to integrate a referral program effectively?

Running a referral program successfully can prove to be advantageous for your brand. Some of the points to be kept in mind are:

• ‍Be clear about your product and your offerings.
• Simplify sharing and referring for your customers.
• Regularly promote referral programs.
• How referral programs affect the conversion rate.

As per AMA(American Marketing Association), the size of the reward during referral programs is of the least concern. It reaps equal benefits, whether it’s a $5 coupon or a $20 coupon.

Provide An Exclusive Customer Dashboard

A customer dashboard is a contemporary solution to keep in check all relevant customer Key Product Indicators(KPI) very easily. It helps in effectively visualizing the data. A dashboard provides transparency to the entire work of the system. It builds trust with the customer and enhances chances of customer retention.

Address Customer’s Complaints On Time

Customer complaints mostly occur when there is a mismatch between what customers desire from the company and what they received. This can also be because of unrealistic expectations from customers, or incorrect assumptions. But if it’s because the company did not live up to its end of the bargain, it is the customer’s right to report issues. Resolved complaints are generally an ice breaker between the company and the customer. A customer generally has a more positive outlook for the company once its complaint is resolved, as compared to the scenario when a customer had no complaints at all. A 5-step process that can help you deal with the customer’s complaints is as follows.

• Find the root cause of the customer complaint: Discovering the exact cause of customers dissatisfaction is one of the most important customer retention strategies for food delivery. Whenever a customer logs in a complaint, make sure you get all the specifics about it. To resolve the complaint, every minute detail is very important. This can be achieved by asking the right questions that will help you dig deeper and reach the root cause of the problem.

• Identify the type of customer: Dealing with customer complaints can be more appropriate when you are aware of the persona of the person you are dealing with. Knowing your customer type can be quite helpful in this case. A few types of customers that you may run into as per a study from the University Of Florida are as follows:
  • Customers who are unwilling to share their concerns with you.
  • Customers, who pay well, in exchange for excellent service.
  • Customers who contact frequently.
  • Customers who will switch to another company, after some issue.

• Respond to the customer as soon as possible: An unhappy customer is best to be answered quickly. Such customers if answered before the desired time can be beneficial to the company and may end up being loyal to the company. On the other hand, if such customers are left unattended or delayed, customers can cause potential damage to the reputation of the company.

• Find a solution to their problem: When a customer is looking forward to your support, always find an appropriate solution for the customer. For that, you need to understand their problem and find a solution that will cater to all their needs. Do not step back if the customer needs some extra support, as this will only make the customer more inclined towards the company.

• Followup to check if the issue is truly resolved: There are times when the query is not resolved completely. Keeping a follow-up in such situations is very important. It can help inculcate loyalty to a potential customer for the company.

• Log complaints to keep track: Keeping a log of complaints helps keep a check on the working of the system. It also enhances the productivity of the system by avoiding mistakes again.

Conclusion 

As the food delivery trend continues to be on the top charts of the food industry. Several restaurants are coming up with unique ideas to enroll customers in their membership programs or increase subscriptions to their food delivery websites. While it is important to acquire new customers, it is easy and cost-effective to retain them.

The above customer retention strategies can have a positive impact on the business. The sole aim of any business is customer satisfaction. Focussing on the same can bring extensive benefits to both the company and its potential customers.

Are you a foodpreneur, or owner of a restaurant looking to add an additional service channel, or simply wanting to re-platform from your existing portal?

If yes, then expert opinion from within the industry will contribute immensely towards important business decisions. Setting up an online business in the food industry today is probably one of the most satisfying from a market demand point of view, and yet among the most challenging, considering the difficult scenarios related to health and safety. Thoroughly planned business models can however prove to be financially rewarding and high on customer satisfaction at the same time.

Through this whitepaper, we will address some of the most prevalent of the challenges that business owners setting up their online food delivery are confronted with. We try to collate solutions for those venturing in this domain, to help them sustain an efficient and gainful online food delivery business.

The topics covered in the whitepaper are as follows:

1. Who should read this Whitepaper?
2. Background
3. Food Business Trends
4. Online Food Delivery Business – Focussing on the Demand
5. Major Challenges and Ways to Fill the Gaps
6. A Business Perspective
7. Conclusion

The food delivery landscape has undergone major shifts. Due to transcending consumer behavior, online food delivery platforms are expanding convenience and choice, enabling customers to order easily, from a wide array of restaurants. One such food delivery platform is Postmates, which was recently acquired by Uber.

As a leader in the space of on-demand delivery, Postmates has established a strong foothold in the United States. Covered in this blog are insights into a fast-changing market, where building an app like Postmates may boost profitability.

Table of Contents:

• What is Postmates?
• Understanding the Business model of Postmates
• Ecosystem of Postmates – Hardware, Software, and Application Requirements
• Revenue Channels that Drive Postmates
• The Approach that will help to Build an App like Postmates
• Propositions that give Postmates an Edge Over its Competitors

What is Postmates?

Postmates is an on-demand food and goods delivery services company that was launched in 2011. It is a platform that acts as a unified continuum for customers, merchants, and independent workers (or “Postmates”), who interact with each other for on-demand delivery services.

Postmates is a three-sided marketplace. Each side uses the platform differently to meet their respective needs. In a nutshell, customers shop for food and other products. The order is received by the merchants, who use Postmates as a sales channel to find customers and grow their order volume. The fleet app is used by the courier staff to deliver orders to the customer’s door.

Due to the services offered, Postmates collaborated with big brands like, Apple, Chipotle, Starbucks, and more proving that its business model was strong. To learn how Postmates accelerated towards success by providing on-demand delivery services, let’s understand its business model.

