Food Delivery App Development Must Have Features, Tech Stack, and Estimated Cost

Food is an essential aspect of our lives. We rely on food for our mood swings, bad days, or even when we want to celebrate something special! And so, there is an unending demand in the market when it comes to ‘instant food services’ or ‘online food applications.

The market for food delivery is expanding at a steady rate each year. As per Statista, global revenue in online food delivery will reach $0.91 Trillion in 2023. Furthermore, this number will continue to rise steadily over the next few years. The market dominance of Uber and GrubHub makes creating food delivery apps more difficult and overwhelming.

The covid-19 pandemic made us addicted to ordering food online at our homes, as dining out was not an option. Ordering food online is convenient as you do not have to worry about the weather or location.

You will receive your favorite dish at your doorstep in no time. For example, Postmates, Grubhub, Doordash, Zomato, Eat, and Uber Eats are just a few hassle-free online food ordering and delivery services that make life easier. Thus, food delivery mobile app development is the best way to upgrade your restaurant business.

However, many large firms in the food delivery industry dominate in different locations. Uber Eats and GrubHub compete in the US. Glovo and Deliveroo are the market leaders in Europe, while FoodPanda and Swiggy are in charge of the Asian sector. So, eventually, as a business owner, you inevitably tap the opportunities in this ever-growing market. 

It is about providing a one-of-a-kind user experience that solves people’s obvious and not-so-apparent challenges when ordering food online.

The leaders of the Food delivery app market are:

• JustEat
• Grubhub
• Zomato
• Ubereats
• Postmates
• DoorDash

Examples of Top 5 Food Delivery Apps

App Name	Platform	Benefits	Number of Users
Uber	iOS and Android	Subscribers are likely to get a 5% discount on every order.	66M +
GrubHub	iOS and Android	Contact-free delivery available	31M +
DoorDash	iOS and Android	Delivery free for first-month of registration	20M+
Postmates	iOS and Android	Users can even get products from beauty brands and liquor stores	5M+
GoPuff	iOS and Android	Also Delivers medicines, electronic items, and beauty products.	2M+

How to Create a Food Delivery Application? 

The food delivery app development is a lengthy and challenging process. In addition to it, we have compiled a brief checklist to develop the most excellent online food delivery service.

Step 1: Initial Business Model Selection

There are two primary business strategies for creating food delivery apps. If you want to build a portal for several eateries, the order and delivery approach is for you. Thus, the startups requiring an app to distribute food from their restaurants are well-suited to the inventory business model for food delivery.

Step 2: Select a Software Development Partner 

Firstly, select a vendor with enough experience and a broad range of users. So, this stage is essential for a successful and efficient development process. Furthermore, to understand more about the possible vendor and how they conduct business, feel free to ask questions regarding their methods of communication, recruiting practices, etc.

Step 3: Discovery

Creating a food delivery app is bound to include the discovery phase. Significantly, this phase includes thorough market research, user personas, specifications for food delivery apps, project length, and prices.

Learn as much as possible about the market, your target market, UberEats competitors, etc., to create a successful food delivery app similar to Uber.

Step 4: Choosing the Main Features

Please review our list of essential attributes for a food delivery service similar to Uber, and be sure to put each one into practice. Lastly, the application must address the primary user’s need to grow in popularity and be of use.

Step 5: Tech Stack 

Significantly, choosing the appropriate tech stack based on your goals and budget. You have the option of developing a native or cross-platform food delivery app, as was previously indicated. Thus, if you want to discover more about the differences, choose wisely by speaking with your vendor.

Step 6: Development

After settling all the details and being ready to build the application, you can begin constructing it. It is crucial to keep up with the vendor’s regular calls, meetings, and check-ins during this phase. A successful partnership depends on effective and constant communication.

Expert’s advice: Before getting into the partnership look into the agile development services, portfolio, and developer expertise. Moreover, you can also test a developer’s expertise by indulging him in some technological questions.

Step 7: Testing and Upkeep

Due to the agile architecture, software businesses start testing right from the coding stage. Thus, in this way, testing is more accurate, and coding is more adaptable.

The greater the likelihood of finding errors before entering production, the earlier you start running tests. Bug repairs are infamously more expensive after a food delivery program presentation. So, testing application from the very first stage is a compulsion.

Features of Food Delivery Applications

The following are typical methods developed to sustain various aspects of the food delivery business:

1. Customer Side:  Place orders to local restaurants.

2. Restaurant Side: Restaurants can observe and manage orders.

3.  Rider: The rider receives order alerts. They can also view the delivery address and when the order is ready.

4. Admin Panel: The product owner and their team can control the entire platform using an admin panel. For instance, admins can add or remove users and establishments.

Customer Panel: 

It is the most crucial application, as customers will place an order here. To establish a positive user experience, you should develop a clear and appealing UI/UX design and provide all necessary functions.

Users will use your app to discover a particular food or a restaurant to order from, highlighting a simple search option. Include additional search options, such as searching for local restaurants or using keywords (such as the name of a dish or establishment). A simple payment process is also crucial to a positive user experience.

