Online food delivery business has undoubtedly become a million-dollar industry. The huge urban population and their hectic lifestyles are the key drivers behind the growth of the online food ordering and delivery business. Still, there is some room for growth in this industry. Due to the increasing demands of online food delivery apps, a constant rise is seen in Platform to Consumer and Restaurant to Consumer delivery options. Continuous research is taking place in the Online Food Delivery App development industry to find and launch creative food delivery ways through robots, drones, and electric cars, thus, influencing the industry’s growth positively along with considering the increase in traffic and carbon footprints.
Moreover, with the spread of the novel coronavirus, the digital food delivery industry has seen a growth spike. People across the world are either chosen to stay indoors or have been quarantined. This has resulted in a large number of people ordering their daily essentials including food online. As more and more countries are restricting the people’s movements and implementing social distancing, people are turning to online food delivery services to stock up their food. Many offline stores are still not operating because of the various government policies. This has led to the emergence of many online stores in the market. Lots of independent restaurants are also switching to online food delivery or takeaway services. So, the number of Food delivery apps available on the market has also increased and will keep on increasing. Due to this, a Food delivery app development company should take measures to create the best possible apps for those looking to jump into this industry and make profits.
The food delivery app development company should be able to offer standard and customized solutions that will work best for direct to customer businesses, singly restaurant owners, school canteen services, and aggregators. They should have the capability to undertake complicated projects for matching your specific business needs. If you are planning to get a food delivery app created, you should go with an app development company that helps you stay ahead in this competitive market with their tailored food delivery app solutions. So, let’s have a look at how companies can Boost Online Food Delivery App development Business During Covid-19 Crisis:
What is The Structure of A Food Delivery App?
It’s vital to know that a food delivery service app isn’t a single app. There are 3 apps included in this. All three of them have different features and functionalities that make the entire process of food delivery seamless and flawless for you. All food delivery app developers Toronto should make a note to include them in their food delivery apps. Let’s have a look at all three of them individually:
Customer App: When it comes to a food delivery app, a customer app is installed by the client base. The app should have a simple to use interface and should be user-friendly. It should help your clients to compare different offers and restaurants.
Admin Panel/Restaurant App: This is mainly for the restaurant owner. The owner is the one who controls and handles the orders using this app.
Delivery Driver App: This platform is handy for the delivery person who will pick-up as well as drop-off your orders using this app.
Essential Features of A Consumer App
Search: A customer must be able to easily search and company various restaurants, cuisines, and offers using the food delivery app. Being a food delivery app development company, you should ensure that the app facilitates search by cuisine, location, rating, review, price, and restaurant names.
Favorites: The app should let customers save their favorite restaurants and cuisines to save themselves from searching the whole thing again. This feature will be liked by most as it will make reordering simple for people.
Order: Ordering food using the apps should be kept as simple as possible. The order feature should let clients add or remove any dish from their cart. It should also enable them to reorder or cancel their orders.
Real-Time Tracking: You should integrate a real-time tracking system or GPS navigation so that customers can keep track easily of their orders. This feature should be able to track everything from order preparation through to shipment and order delivery.
Payment: While creating a food delivery app, you should ensure that it supports easy, secure, and quick payments. You can include integrated payment gateways such as e-wallets, COD, net banking, cards, and more.
Schedule Delivery: This is a unique and recommended feature. It lets clients schedule their delivery according to their convenience.
Dine-In: Using this great feature, customers can place their orders online, skip the delivery and waiting fees, and go to the specific eatery to sit and eat in the restaurant.
Pick Up: You can also add the pick-up option in the food delivery app. It will waive off any delivery fees and clients can order their food online and pick up their food by themselves.
Essential Features of An Admin Panel/ Restaurant App
Manage Details/ Content: This feature is needed by the restaurant owners as they have to handle the name, address, and contact details of the restaurants. This feature should let them edit photos, menus, offers, and prices of their items.
Handle Orders: With the app, the restaurants can get orders with important details such as order delivery location, time of delivery, payment, and item name. With this feature, the admin will be able to manage orders as per schedule and priority.
Handle Delivery: Once the order is ready, it’s then allotted to the delivery person. Using this feature of the app, the restaurants can keep a complete track of the delivery person’s real-time location until he delivers.
Essential Features of A Driver’s App
Registration: The registration feature of the app should let the delivery person register himself. He should be able to sign up using a username and password. You can also add the feature to verify them with their social media accounts.
Status Update: With this feature, the delivery personnel should be able to get updates of any changes are made in the order, like a change of delivery location, cancellation of the order, etc. With this feature, he should be capable to update his clients as well as the admin about drop-off and pick-up of the orders.
Handle Deliveries: With this feature, the delivery personnel should be able to keep track of his deliveries. This feature should also let him decide which orders he wants to reject, accept, or prioritize.
In-App Chat: The in-app chat feature is a must-have feature for the delivery personnel. It can prove to be extremely helpful in case of any kind of queries when it comes to customer tips or location. This will let him get in touch with the customer directly.
So, to say the least, if you are an app development company, then these are the most important and intricate features you should include in a food delivery app. If you ensure to include all of them in the app while creating it, you are sure to develop the best food delivery app. However, in this novel COVID-19 crisis, some great ways will help you stay ahead of your competition by including the following features:
Digital Payment Only
While creating a food delivery app, you can integrate only the digital modes of payment as this will encourage contactless delivery and maintain social distancing which is the need of the time. Cash transactions in the present time have become a major source of coronavirus transmission. So, the app should request customers to pay digitally using UPI modes or debit/credit cards which will help reduce the Coronavirus spread.
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Target Independent, Local Restaurants
The food delivery app should target the local and independent restaurants for a good cause. Most of the small restaurants are now dependent on the pickup options.
Include No Contact Delivery Option
The food delivery apps should now introduce a contactless delivery option to maintain safety and earn the client’s trust. This will ensure that the delivery personnel is also protected in this COVID-19 outbreak crisis. The contactless delivery option will keep both customers and delivery people safe from getting infected. The driver should be able to text or call the customer once they reach the delivery location. This feature is sure to attract more and more customers to the food delivery app.
Conclusion
The COVID-19 outbreak has made more and more people count on food delivery apps even for their everyday meals because of work from home and closed din-in options. So, the number of food delivery apps on the market are on the rise. Hence this is the right time for food delivery app development companies to take into account the best features that should be included in the apps and boost their businesses.