Source: Business of Apps

Understanding the Business Model of Postmates

The business model of Postmates is unique and has attracted several investors. It can be divided into 4 major steps. These are:

Browse Stores and Products

In the business model of Postmates, the first step is about creating a demand. The application of postmates can be accessed by people via their smartphones or as a desktop application. By using the application, users can browse for stores and products other than food for a door-step delivery. 

Payments

As Postmates receives an order only after the payment is done so consumers pay for the purchase to place an order. The final payment is inclusive of the delivery fee and service charges.

Matching

Once the order is confirmed after the payment, a notification is sent to the couriers/postmates who are nearest to the store. They collect and deliver the order to the customer’s doorstep. 

Tracking and Feedback

Using this feature, users can track the location of a postmate who is on the way to deliver their order. After the order has been delivered, users can also submit feedback. Tipping a postmate on the other hand is up to the user. 

Business Model Canvas of Postmates

The strategic management template used by Postmates to develop a business model or enhance the existing one is as follows:

Ecosystem of Postmates- Hardware, Software, and Application Requirements

The pioneering ecosystem of Postmates, which consists of hardware, software, and application solutions provides a compelling experience to its users. It includes – 

1. Restaurant POS System Integration

A Point-of-sale system is used by restaurants to store data and ease order management. When an order is placed by a user through the application of Postmates, it automatically appears on the POS system of the restaurant. Further, a two-way integration makes the merchant’s workflow easier with:

• Simplified inventory tracking
• Simplified order management
• Ease of accounting
• Lastly, a restaurant’s menu can be synced and managed directly from POS

2. Kitchen Display System (KDS)

KDS is used to communicate orders clearly in real-time. The order is sent to the kitchen as soon as it has been received. It keeps track of turnaround time, and orders are color-coded. This helps the staff with order management with what’s ready and what is new. Other benefits of KDS include:

• All-day display and production item counts- Spend more time focused on preparing food than counting tickets.

• Multiple language support- Item names can be customized with different languages.

• Advance prep station routing- Orders can be routed to the correct station, whether it’s delivery, dine-in, or takeout.

• Kitchen productivity reporting- Bottlenecks can be identified by digging into the ticket time.

3. Multiple App Integrations

Food delivery applications often depend on various integrations between multiple applications. These integrations allow users to install and interact with them at the same time. If there is a disparate with multiple application integrations, then it needs to be aligned with back-end data sources to provide users with a seamless experience. UX design acts as a bridge to support cohesive user experience and consolidates the app’s user count. Covered below are the aspects of various integrations.

a) Design

The focus of food delivery applications is to transport users to the end goal, i.e. to order food. So after logging in, the design of the application should display a list of restaurants that are popular. Users can choose from the list being displayed or can conduct an independent search according to their preference.

b) Server and API

With the pervasiveness of virtualization, integration of servers and storage has become increasingly important. As a custom food delivery app like Postmates will provide customers with relevant menus and control ordering and delivery processes, it will require a server and a database. The server will facilitate the interaction between users and the application, whereas the business logic of the service provided will be stored in the database.

API integration on the other hand simplifies scaling of food delivery services. If you want to expand to another city or add support to another platform then API integration will provide flexibility. Considering the delivery service of Postmates, third-party developers can embed order functions into the services by using Public APIs.

c) Map and Geolocation

As the food is required to be picked from a particular location and delivered to another location, the app similar to Postmates should be integrated with a map just like the actual app of Postmates. This will help in sending and navigating the pickup and delivery address with the added ability of tracking orders in real-time. By using the maps, customers can track and know the time of order delivery.

d) Payment System

Having a payment system that allows customers to pay directly from the app increases user convenience. Postmates offers credit cards as an option for payment. But, while building an app like Postmates, other payment methods can be integrated. These can be:

• PayPal
• Google Wallet
• Apple Pay

e) Set of Restaurants and Menus

Partnering with restaurants is important to have an app like Postmates, as it is an on-demand food delivery service provider. Requirements include:

• Information regarding restaurants in the city 
• Meal names along with their prices
• Meal pictures

The restaurant list can be taken from Google. Menus and photos can be collected from the restaurants. Additionally, menu price changes can be monitored to keep the database updated.

To start with, it is better to launch an online food delivery app in one city, expansion can be considered later. As the application of Postmates is built in a way that in a matter of a few delivery cycles the cost of its development is earned, same can be applied to the new application being developed.

4. Delivery and Courier Management

Postmates believes in empowering retailers to focus on their business by allowing its fleet to deliver products to end customers at any given time. By integrating APIs into their products, big brands including Apple, Walmart, Instacart, and more, are offering delivery experiences to their customers.

Using Postmates as a Delivery Service 

• White Label API product for direct client integration and custom app development
• Web App powered by Delivery API – With a click of a button, a Postmate will deliver an order to any local customer, regardless of whether the order was placed in-store, from a website, or over the phone.

Features of Postmates Delivery Service Website

• Real-time price quotes are available when creating new deliveries
• Order can be delivered ASAP or be scheduled to be delivered in future
• Multiple deliveries can be picked up and delivered to multiple customers
• Delivery distance can be set so that the distance is managed
• Multiple location support for more than one storefront
• Tracking links are shareable for retailers and customers to monitor delivery status in real-time, no login is required
• The order can be returned if the customer is not available. The same can be changed to leave items at the door/discard or keep items as per request

Entrepreneurs or businesses can choose any direction with their business plan. They can either integrate an independent functionality to manage delivery, or create a standalone delivery module with integrated APIs. But, empowering local businesses by offering services and resources should always remain the underlying idea.