Speaking of features, the following is a list of the essential components of this software.

Login/Registration 

One OTP confirmation on the user’s mobile number or a straightforward social media integration with Facebook or Gmail can finish the login procedure. Thus, more users will register there if you provide more login alternatives and It is necessary to provide password recovery and change features. Utilizing Facebook SDK, Google SDK, and other third-party APIs is ideal for implementing the sign-in/signup procedure.

Location

One can use Google Location API for Android and Location Framework for iOS to build location-tracking applications. Let users see a real-time map of their orders picked up by a courier. This feature is quite simple to use.

Restaurant search 

Give your customers the option to use their geolocation to find restaurants in the area. It makes sense to include a variety of filters to speed up and simplify the search process. You can also have comprehensive information on restaurants so customers can research eateries before placing an order. GrubHub is a fantastic illustration of a search function realization.

Payment and Order Placement 

To reduce the number of abandoned orders, make the checkout procedure as straightforward as possible. 

PayPal, Stripe, or Braintree are the payment options. You can quickly integrate payments using these services. You can also use pay in cash option.

Notifications 

Push notifications to notify users about delivery status, such as accepted, on the way, delivered, etc. 

Ratings and Reviews

The price of creating a delivery app will include creating a review section, allowing people to review and comment on each restaurant and cuisine in the provided area.

Order History 

For easy re-ordering, let the app show previously ordered items. 

Offers and Discounts 

Inform your customers about the deals and discounts their favorite restaurant offers. Your delivery app developer must incorporate offer alerts as a necessary feature. 

Contact details 

It is necessary to have updated information for clear communication. It will be essential for the customer to connect with the restaurant, the rider, or the customer with the restaurant.

Tracking Rider location 

Tracking the rider’s real-time location makes it easy for users to know when their parcel will be delivered.

Scheduling 

It is essential to give customers the choice of a delivery window so orders can be delivered conveniently. Scheduling orders beforehand saves a lot of time for both parties. Moreover, it does help in lifting your customer service, resulting in goodwill generation.

Restaurant Panel 

Everything relies on accepting orders, receiving alerts, and managing menus. This application may resemble a web version or a native program loaded on a tablet in the kitchen.

The restaurant staff will use the application to monitor incoming orders and notify the courier when the order is ready. So, it will help avoid the peak time hassle in the restaurant vicinity, gaining more traction.

Features of the Restaurant panel include: 

Login 

Employees can log into the system and view the latest orders from this page. So, such a login has to be user intuitive for easy

Menu Management 

Restaurants should be allowed to modify their menus so that customers can view the most recent information when they decide what to order. If not, it may negatively affect the quality of your service and the restaurant’s reputation.

Order Management 

Restaurant employees must be familiar with all incoming orders to process them correctly. Also, they can accept orders and modify order statuses thanks to this capability.

Reviews and Ratings 

 Allow reviews and ratings to be seen by restaurant owners, and remember to provide a reacting feature. A customer’s communication is crucial.

Dashboard 

 After the restaurant, the proprietor creates an account. They return to the dashboard or home page. So, they can monitor pending orders, completed orders, and shipments to understand better what is happening.

Managing Restaurant Account

Each restaurant owner can create an account by entering information about their establishment, including pictures, the establishment name, logo, food images, business hours, minimum order size, menu options, cost, and anticipated delivery time.

And additionally, they may indicate any discounts they offer for a particular product. Thus, these qualities frequently influence the cost of developing an app.

Payment 

Users will have the choice to send funds to banks or any other platform, such as PayPal or Wallet app, based on their preferences, in the payment area. In addition to the History, it is necessary to display daily revenue data.

Rider Panel 

Although this program should be straightforward, its ease of use should be delicate. So, all features must be mobile-friendly for the rider.

Features of the Rider Panel will include: 

Login/Signup

 The admin will provide the rider with login information to access the application. Thus, using the Facebook SDK, Google SDK, or Apple Sign-in, utilizing various social media platforms for permission.

Navigation 

Give the rider easy access to city navigation, complete with the quickest routes and various destination markers (pickup address, delivery address, and so on). Thus, your development team can use Location Framework for iOS and Google Maps Platform for Android.

Order status and details 

All order details, including the precise food composition, the customer address, and the delivery time, must be provided to the courier. Remember to keep track of order statuses so the courier can accept or reject orders.

Order History 

Utilizing cloud-based platforms like Azure, AWS, and Digital Ocean save all completed orders efficiently. Thus, keeping the order records safe and secure.

Order Request 

Orders are automatically assigned based on geography when customers place them. It can display each order’s order ID, customer name, and delivery address. Moreover, the rider can accept or reject the delivery request on the home delivery application. Additionally, he can allow the consumer to examine his details.

Call/Chat

The costs of food delivery application development will include in-app calls and messages. So, a call or chat can facilitate communication between the delivery person and the customers.

Notifications

The rider will receive a push notification if there are any restaurant or customer panel updates. Thus, push notifications to work tremendously as an alert on an individual’s screen.

