Food, without question, is one of the most basic needs of mankind. It’s quite established that a business based out of the basic needs of mankind is bound to succeed. We have seen the success of real estate and apparels. We have also witnessed how food chains have not only created a brand but also steady streams of revenue through franchising. As long as there is a need for food, there is always a possibility of profit from any business associated with food. It keeps changing from one channel to another. It was once about restaurants and then it became food chains. Today, the revenue from food lies in food delivery.

Food delivery is a different stream altogether. In the food delivery ecosystem, it is not just the restaurants that make the revenue but also the food delivery service providers. The service provider component includes both the delivery partners and the platform provider.

The Relevance of Food Delivery Applications

When you sell a product or a service, you either sell a pride of possessing a brand, or a convenience, Or a combination of both. Food delivery Falls into the second category. It cannot be denied that the need for food always prevails and is not limited by any social or personal attribute. Parallel to this, there is nothing that beats the comfort of home. Come to think of it, a dining room with just a man and his lady would be more romantic than any candlelit fancy restaurant.

This is precisely where the relevance of food delivery fits in. Food delivery applications facilitate the convenience of enjoying food from your favorite restaurant in the comfortable confines of your home.

It is not just the user who benefits from food delivery applications. Restaurants are also able to serve the people who are not even on their premises. This has greatly expanded the prospect of service for the restaurants which has resulted in better revenues for them.

The Market

The market for food delivery applications is as large as the people who consume food… Basically, everyone! The success tasted by businesses like Doordash, Grubhub, Zomato, Seamless and UberEats – literally and figuratively – Speak volumes about the relevance and the revenue generation possibilities of food delivery applications.

While the market might seem saturated in certain territories, it cannot be denied that there is always a room for new businesses to enter into this apparently crowded market. Users are always on the Lookout for trying new products and services. As long as the experience of the user is seamless and smooth, they are quite likely to use your services. It does not concern the user what technology you have used to build the app.

How Do Food Delivery Apps Work? – The Features That Facilitate Them

It seems simple on paper when we say that food delivery applications facilitate bringing restaurant food to your home. However, the involvement of delivery partners makes the working mechanism a little complicated. Most of the food delivery applications use this process to complete their goal.

Let us probably start from the very beginning – the user, to start with, has to download the application. After downloading, the user has to create an identity by signing up for the app. The sign up can be done using an email address or a social media account. It would be a good practice to have the phone number in place, as the delivery executive might have to contact and coordinate with you regarding the address.

The restaurants that are serviceable at a specific location are limited by a geographic boundary. For this purpose, the food delivery application will either use the GPS system on your mobile or it can also consider certain designated addresses that are used commonly orders food from or to. This could be your home or your workplace. The facility to order food another address than the one specified by the GPS gives the option to order food for others as well.

Based on the location, either detected through GPS or by specifying, the application lists the available restaurants. There will be options to sort restaurants by delivery time, rating and cost of one meal. The restaurant can also be filtered by cuisine and meal preferences including pure vegetarian choices. This will help a user make better and easier choices.

once a restaurant of the user’s choice is selected, the menu items are displayed. Usually, the items on the menu are segmented by the course. The soups, the starters, the main course, and the deserts are listed under different headers making it easy for the user to navigate. Each menu item has a button that facilitates the adding of an item to the food cart.

One all the items are selected and added to the food cart, the user is taken to the checkout page. The checkout page can have an option for using a discount code or specifying your requirements about the dish like salt levels and spice levels.

After all the specifications have been made, you can proceed to the payment. The payment can be processed using multiple methods like cards, net banking, e-wallets and even cash on delivery. You will be allotted once the payment has been successfully processed.

As soon as the order is successfully placed, two entities are informed about your order. One is the restaurant and the other is a delivery executive. Both the restaurant and the delivery executive have to confirm your order. The restaurant starts preparing the food and the delivery executive starts to move towards the restaurant to pick up your food once it is ready. You are notified that every stage.