Revenue Channels that Drive Postmates

The mainstay of Postmates has been its revenue model. Strategically planned, it led to Postmates’ massive valuation in the market, thereby outmaneuvering its competitors. Taking an in-depth look, the 4 main revenue streams of Postmates are:

1. Delivery Fee

The average fee charged by Postmates on an order delivery is $5. Nonetheless, this can be reduced to $3 or even less due to ongoing company offers. The total delivery amount is split into an 80/20 ratio. Where 80% of the total delivery fee goes to the courier person and 20% is Postmates revenue. 

However, the delivery fee is subject to surge pricing, the same way as Uber during peak hours. Distance, though, is no longer a contributing factor to the delivery charges. But, depending on the basket size, a maximum of $20 can be levied as a service fee. 

2. Convenience Fee

Postmates charges a flat 9% as a convenience fee over each order apart from the delivery fee. There is no cap on this fee. To get the orders conveniently delivered to their doors, users happily pay the convenience fee. Unlike delivery fees, the convenience fee is directly earned by the company. 

3. Merchant Program

Recently, Postmates unveiled the launch of its merchant program. Where it collaborates with local stores and signs an official agreement. The partnered stores pay a certain percentage of the total bill to Postmates on every order. The sole purpose of this agreement is to earn revenue for the company. Merchants are benefited too as they get an extended customer base. 

4. Subscription

Postmates another source of income is via subscription. It improves customer retention and provides the company with advance payments. The unlimited subscription plan of Postmates costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 annually and provides these benefits:

• No peak hour blitz pricing
• Free Delivery on orders over $12
• The order is automatically accepted and moves to the front of the line

The Approach That Will Help to Build an App like Postmates

Market Research

Market research can help in identifying how users might view your business and help in identifying the gaps in customers’ expectations. This information can be powerful for developing a marketing strategy. Good market intelligence helps in minimizing risks while making business decisions. This research can be conducted in two segments. These are:

Staying Up-to-Date with Market Trends

The industry of food delivery is reliant heavily on trends. People are enthralled by popular features. If the app like Postmates is behind these features, customers will move to better applications using the latest technology and trend. Social media integration, smartwatch integration, virtual assistant, among others are a few areas to consider.

Researching Target Audience

The foremost step while building an app like Postmates is to research the target market. Understanding the needs and prioritizing certain aspects like age, nationality, income, and more are pivotal.

Postmates is similar to Uber Eats, with a similar target audience. But Postmates widened its reach by offering to deliver products more than food such as furniture, dishwasher liquid, or a soap bar. This constant supply of small orders kept Postmates running.

Business Model Selection

The food ordering app model depends on the requirements and business goals. The delivery services can be local or global. Mentioned below are various business models of food delivery apps.

• Order Only Model (Grubhub, JustEat)

In the order-only model, consumers are connected with local restaurants and order their food using the application. This helps in boosting the food order rate of the restaurant.

Using the model, restaurants are entitled to pay fees to the application owner for every order that is received through the app. It can be a setup fee or a commission fee.

A commission fee is a flat percentage of the order cost, regardless of the order amount. A setup fee is an additional fee over commission fee. Using this model, the owner of the food ordering app doesn’t have the quality of food, service efficiency, and more under his control. These are the responsibilities of the food provider. Apps that are focused on orders are primarily restaurant discovery engines.

• Order & Delivery Model (UberEats, DoorDash)

This model provides delivery as a service. The application owner manages the order delivery through the application. Commission and Delivery fee are received from the restaurants on every order purchased via app.

The biggest benefit of this model is that the app owner has control over courier management and the time of delivery. This results in delivering a rich user experience.

• Fully Integrated Model (Metabolic Meals, Eat Purely)

This model implies that the application owner has full control over everything in the mobile app, i.e. from food preparation to delivery. Fully integrated models are costly, but the app owner controls food quality, service efficiency, delivery speed, and more. This leads to a higher customer satisfaction rate and consequently more revenue.

The entire cycle of meal apps aims at making food accessible and delivering it to the customer. Traditionally it was done by phone – where a customer would call the restaurant to order food for delivery. Now food delivery applications look after the process. Moving ahead, let’s go through the features that are important to have while building an app like Postmates..

Features Selection

 All food delivery applications come with a few basic features like:

• Registration and Login
• Ordering
• Payment
• Order Tracking
• Reviews and Ratings

But, what if a customer is looking to search for a restaurant or a dish? So the search features will be another vital consideration. Listed below are features for every segment.

Other Impeccable Features for Food Delivery Apps:

• Real-time Messenger- An instant messaging feature connecting a customer with a courier is crucial. It can be used to ask for directions, replace items, or more. Placing a call in a busy place can be inconvenient. So approving the changes via a message will make the customer happy.
  
• Pickup- This feature allows a customer to pre-order so that the item can be picked up later. The feature was first rolled out by Square’s Caviar, it is fresh on Postmates and is expanding its reach.
  
• Instant Group Deals- This feature is not available in Postmates, but it can make a huge difference in the app like Postmates. Millennials are driven by instant gratification and variable rewards. Finding a random deal that disappears within minutes from the app is addictive. The algorithm is simple:
  • A customer initiates a group order from a certain location.
  • A timer for order can be set during which other parties can join.
  • If a neighbor joins during the validity period, the discount increases. 
  • In case no one joins, there is no delivery discount.
  • A courier person picks up all the orders for a particular neighborhood and delivers them.
    