Payment Options 

This function must be present in your app. The delivery boy can get immediate assistance from the support team if he encounters numerous problems with online payment.

There are many easy-to-integrate payment gateways, for example, PayPal, Braintree, and more. These platforms are secure enough to manage hefty online transactions at a time. Thus, seamlessly allowing online engagement into our application.

Google Map Navigation

It is necessary to show the customer’s address on the map. Also, the delivery boy can find the location using Google Maps, as he will be responsible for delivering the order if he agrees.

Admin Panel 

The admin panel is your company structure. So, every element on this page is designed to handle information and help you construct a company strategy.

Features of the Admin Panel include: 

Admin signup/login 

Make a secure login page with an ID and password system for your managers.

Restaurant manager

Your admin can use this feature to delete or add new restaurants to the platform manually. Eventually helping one to expand their business in the correct direction.

Analytics

Using this function, you can keep tabs on crucial information like the most popular restaurants and arrange them according to revenue, average check, and other factors. After reading this information, you will better grasp the company, including practical advice for growing your company.

And, thus, can also eventually be ahead of the competitors by improving on the necessary areas in the application.

Payment Details 

Admins will be able to modify delivery fees thanks to this capability. To encourage restaurants to use your delivery platform, consider reevaluating the costs you charge those who bring you a lot of orders.

Managing offers and discounts

Giving users discounts is crucial for getting new customers or persuading returning ones to make an order. It becomes easy to manage deals that depend on various holidays. So, such development will eventually help in such offer & discount handling.

Assigning orders

The delivery team should be accessible to the app administrator so they may assign or reassign orders and guarantee efficient and on-time deliveries.

Some Other Extra Features that One must Consider are

• Vouchers and coupons for additional discounts
• Extension for smartwatches
• Screen Lock Widgets
• Social Media sharing option for the food order
• Set up a delivery and pickup time.
• See what your neighbors are ordering.
• Reservations at nearby eateries

Tech-Stack 

As you check the features list, you must design a few mobile applications and an admin panel to build a food delivery service similar to Uber.

The decision between native and cross-platform food delivery app development should be the first step in choosing your software stack. While native app development typically costs more than platform-independent app development, it produces applications that perform better. Although it often offers less speed, cross-platform programming is more cost-effective. Let us examine the technology that both alternatives employ the most frequently.

Android Food Delivery App Development

Two popular programming languages for creating Android food delivery apps are Kotlin and Java. A relatively new language called Kotlin is renowned for being quick, flexible, and lightweight. And thus, it is one of the first programming languages; Java offers many free tools and frameworks for developing mobile apps.

Android Studio is an official integrated development environment (IDE) for Android. It includes a customizable coding environment, debugging, and code editing. Android app developers choose the IDE because it gives them more freedom to concentrate on making applications that are quick, effective, and of the highest caliber.

And so an Android Developer Tools (ADT) toolkit includes several emulators, UI builders, debugging tools, and automation features.

Thus, a collection of development tools, including a debugger, libraries, emulators, tutorials, and documentation, is included in the Android Software Development Kit (SDK).

iOS Food Delivery App Development

Swift and Objective-C are the two most popular programming languages for iOS applications Development. With its dynamic libraries, Swift, a more recent technology, helps apps run faster and smaller. Moreover, the older language Objective-C supports dynamic runtime environments and object-oriented programming.

Apple XCode is a development toolset that aids in the creation of mobile applications. This toolkit enables debugging, maintaining documentation, and creating user interfaces. So, with the help of the iOS SDK, programmers may access various Apple device features and services to build cutting-edge applications.

Develop Cross-Platform Food Delivery Apps

To develop cross-platform applications for Android, iOS, and web operating systems. So, Google created the UI software development kit known as Flutter. Flutter is known for its numerous widgets and comprehensive documentation. Compared to existing cross-platform development tools, the SDK offers capabilities to create native-like apps with superior performance and functionality.

Internet Development (Admin Panel and API)

React.JS is a highly effective JS library for quickly creating webpages. Reusable components and virtual DOM are two benefits of React. JS. Thus, this open-source, constantly improving JS toolkit enables programmers to develop a high-performance food delivery service.

So, Node.JS is a perfect addition to the tech stack for the backend (API and Admin Panel). Also, the runtime environment is powered by the JavaScript engine of Chrome V8, which increases developer productivity, efficiency, and development speed.

What Is the Cost of Making a Food Delivery App?

After deciding on the feature stack, it is time to project the important thing, the cost of building a food delivery app. The complexity and size of the feature set determine the cost to build an app. The price increases in direct proportion to the number of features you want to use.

Connect with our team to get the estimation for your food delivery app and grow your business. Moreover, get yourself a futuristic insight into updates and growth, and get an assurance of your successful online venture from us.

Conclusion 

It will enable you to grow your company and generate significant profits. Zomato and other similar apps have been out for a while. Thus, it would be challenging to compete in this industry.

Hire an innovative and creative food delivery app development company for on-demand food delivery app development so you can stand out from the competition and boost your company’s growth.