The on-demand food delivery mobile apps like Zomato, UberEats, Grubhub, and Swiggy have blended two important things that make the online food ordering ecosystem a huge success 1) Ordering food online 2) Your comfort place & time. Ushered by platform-to-consumer service, these food delivery apps have extended their service from just mere takeaway – Which adds million-dollar business potential in its revenue.
By making the whole concept of online food ordering not restricted to a particular cuisine – Allowing users to tap an order amongst millions of food options, the food ordering and delivery app development has become an instant hit amongst the innumerable on-demand app development companies regardless of their geographical location.
The success of food delivery apps in the App Store and Google play store has given on-demand app development companies a business model that if extended with new ideas and transformations is destined to succeed. But one question that is still left open-ended in the app development market is – How much does it cost to build on-demand food delivery mobile apps like Zomato, Uber Eats, and Swiggy?
If you’re in the midst of the same question, you’re on the perfect page. The answer lies in this article. But before moving ahead with the cost for food delivery app development, let’s have a sneak peek over what market share it holds.
What market share does this food delivery app hold?
The comfort of dining with few clicks on smartphones has enticed users to download more food delivery apps. Online food delivery is growing leaps and bounds and it won’t be an overstatement to say that in a matter of few years, online delivery will surpass the offline dine-in alternative.
The concept of dining out has changed to dine-in and the rise of online food delivery apps is making the food delivery app game stronger. Since the food delivery app market is huge, let’s dig deeper starting with the top food delivery app players.
Top Players of On-demand Food Delivery Mobile App
How does this Eatery Ecosystem Work?
The food delivery ecosystem works as per the below steps:
Step 1: Customer login to the app and order their favorite dish from the restaurant.
Step 2: The restaurant delivers the order to the assigned delivery partner.
Step 3: The delivery partner hands over the food to the customer.
How does an on-demand food delivery mobile app like Zomato make money? – A sneak peek into its Revenue Model
The business models of an app like Zomato and Swiggy have given rise to innumerable on-demand startups in the food verticals. All these applications play a dual role: 1) finding restaurants 2) Food delivery applications. Built on a traditional food delivery platform, the app offers access to innumerable restaurants to browse and order your favorite dish. Though there are multiple ways to make money through these apps, some of the most common business tactics used to earn revenue is as below:
1. Delivery charges
Many restaurants do not have the facility of home delivery. When you offer them your delivery personnel, they pay you a certain delivery charge. A business model where you take up the charge of handling on-demand home delivery is what makes these apps earn handsome revenue. And this is how Deliveroo – an on-demand food delivery app made a revenue of 476 Mn euros in the past year with a 70% margin. And not just Deliveroo,
There are restaurants that consider on-demand food delivery apps that consider delivery charges as their main source of income.
2. Extra surcharge
When the demand graph is too high, especially during uncertainties like heavy rain, cyclones, or festivals, brands like UberEats charge an extra surcharge for delivery. They just limit the menu options and add the surcharge at the time of final order payment. Though the rate of income might be lower, the per delivery charges boost to a great extent.
3. Sharing revenues with partnered restaurants
This is just another way to earn more revenue from on-demand food delivery mobile app development.
Charging commission from the partnered restaurants on every order made by the user is one of the most reliable modes of revenue generation on restaurant-centric on-demand food delivery applications.
Apart from the revenue, this strategy establishes long-term relationships between brands and the associated restaurants.
4. Advertising
Advertising is a sure-fire way to generate high revenues by investing in on-demand food delivery app development. By featuring restaurants on the top of the category or running a video for them on the home screen is an ultimate way to boost your earnings.
What factors contribute to making the on-demand food delivery mobile app a huge success?
Factors included to build a successful and sales-driven on-demand food delivery business model are:
1. Super-fast Delivery:
- Few of the applications promise to deliver the order within 30 minutes.
- It simply means that you can cherish FREE food if the order is somehow delayed.
- For blazing-fast delivery, they partnered with multiple restaurants, coffee shops, cafes, and small roadside stalls.
2. No minimum order required:
Want to go light by just ordering a slice of sandwich?
Bonnes Nouvelles! Be it just a pizza slice, a large meal, or a simple tea-time snack like cookies and sandwiches, you can order whatever you want to taste.
No minimum order is required!
3. No extra charges for small/tiny orders
Though it’s a small pizza, a scoop of ice cream, or a simple salad dressing, order whatever you feel like with no hidden charges. The food delivery apps charge the base amount regardless of your order type which attracts more customers to satiate their small hunger meals.