• Smart Virtual Assistant- Voice recognition technology allows conversational interfaces to be developed like Siri, which can take voice orders and respond to queries. Smart recommendation engine also allows users to choose meals based on personal food preferences. By analyzing common patterns (flavor or ingredients) it suggests restaurants have meals to suit what the user wants. 

Application Variants

A food delivery application can have the following variants:

• Restaurants- For better visibility, restaurants partner with online platforms. This gets them extra orders and increases their revenue.
• Customers- Who pay for the convenience of door-step order delivery. 
• Courier (Postmates)- Independent contractors who are willing to monetize their extra time for goods delivery. The network of couriers consists of drivers, cyclists, and walkers.
• Admin- Manages the marketplace and earns commission and delivery fee.

Revenue channels

According to different consumption patterns, acquisition channels can be segmented using accurate buyer personas to achieve desired ROI goals. To meet the goals, having diverse revenue streams like advertising, in-app purchases, subscriptions, and more, will sustain and increase business profit.

Technology and Solutions

From the pile of available technologies, frameworks, programming languages, and more, developers can choose the tech-stack for both frontend and backend development.

By using the right technology stack that consists of 3rd Party integrations, solutions can be developed as per client’s requirements. These include:

• Server
• Storage 
• Programming language such as PHP 5.4 
• Database – MySQL 5.2 or higher

Certain third-party integrations such as social media plugins and multiple payment gateways, can provide better end user solutions. Cloud integration is also a trend these days.

It provides flexibility on how the data is stored, shared and accessed. It is more scalable and has the ability to implement the changes across cloud applications and on-premises systems.

Development and Testing

Once the technology stack for the food delivery app is determined, developers with prior experience in custom app development can be hired. There are two distinctive approaches that can be followed to complete the development of the application. These are:

• Waterfall Methodology- The working takes place in a sequential method with a linear process. 
• Agile Methodology- Works on iteration to incorporate time to time enhancements. The work is done in sprints.

After the development of the application, it is pivotal to check for bugs or any functional defects. Requirement matching with the end product is also done during testing. Mobile application testing includes the process to check the usability, consistency, and helps in building an app like Postmates.

Testing can either be done manually, or by automation. Once the application is fully tested and is free from errors, it can be deployed. An application that is fully tested and is error free will provide a good user experience and will eventually boost business revenue.

Launch and Support

Once the application is tested, it can be deployed to appropriate App Stores (Apple, Google, and more) and will be put under production. To make the process of production flawless, testers need to test the application post-deployment as now it is functioning under real-life conditions.

Nurturing and improving the application post deployment is important. While the improvements can be an on-going process, having a team offering support for application performance issues or any other unforeseen situations is crucial.

A dedicated team that monitors, maintains and is available to provide support, will deliver a higher level of trust and an application that operates without any unpleasant performance issues.

Marketing and Promotion

The goal of application marketing is to acquire loyal users that will not only repeat engagements but will also become advocates for the application. If users feel connected to the application, then their word of mouth will broaden the audience.

The early adopters of Postmates spread the word and encouraged people to use the application, setting a trend. This saved 80% of the company’s marketing efforts and led to an exponential increase in sales.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media platforms are also great tools to market the application. SEO friendly content can be published using blogs to increase the ranking of the application on search engines.

Other social media marketing and advertising tools consist of paid campaigns like PPC, advertisements, subscriptions for premium users, and more. Using marketing tools helps in tracking consumer behavior and aid in increased conversions.

Propositions that Give Postmates an Edge over its Competitors

Postmates has consistently stayed ahead of the curve through its tentativeness toward food delivery. Though its ultimate value proposition is convenience, listed below are other features that provide Postmates an edge over its alternatives:

1. Reach New Customers- It helps businesses to expand their local customer base by reaching out to new customers.
2. Postmates + Uber Eats- There is an added benefit of being shown to customers on Uber Eats app on partnering with Postmates.
3. No Fees or Time Commitments– Download the app and make money whenever you come online. 
4. Instant Deposits- Get weekly deposits or cash out instantly.
5. Well Experienced Chefs- Postmates provides an option to get food from the city’s top-rated chefs.

Other Benefits:

1. The menu is frequently updated.
2. A nominal fee is charged by the application depending on the distance covered from the pick up to the drop off point.
3. The app has a section of special feature stores which gives exposure to specialized stores.
4. The food or other products can be delivered from places that do not deliver.
5. Businesses that do not want to invest in their own delivery fleet, can expand their audience by signing up with Postmates.

Conclusion

Online platforms are vital for any business in the current times. Learning from the best and taking steps towards creating an app like Postmates will tailor the structure of a business to suit the application market.

Digging into the technological and business aspects is crucial to make informed decisions. Which is why it is important to choose a leading custom mobile app development company like FATbit Technologies to build an app like postmates. Their years of experience will help in developing a robust and scalable app that can help build a broader client base, increase customer loyalty and scale growth.

Last Updated: 27th February , 2023

The restaurant value chain has seen a steep rise in the recent past. With digitalization reigning across industries, the restaurants have been among quick responders to the transformation. The restaurants tried their best to keep services running throughout the pandemic.

When everything shut down and everybody was forced to stay confined, restaurants continued food delivery to those who needed it most. Students and youngsters staying alone without any kitchens of their own relied on online food delivery and the industry suddenly rose to the occasion.

How imperative a mobile application would be to match market demands is crystal clear. Not restricting ordering food to devices, but extending its expanse to portable and mobile gadgets will provide seamless expansion of the scope with which restaurants are able to cater to consumers online.