The delivery executive picks up the food as soon as it is ready and delivers it to the specified address. The movement of the delivery executive can be tracked right from the time your order was assigned to them until it is delivered. The delivery executive confirms the receipt of your order by the customer and that confirmation is an indication of your other getting completed.

It can be inferred that there are three entities other than the administrator involved in the processing of your order – the customer, the delivery executive, and the restaurant. This would mean that a food delivery application should feature three different interfaces in addition to the administrator panel.

How Do Businesses Make Money?

Now that the process is clear, it is important to understand where exactly the app gets its revenue out of. The application sources its revenue from three major sources:

A great chunk of revenue is earned by taking a commission from the restaurants. We have already seen how restaurants capitalize on this opportunity to multiply the volumes of their business. It is only fair that the restaurant gives a Commission to the food delivery service that made this additional business possible.

Sometimes, a restaurant is so famous that it does not have to essentially count on the delivery app. In those cases, the food delivery business can earn its revenue by levying an extra delivery charge from the customers. Given the reputation of the restaurant, it is quite possible that the customers will pay the extra charges.

The app can also feature promotions. The promotions do not imply ads but restaurant getting featured in a prominent position. Since a lot of users order using food delivery apps, restaurants can gain visibility in this fashion. the same method can be used for promoting offers and discounts by certain restaurants as well. The app can charge a substantial amount for promoting a particular restaurant.

It should be noted that there is no chance of platform-based ads on food delivery applications. Sometimes, a short term revenue option can be compromised for a steady stream of revenue in the long-term.

The Components Involved In Creating A Food Delivery App

Creating an app, or rather, a business of this magnitude requires a lot of assignments to be put in place. These elements should coordinate flawlessly with each other to facilitate the process of food ordering and being carried out seamlessly.

If a business was introducing a business concern for the first time the biggest challenge you would be used to create a cultural impact. It would take a lot of time and effort to make people understand that this is a great convenience. It would also take some effort and money to make businesses understand that they can earn profits from this stream of trade.

The ‘cultural changes’ have already been affected by companies like Zomato and UberEats. The tasks that left to do by your food delivery business is in terms of technology, data, and operations.

We will focus on technology in greater detail in later paragraphs. To make sure that your food delivery business thrives, you will need to have a lavish list of restaurants that will accept orders from your app. It is only the number of restaurants that determine the popularity of your app, in addition to the marketing efforts and discounts. With acquiring data, there is also an effort involved in curating it for the app. The data needs to fit in with the technology, so the app can list the available restaurants and the dishes.

There will be a time when your food-delivery app becomes so popular that restaurants will approach you to be their delivery partner. While the journey to that utopia takes time, the next step is to configure the operations. The most prominent segment of your operational efficiency lies in the delivery. Companies like Zomato and UberEats employ delivery partners part-time, and they get paid based on the number of deliveries, the distance and the time are taken to deliver an order. These delivery partners need to be reliable, prompt and committed to their work.

The technology-component can be further split into three segments – development, design, and testing.

With the availability of Uber clone scripts, development might not take a lot of time and effort. However, your App needs to be customized in a way that it reflects your brand and philosophy. This is where the relevance of the UI and design come in. The app has to be navigable and intuitive in a way that it does not confuse your customer when ordering food. Once the app is created and ready to be launched, it needs to be tested for bugs.

After all, these are done, your App can be launched on the app stores of major mobile ecosystems. It takes quite some time and money to market your app and popularise it.

Cost of Developing an UberEats Clone

Considering the different skills involved in creating a wholesome food delivery app. The cost of the app could be anywhere in the range of $20,000 to $35000. The costs include development, design, and customization.

It requires a deep understanding of the industry and every component involved to create a perfect food delivery app using an Ubereats clone script. AppDupe, with its expert team and creative designers, will present you a food delivery app that is all set to storm in the market. As we have discussed in the very beginning, for the users, the technology doesn’t matter. Our Uber clone scripts are extremely customizable and will considerably reduce the time you take to hit the market. Drop-in an inquiry and we will take care to create your perfect food delivery app.