People often quip about technology being adequate enough only if they can download food from a smartphone! Although we have not reached that level of advancement, we are almost close to that with on-demand food delivery applications.
As the name implies, these on-demand food delivery applications ensure that they deliver food to the customers when they need it. It comes in as a big bliss not just in the moment of need but also at-large for the millennial mindset which demands services to be available in the command.
A lot of names have made it big in this vertical, but UberEats Clone stands out as one of the best. We can also mention names like GrubHub, FoodPanda, Deliveroo, DoorDash, JustEat, and Zomato, but UberEats commands a special place as it comes from the harbinger of on-demand services – Uber.
The different business models
There are a lot of business models when it comes to on-demand food delivery. There are instances where the restaurant takes care of the delivery and the app only facilitates the order. However, it goes against the basic principle on which the food delivery services were made available. In this food delivery services, the restaurants concentrate on the preparation and packaging of food, and not the task of delivery.
UberEats takes up the task of both aggregating the restaurants in the vicinity of a customer, and also the task of getting it delivered to their doorstep.
This brings a lot of advantage to the restaurants because they do not have to worry about recruiting a delivery fleet and keeping them on the payroll even during the times when they do not have any delivery requests and profits.
What apps like UberEats do in essence is that they recruit a fleet of independent drivers and designate them as delivery executives. They are not directly employed with the company but are gig workers who get paid based on the number of deliveries and the number of active hours.
How does on-demand food delivery app work?
Now that we are aware of the different entities involved in the food delivery ecosystem, it would be easier to understand the way in which the entire process works.
- A user downloads the app and enters their address. The address can be manually entered on the app or the app can take permission from the user to use the GPS and find out the exact location.
- Once the location has been finalized, the app shows the choice of restaurants that a user can order from. The restaurants displayed for ordering from are based on the distance between them and the location of the user. It can either take into consideration a specific radius or the distance that needs to be covered by the delivery executive.
- Once the user places an order, both the restaurant and the delivery executives are notified. One of the delivery executives can accept the order for delivery. The restaurant, parallel to this, accepts the order and starts preparing food.
- The delivery executive arrives at the restaurant and awaits the food parcel to be given to them. Once the food parcel has been picked up, they are guided by the GPS-mapping-navigation combination to reach the precise location of the customer.
- The customer, through all of this, is notified through push notifications. They can also see the movement of the person in real-time on a mapping interface.
- The customer gets the order delivered and based on the quality of food and the delivery, they can rate both their experiences.
The Advantages
This business model has distinct advantages over the other business models. As you may have already inferred from the previous lines, it jettisons the load of maintaining a delivery fleet from the restaurants, and it also provides additional employment opportunities for unskilled workers and even college students who would like to earn an extra income.
The customer also does not have to wait for long hours if they need to get the food delivered on an urgent basis. If a restaurant maintains its limited delivery fleet, it is quite possible that the delivery executives might be busy with some other delivery, and it might inadvertently delay the orders. In the long run, it translates into business losses for the restaurant.
With an app like UberEats, however, as the world of technology would call it, there is a separation of concerns. The restaurant needs to be concerned only about preparing food and packaging it and does not have to worry about delivery.
In addition to the obvious advantage of the customer getting their favorite restaurant food at a time of their convenience and in the comfort of their homes, there are lots of added advantages for the restaurant as well. They give additional visibility in the right spaces. They are expanding their avenues of profitability by not only marking a presence but also adding a sales channel through food delivery apps like UberEats.
In short, food delivery applications like UberEats optimize the entire food delivery network. They ensure higher employment options, efficient functioning of restaurants, and expansion of sales channels, lower customer acquisition costs, and savings on logistics.
What makes a great food delivery app
UberEats is considered the gold standard when it comes to food delivering on-demand mobile apps. Some of the strategies and qualities of UberEats can be studied, so you can implement those in your UberEats like the app as well.
The biggest contributor to the success of UberEats is the fact that it already had a customer base it had acquired through Uber. The brand value created by Uber and the readily available streams for advertising through push notifications made UberEats an instant success.
Although this attribute might not be available to every business, there are a lot more factors than just the parent organization and its brand. UberEats was quite confined in its delivery options by distance. Although it might, on the surface, seem like a disadvantage, it translates into better customer satisfaction in the long run. With limited distance, UberEats was able to complete most of his deliveries within 30 minutes in most metropolitan cities.
UberEats did not mandate any minimum order requirements from customers. It meant that people would look forward to ordering from UberEats irrespective of them needing a quick snack or a full meal, or even a complete Sunday brunch.
Uber had cracked not only the on-demand market method but also the ways in which the entire system can be made democratic through a review and rating system. It brought the entire concept down to its delivery ecosystem as well. This meant that customer satisfaction was kept aloft by addressing support queries but also by bringing in a system where customers can give their feedback.
The technology that goes behind delivering food to the doorstep is nothing short of impeccable. The algorithm that governs the process has been meticulously figured out, so there are no lapses, and even if there are, it is properly addressed and remedied.
The channels of monetization
Business is all about keeping the profits ticking. A business like UberEats has multiple streams of revenue.
- The customer sometimes pays a small amount as a delivery charge, and sometimes, also base amount as a cancellation charge. The delivery charge can be dependent either on the location or on the demand and supply of delivery executives. Sometimes, an app can also charge a flat delivery fee.