Understanding the dilemma a business enthusiast faces, of having to take decisions on multiple fronts, we help through this blog to systematically discuss the steps that will help guide in restaurant app development process.

Table of Contents

• Trends in Restaurant App Development
  
• Benefits of Creating a Restaurant App
• Types of Restaurant Apps with Their Features
• Steps to follow in restaurant app development process
• Factors to Consider During the Restaurant App Development
• Possible Challenges
• Technology Stack
• Conclusion

Trends in Restaurant App Development

With the advent of the digital within the restaurant industry, every restaurant has picked up the pace to match the changing scenarios. Be it augmenting the interface for consumers, relationship with facilitators for delivery and procurement, or better interacting software with third party APIs, every step taken added convenience and embraced technology.

If we look at the patterns and statistics we observe:

• The market for online food delivery is about to reach $29,000 million. 
• The most significant segment involving delivery of food from restaurants alone is about to reach $17,000 million within 2021.
• With almost 85% of independent adults now using smartphones to find restaurants, close to 36% preferring to make table reservations via restaurant apps, and more than 25% now wanting to order as well as pay from the table through an app itself, the need for a restaurant mobile application is increasing.
• More than 80% of the restaurant owners feel that reaching consumers through channels that appeal better to them helps improve brand recognition and sales, so an app will help achieve all.

When entering a business in the online food delivery category, the best way forward is to understand the trends that mobilize the industry. Awareness into how an app adds to the popularity convinces owners to develop a mobile app for their restaurants.

Some noteworthy facts that add to the argument are:

• Adding digital channels for ordering and subsequently upgrading to delivery, the share prices of Dominos have risen by 40% since 2012. Today, it is reportedly getting 60% of all its orders through these channels. It also claims to have seen a significant rise in same-store sales within a quarter, due to addition of channels like online ordering and introducing a dedicated app.
• Starbucks has been able to add specific personalization features for its customers through the mobile app. Extending exclusive loyalty programs, deals and offers, it has exemplified user experience, and has been able to capitalize on the investments made on technical feature enhancements.

The transformation within the food value-chain has gained momentum with technologies like big data and artificial intelligence coming into main sight. A customized food or restaurant app development will exploit technology even more exhaustively.

Cloud, blockchain, AI, big data, and 5G services will all contribute to better customer understanding, experience, service, and safety in the online food delivery.

Benefits of Creating a Restaurant App

Every business mind understands the language of RoI, the return on investment made. Developing a restaurant app that helps fulfill a major purpose of seamless access demands a decent investment, and the benefits drawn from this development can contribute to growth of the restaurant business.

Creating a restaurant app can prove beneficial to both, a new restaurant business owner who is yet to launch into the market, as well as those who are already running their restaurant(s) and are looking to add to their marketing and expansion efforts.

Here we discuss for you some most prominent benefits that promote the idea of developing an adept app for your restaurant.

1. Brand Value Addition

A mobile application that allows consumers to access and locate nearby restaurants from any place, order their favorite food without being restricted to a device is a definite value addition to the brand. 

Convenient connectivity goes a long way in creating impressions in the consumer minds. 

2. Better Customer Experience

A well designed application that transitions smoothly from locating restaurants, making food item selections, ordering dishes, quick payments, to tracking orders till they are delivered, adds appeal and builds a refined experience for the end user. 

All features integrated via well written APIs that help the application run uninterrupted for all operations enhances the UX.

3. Improved Payment Processing

The most critical of the steps for a business owner, while a user orders food online is the payment being made through the interface. An application with integrated third party payment modules allows this process from anywhere. 

A minimum internet bandwidth by the mobile service providers makes the entire online food ordering more complete than ever.

4. Better Response to Bookings

When there is a feasibility to book a table for a suitable slot, the consumer feels free to finish other chores before they settle for their meal at their favorite restaurant. A restaurant mobile application providing this convenience invites more users to use the facility at hand.

The application can facilitate the user or restaurant owner to assign seatings visible to all, and the practice can add to ease of serving.

5. Loyalty Benefits

Loyalty programs over specific restaurant apps not only allow retaining old customers but attracting new ones too. A new consumer will choose to download a particular restaurant app if it is offering more deals compared to other restaurants.

Push notifications on latest deals keep the customer hooked to the app for making more transactions on the app.

6. Transparent Feedback

A restaurant app mostly always displays the feedback received on their dishes or service. This creates a reliable environment for customers as they know the positives as well as the negatives. 

Also, feedback serves like a guidance to the restaurant owners to modify or improve what their customers desire.

Both new as well as existing business owners can derive benefits by choosing to develop or add a restaurant app. It is just considering what all functionalities to include through specific API integrations that can add real value to the online food ordering and delivering experience. 

With an app, reaching a larger audience in the same vicinity becomes possible without having to spend time reaching people outbound, or attending phone calls limiting your capacity.

Types of Restaurant Apps

Once decided to add an app to your online food business platform, the next step is to understand what type of an app needs to be developed. Although, as users we feel all apps do the same thing, but each application is discreetly designed according to the online food business model.

Here are the most popular running apps supporting majority of the online food businesses:

Find Your Restaurant App

If the offering of an online business is to merely locate nearby restaurants within certain geo parameters, then a restaurant locator app is what is to be developed. The app allows users to find restaurants according to their choice of cuisines, food item, area of dining or ordering, and popularity. 

This kind of an app development will need a comprehensive database of all the restaurants, cafes, and diners in different localities and neighborhoods. The database can be compiled using the Google Places API, and then geo location can be integrated to help users locate eating joints within their radius.