Features of food ordering app development – Some must-have Food ordering apps with advanced features
When you decide to work on food ordering app development, be it in a restaurant, user model, or making a delivery app like Postmates to deliver food, just remember one thing: You’re not just making a single app. You’re combining all the roles in one app to make ordering seamless and easy. Since you’re working on an app that deals with three user types: restaurant, delivery partner, customer, and admin, the feature list would vary as per the screen type.
Let’s watch out what advanced features can be integrated to make food ordering apps a huge success:
Customer Side:
- Simple Account creation and on-boarding
- Menu layout
- Online food ordering
- Choice of delivery methods
- Address customization and estimated delivery time
- Delivery tracking and order status updates
- Pre-ordering, order cancellation and re-ordering
- Promo codes & coupon management
- Easy and secure payment, returns, and refunds
Restaurant Side:
- Login
- Menu Management
- Push Notification
- Checking Rating and Review
Delivery Side:
- Registration
- Order Management
- Updating the Order Status
Admin Side:
- Admin Login
- Restaurant Management
- Application Management
- Payment Management
- Discount Offers and Coupons
- Technical Assistance
Now that we have an idea of the features to be included in your app, it’s time to look at the technology stack that makes it possible to develop a successful online food delivery app. The tech stack that you pick to build food delivery apps will also help you to evaluate the cost for food delivery app development.
The technology stack used to build food delivery apps
- Programming languages: Java, Kotlin, Objective C, Swift
- Cloud Storage: AWS, Amazon
- Find Direction: MapKit, Google Maps
- Registration: Facebook SDK login
So, now that you’re semi-prepared to enter into the destined to succeed mobile app model, let’s find out the overall cost to build a food delivery app.
Challenges faced while entering mobilized food delivery app development market
The biggest challenges for the entrepreneurs who are looking forward to building an on-demand food delivery mobile app in such a crowded and established market are:
- Competition with predominant applications to serve better
- Finding restaurants and food joints to partner with
- Deciding MVP features to stand out amongst the crowd.
- Seamless and stable UI/UX design for all panels and sections
- Finding an Investor to trust in your app idea.
In such a scenario,
How to convert my billion-dollar idea into a fully functional mobile app?
The answer is: Hire an Outsourcing mobile app development company
Hiring an outsourcing agency will help you to sail through the crowd of overflooded on-demand food delivery app industry. Outsourcing an app to a skilled and experienced on-demand mobile app development company like Adorebits not only helps you with SWOT analysis (strength, weakness, opportunity, and threats) of your app but also helps to build a full-fledged valuable app that solves the user pain points.
Cost to build food delivery app development – Factors affecting overall development budget!
Well, the cost to build food delivery app development depends on innumerable factors including;
- Features to be added in on-demand food delivery mobile app
- Technology stack
- Platform selection: Android, iOS, web, or all of them.
- Third-party integrations & plugins
- Back-end administration
- Domain and hosting expenses
- Hired resources or development team
- App design and testing
- App launch and marketing
- Post-deployment support & maintenance
Depending on the features you’re looking to add in your on-demand mobile app and resources needed to evaluate the cost to food ordering and delivery app development, the cost to build an on-demand food delivery app like Zomato and UberEATS would be somewhere around $40,000 – $50,000*.
*The cost range would vary from one app development company to another depending upon factors like mobile app design and development of the app, app testing, and launching in the app market.
If you want to build a web app for restaurants with a backend, the range would be extended to $70,000 – $80,000
Food Delivery App Development Cost And Timeline
Here is an estimated timeline that will help you calculate the cost approximately
What’s in store for the future of food ordering and delivery app development?
The future of online food ordering and on-demand food delivery apps depends on the changing food delivery trends. But by the year 2025, the industry is all set to modify the ways we consume food.
Let’s have a look over a few food delivery trends you need to focus on in 2021’s food delivery app and the upcoming years to come. So get in touch with Adorebits today and schedule a call with our developers to gauge the possible ways to scale your app.
- Contactless Food Delivery
- Food Delivery by Drones & Robots
- Virtual kitchens
- Self-driving car delivery
- Crypto Food ordering
- AR/VR
- Eco-friendly food delivery
Conclusion
During food delivery app development, it’s essential to understand which food delivery niche to target, its competitors, challenges, and how you will plan to face and succeed. Your food delivery app should provide freedom of choice to your consumers, fit in their schedule, and be user-friendly.
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