- Restaurants pay a commission to the food business because they facilitate additional business and increase the profits of the restaurant. It functions almost like an affiliate with the orders that are fulfilled through the mobile app.
- The app can also run advertisements on his interface and charge for the ads. The advertisement programs can be the usual programs run by platforms like Google and iOS, or even a native advertising system where new restaurants can be added to the app for increased visibility.
The market opportunity
Given the fact that there is no dearth of food consumers around the world, and the increasingly mobile and internet penetration has only enhanced the chances of success, now would be a good time for you to start your own food delivery on-demand business. However, it might not be a great idea to just jump on the bandwagon. There are a few crucial steps that you will need to perform before you embark on your entrepreneurial journey.
It is important to do your due research. The research should include important pointers like the current trends in the food delivery industry, the specific niches that you can address, the pain points that your prospective customers are experiencing right now that need to be solved, and above everything, factors that will contribute for customer delight.
Catching up with trends might be a great idea, but what is even better is to be the pioneer in setting a trend. If you would like to look at long-term success, you can consider adopting a few strategies that might not be relevant right now but are bound to succeed in the future. A few examples would include social media-based ordering, drone deliveries, smart wearables ordering, voice-based ordering by increasing compatibility with Alexa, Google Home, and Apple HomePod, and maybe even accepting cryptocurrency payments.
Conclude your business model. As we have already seen, there are different business models that you can adopt with the food delivery business. While the aggregator and delivery model can be considered the most successful, it has to come down to what your market is all about.
The basic features
While what has been talked about it’s all about the advanced features, there are a few basic features that need to be made a part of your application. These features ensure the proper execution of the food delivery process.
The user app
- The user should find it extremely easy and convenient to sign up and register. The sign-up should also open a profile that will contain information about all the orders that they have placed on the app.
- The app, considering the spectrum of restaurants it is going to feature, should have a proper search function in place. The users should be able to search by the restaurant, dishes, and even by cuisine.
- The customer should be notified of every step in the progress of the order and for this purpose, it is important to enabling push notifications.
- In the era of minimizing human contact, digital payment methods are mandatory. Your app needs to tie up with a versatile payment services provider, so you can accept multiple payment methods like credit cards, debit cards, internet banking, and wallets.
- The customer should be able to schedule orders for the future.
- The customer should be provided with a review and rating system to keep the entire process fair.
The restaurant app
- The restaurant should be able to sign up and register for availing of the food ordering services extended by the app. The sign-up process should include all the terms and conditions without any discrepancies.
- The restaurant should be able to manage their menu and prices. If needed, the restaurant app should also allow them to upload images of dishes.
- The restaurant should have the choice to either accept or reject orders based on their convenience and capacity.
- The payments made it through the app should be quickly processed to the bank account of the restaurant. It contributes by a considerable distance in enhancing the trust that a restaurant has in your business.
The driver app
It is to be remembered that the delivery executives are not full-time employees but just gig workers who have committed to just spend some time and earn an extra income. On one side, it gives the business a few advantages like not having a need to worry about salaries and taxation. On the flip side, it means that they cannot expect these workers to be available all the time, but only during a time of their individual convenience.
- The driver should be able to sign up for earning some extra income but at the same time, the sign-up process should include identity verification and authentication process.
- They should have the freedom to accept or reject order requests. They should be able to choose their work hours subject to their convenience.
- The payments should be processed to the bank accounts of the drivers in the shortest possible time.
- They should be provided with referral programs that incentivize them and the referred driver.
The administrative panel
The administrator is responsible for making the entire app function smoothly without any hassle.
- The administrator should have the right to manage resources for which they should be provided with a comprehensive dashboard. The details that need to be included on the dashboard are the details of the buyer, the price of the orders, and the number of orders, and the total profit by a specific time frame.
- The administrator should have the power to control the contents that go into the app. It includes but is not limited to promotions, discounts, sponsored restaurants.
- The administrator should handle customer support and delegate it to a team if need be. They should also be in a position to manage disputes arising between restaurants, users, and delivery executives.
Under the hood
Although the features that we have seen above might have a lot to do with user experiences first hand, there is quite some complex technology that goes under the hood.
- The app needs to have an API for collecting information about the restaurants in the vicinity. Instead of doing the hunt all by yourself, you can make use of existing APIs.
- We have already emphasized the importance of a payment gateway that can accept multiple payment methods. You can consider tying up with established names in the space like Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal.
- The crux of any on-demand business lies in the GPS technology on top of mapping. To ensure that there are no glitches, it is strongly recommended that you use the services provided by Google and Apple, like Google Places and Google Maps API, and CoreLocation Framework, and Apple MapKit.
Conclusion
As you might have inferred from all the highlights above, it is, without question, quite a cumbersome and daunting process to build a business of on-demand food delivery. While the business aspect cannot be challenged, technology is something that you might not need to worry about.
The technology requirements can be adequately filled by white label clones of UberEats. An UberEats clone, it’s easy to customize and is available as a product off-the-shelf. It means that you do not have to spend a lot of time and money in developing the app from scratch. You can also be assured that you do not have any bugs that might interfere with the basic functionality of the app.
All you need to do is get in touch with a company that specializes in white label UberEats clones, and they will take care to understand your requirement, customize the app, and deliver it to you, so you can deliver delight for your customers and success and profits for your business!