Important Features

• User profile
• Restaurant search or filters 
• Restaurant listing & map views
• Restaurant information/menu customization screens
• Ingredients selection
• Photo gallery
• Photo/video upload
• Review & ratings
• Push notifications
• Activity stream
• Restaurant button/link
• In-app messaging/calling

On-table Order and Pay App

The on-table order and pay app facilitates an automated system for ordering and payment functionalities from the restaurant table without any personal interaction with the restaurant staff. In times when human-to-human interaction is reduced to a minimum in actuality, technology pledges to bring them closer.

The app includes a feature to place an order from the menu available, which creates a check for an order which is picked up by a kitchen display system (KDS). This order can then be completed through a payment and tip POS created, which can be closed on fulfillment of the function by the customer.

Important Features

• Menu
• Order form & details
• Reordering
• Order Ahead
• Loyalty programs
• Bill split
• Paying at the table/counter
• Mobile wallet integration
• Automatic tipping & tip addition
• Email/ print receipts

Online Ordering and Delivery App

For meeting requests pertaining to online food ordering and delivering, this kind of an app developed with end-to-end operational features provides complete business support. The app allows users to find restaurants in their vicinity, access menus, place orders, pay for the items selected, and track order delivery.

These can further be of two types:

• Full service application – These applications are developed without any support or feature added from the outside. Here the developers code for all features and the entire operation is independent of any third-party API.

• Delivery aggregator or delivery service apps – These apps offer flexibility to restaurant owners to connect to a dedicated delivery service provider to deliver orders from their favorite restaurants to the customer’s locations. The Zomato app is a classic example.

Various third party integrations like order tracking, push notifications, feedback or reviews, help improve the restaurant’s services in coordination with the delivery team, towards a more efficient food delivery.

Important Features

• User profile
• Restaurant search & listings
• Menu
• Card registration
• Automatic payment
• Order details/history
• Order booking
• Delivery status
• Notifications
• Ratings
• Real-time chat

Loyalty Program App

An application that is developed primarily for the purpose of sharing details of ongoing and upcoming restaurant or food deals, is a loyalty program app. The restaurants develop this app independently for timely push notifications, alerts, and reminders to customers.

The app helps restaurants track how many old and how many new customers come on-board due to the offers or campaigns run from the restaurant. They can further plan their activities based on the user response.

Important Features

• Offering rewards such as discounts, gifts & complimentary beverages
• Incentivized last minute bookings on the app
• Offer updations on a periodic basis
• Setting conditions for user rewards on the backend
• Free Stuff appetite such as free drink & other goodies
• Rewards scheme on user birthday
• Free-in-store refills through notifications
• In-app menu
• Mobile order & payment in advance
• In-app survey messages for star awards
• Music playing at any outlet to their own playlist within the app

The main decision is to decipher the need and type of application to develop. As the owner decides to move ahead with a particular type of app development, they are often caught in a circle of thoughts, as to where and how to begin and proceed with the vision.

To help you move past such thoughts, this section ahead will help with the basic approach and act as a guide for the restaurant app development.

Steps to Follow in Restaurant App Development Process

When determined to launch an app for any food business, the first challenge is to develop with the desired features and functionalities. Proceeding with a development partner is a wise option, but keeping note of a few criteria before beginning the process might just help save time as well as energy.

• Note that the developed restaurant app is solving a crucial challenge being faced by the restaurant ecosystem or industry.
• The development must be efficient in terms of time and money invested.
• The application must be simple to run as well as use so as to serve the purpose of adding convenience.
• Being an interface between different stakeholders, the restaurant app must be able to provide uninterrupted connectivity to fulfill the online food ordering activities.
• Try following a good design reference while creating a restaurant app. Although new ideas can change many things, taking a reference in the beginning might help clarify thoughts as the business progresses.

There are numerous ways to reach a destination, but it is always wise to follow a well-guided path as it might help prevent major pitfalls. The following points have been summarized in order to provide an overview of the process for the development of a strong application for any of the restaurant businesses.

What and How Much to Develop

The business owner or enthusiast must be clear on the business model for which the app needs to be developed. Majority of design and development will vary depending on the purpose the app needs to serve.

As, the loyalty program app will not need any integrations pertaining to tracking orders or delivery, and similarly the online ordering and delivery app will need additional third party integrations for online payments, GPS integration for order tracking, including APIs for accounts and finances.

Having identified the features desired, the investment must be made accordingly so as to get an efficient and justified outcome.

Market & Business Research

Now that the scope of the application to be developed is finalized, the next step should be to start with gaining a thorough understanding of the market. A sound food business is a result of an in-depth understanding of the market demands.

The app must be directed towards meeting the demand and supply. Information regarding:

• Knowledge of competitor offerings through the restaurant apps. Number of expected app users from day one.
• The amount of user data that needs to be recorded, managed and stored for retrieval time and again, so as to understand the database and server support.
• About what kind of network support different applications need so as to design the architecture and infrastructure accordingly.
• Options of different APIs that can possibly help reduce development time and speed up the go-to-market

These pointers could contribute to developing restaurant apps that supplement the business with better performance and user experience.

The Objectives to be Achieved – Functionalities of the App

Next in line should be to define descriptively the functions that the particular restaurant app needs to perform. Knowing these will help decide:

• How much to code – what is original and what can be bought. Can a ready-made platform be a quick go-to-market step.
• How many third party dependencies – API integrations for geo tracking, payments, push notifications, online menus, ordering, bookings, and more.
• Server specifications – depending on the size of user-base being targeted.
• Database type and size – to store different data points like addresses, contact numbers, locations, order and restaurant information, including some statistical analysis.
• Sources of connectivity to be built – restaurant names, location-wise.

The restaurant app development can begin at this point, with an adept team of developers creating an interface for the restaurant business to operate on.

Speed up The Development Process Using APIs

Depending on the type of restaurant app to be developed, the developers can choose from a number of available APIs so as to speed up the development for a quick launch.

The options that can be considered include:

• Regarding Information on Restaurants: Foursquare or Zomato APIs allow drawing all restaurant related data.
• For Location Services: To add functionality for route navigation and recommendations, Google Maps and Places can be integrated. Selecting a particular area will also vary according to the operating system. For Android, Google’s Location API does the job, whereas for iOS, Core Location Framework will be needed.
• Regarding Reservations and POS System: Rest APIs enable adding the functionality where users can select the exact table for dining. Several APIs are available for integrating the POS, like, Deliveroo API, Omnivore, and Simplicity.
• Including Suggestions/Recommendations: APIs facilitating AI generated tips for recommendations can be integrated. An example is the Qloo API.
• Payment Gateway: A number of options are available depending on the operating systems and areas in which the application is to be used. Some examples include Android and Apple Pay APIs, or those by Braintree, Stripe, and PayPal.
• Track Delivery: the Shippo API allows an orderly delivery process along with their tracking
• APIs to Get Reviews and Feedback: These are integrated to allow users to be able to leave reviews and feedback on the restaurant app.
• To Launch a New Feature: LaunchDarkly enables app owners to integrate new features into their application without any additional tech support.

UI-UX of the App

As the back-end decisions are being made, the front-end has to be parallelly designed. When the entire success of any online restaurant business depends on the kind of user experience they transcend, UI-UX becomes imperative to be invested upon.

An easy and quick registration is the first step to an attractive UX. Ensuring data safety through either integrating secure sign-in APIs from AWS or creating a basic sign-in with data locked inside secure servers. Smart catalogs, a streamlined ordering and POS, swift delivery track, and push notifications integrated will all be done to build the UI-UX and uplift a restaurant apps appeal.

Test, Deploy & Launch the App

The back-end and front-end when coded and combined with the desired third party feature APIs now need to be tested before the actual user gets on it to order their food. The application is to be tested rigorously for the load it is expected to bear, usability, regression, devices on which it is expected to be downloaded, and various status reports must be ready for any improvements required.

With all testing done, status reports ready, the application is ready for deployment on the servers of choice. It can then be launched on all the play stores for downloading.

Begin Marketing the App – Choose Campaigns That Make it a Brand

As the developed restaurant app is available live on different play stores, the app owner must begin marketing the app. Since various apps need to attract an audience who ultimately chooses food through an online service, the marketing campaigns need to be designed to meet the user as per their expectations.

Endorsing restaurants and offering opening discounts with loyalty benefits could serve great benefits for the business in the long run. It is this time at launch when customers would look for reasons to download the app. Once downloaded, very few jump to different apps for their food ordering. Providing them constant perks will have them market the app ahead through word-of-mouth, contributing to branding of the restaurant app.

Feedback Analysis From the Restaurant App

An application used for ordering food will definitely invite critiques and feedback from those happy as well as upset. So an analysis of the feedback gathered will play a big role in improving the live application.

There are multiple tools that can be integrated to gather feedback specifically in order to understand the audience better. These tools are designed to engage the user in different ways so that they share their feedback. Tools like mopinion, feedbackify, and HubSpot that facilitate gathering customer reviews on the service being offered through the application.

App Support & Enhancements

A functional restaurant app can be made better as and how the audience preferences are better understood. There are in-app enhancements as well as guidance tools that provide support to the users while they are using the app.

A new user on-boarded is given initial directions on the flow through the app, along with some interactive bots that allow communication between the support personnel and the user in case there is a problem. Salesforce offers such tools that build an in-app support system within the restaurant app.

Completion of development of a restaurant app might take much longer than it seems. It is ideally supposed to continue as inputs should be made whenever upgradation is needed in terms of services, technology, as well as customer satisfaction. An application that will improvise to serve better will always attract a much larger user-base.

Further on, the features are the striking elements that end up serving the ultimate goal of a restaurant app. In the section below we list down the most specific features for different types of restaurant apps discussed in the sections above.

Factors to Consider During the Restaurant App Development

A guide to a restaurant app development would not be complete without mentioning the most critical factors that influence the successful development, deployment, and operations that the app performs.

Now it is important to understand that development of a restaurant app involves a significant amount of back-end efforts according to the user variants for the app. The development strategy, involving steps around the discovery phase and other modules of the restaurant app happen in accordance with the different users and stakeholders.

The architecture of the restaurant app being developed will thus vary depending on the complexity of the app, which will define how robust it will be.

These factors help the app or restaurant owner decide how extensive the app must be so as to meet the goals of developing the application. The following are to name the few of the influential ones.

Bandwidth and Load Testing

While developing the app, it is a must to acknowledge the fact that despite a huge user base that uses the application simultaneously, the IT of the app must be robust and all possible risks leading to an app crash must be kept in mind. The idea is to ensure that under all circumstances the app remains operational as well as the data for the app owner, restaurant owner, as well as the user is not lost.

To address these factors, the probable scalability, response time, and resource usage must be considered.

Budget & Future Planning

It is a common observation that when an owner starts developing a restaurant app, the initial requirements casually overshoot. Especially when the development team uses agile practices for the app development, they use the luxury and the requirements keep pouring in. But then the pocket is what is most affected.

A wise suggestion would be to stick to your basic designs and user stories. Even though some new input comes to mind, decide a plan to balance the existing and the new components so as to fit it within the budget decided. Draw an estimate on the ROI of each new addition or add request so as to develop an efficient application.

Competitor Profiling

This forms the core around which the app will be developed. A successfully running application will offer the best case study for consideration of what to include and what not to go about while your app is being built.

A thorough competitor profiling would provide an insight into the popular features and the feedback or reviews will help shed light on how to develop a better application.

These factors will definitely help the development team on board to quickly decide the quality they need to deliver and deploy.

Possible Challenges

With every software development come upfront challenges that might pose hindrances in the process. These generic roadblocks if presumed well in time can help glide through easily, giving a restaurant app that will make ordering food online a much fun experience.

Competitor Landscape

The market is saturated with food delivery apps. The restaurants are using diversified ways to attract customers. The apps are giving their users a more and more personalized experience. The challenge to provide an edge above the existing is one of the most intense one the entrepreneurs can expect at the moment.

The way through would probably be to research and create user journeys with attractive offerings that compel customers to download the restaurant app.

Technology Upgrades

The pace at which online food ordering transcended from telephonic ordering to mobile apps, it is very hard to say what trend will control the industry in the future. It is upgrading the existing infrastructure according to the new.

While developing a restaurant app, the development team must design the code so as to easily facilitate owners to integrate the latest API updates as well as code upgrades.

Monetary Considerations

Another challenge that restaurant owners and the restaurant app development team will most probably face is keeping the monetary investment under the planned limits. As the development process proceeds with an agile methodology, the team might overshoot the budget with inclusions that were initially unplanned.

The idea is to understand as to what feature or addition will matter the most initially. Only those requests must be included that promise a high ROI from the very beginning, or else the inclusion of those can be postponed for later.

Bypassing the challenges and developing a robust and reliable restaurant app demands a strong technology stack backing it. No development is thorough without well strategized use of technological inputs. Let us review some of the necessary areas of development that will play a role in defining the quality and performance of the restaurant app.

Technology Stack

When discussing the technology stack that goes behind developing a strong application, we foray from the basic language for coding to the servers needed for deployment of the application. A sound knowledge of the requirements help define what to use for what purpose.

The tech stack needs to be chosen based on each development phase, as depicted here:

The first level should be to decide on what kind of application to develop, Native or Hybrid. This will help choose the SDK or the software development kit, which will be different for iOS and for Android deployment. 

The toolkits and the languages will also vary for both iOS and Android. An overview of the technology stack needed to develop a basic functioning restaurant app is here under:

Language and Programming

Understanding whether your app will be a Native one or a hybrid one, the developers will code using Swift or Kotlin, that will help build powerful and proficient applications. The choice will also depend on the user base as well as the device on which the app is expected to be used majorly. 

iOS as well as Android specific programming languages will reduce time to develop and the bugs that will come surface during testing or deployment. To develop an application that can run anywhere with enterprise-level performance, Java is a language of choice. The ease of development as well as higher business value can be derived through choosing the right language itself.

Cloud and Server Requirements

Selecting the server type for the developed restaurant application will depend on the expected user load. A cloud server like AWS, Google, Azure, or Digital Queen will provide continuous connectivity. If a local user-base is intended to be targeted, a local server will also suffice. 

The development team needs to gather the app use requirements thoroughly to establish an appropriate server backup.

Databases & Utilities

Databases offer storage of all the data gathered over the application. Databases that allow easy storage, management, retrieval, migration, and access to data points contribute to good usage of the gathered data.

MySQL or SQLite databases offer ready APIs for easy integration and application with your developed software. Facilitating better managed data at the restaurant’s end will allow the owner to draw meaningful insights whenever desirable.

Analytics

A good analytics API integrated into the application will extract data from the database and give back meaningful insights. Google Firebase offer easily applicable APIs that provide quick and easy analytical outputs from the data at hand.

An analytical tool integrated with the developed restaurant application will help the owner take key business decisions. The analytics will help build good dashboards for the different users of the application, giving a clearer picture of the activity going over the interface.

Customer Connections

Building connections with the customers who come to order food over the application requires much thought. Many ways through which good connections can be built include:

• Multiple payment methods – Using Braintree, Stripe or PayPal integrations
• Location tracking – Using Google Places API
• Direction information – Using Mapkit and Google Maps
• In-app chat
• In-app guidance
• User-registration – Using Facebook and Gmail SDKs
• Feedback and reviews

When the customers are able to communicate through the application, they gain confidence over the system on which they order and pay. Third party integrations allow easy inclusion of these features, that will influence the convenience provided to the customer.

Development and Deployment

While all the inclusions and specifications are defined during the design phase, the development approach should be kept agile. This will add to the flexibility as well as satisfaction of the app owner.

An agile approach will allow an interactive process of value addition to the application being developed. A cross-functional team working towards building an application that delivers exceptional user experience adds to the competitive advantage. Facilitating a quick go-to-market favors business strategy and hence delivers an application that can be improved at every step.

Conclusion

A restaurant app development involves understanding the audience as well as the stakeholders who will directly interact and benefit from the app. Making ordering food online an experience worth enjoying is almost totally dependent on the kind of experience the application interface offers.

A thoughtful deciphering of the requirements between the development team and the restaurant owner can bring out an exceptional application which gains popularity due to its appeal and convenience.

A team proficient in custom mobile app development, which has delivered professional applications with all features desirable for a good and fully functional restaurant application is a must for a successful development objective to be achieved.

A restaurant app must be worth registering and revisiting, offering satisfaction just like the food it helps deliver.