How to Build a Food Delivery App for Your Restaurant?

Though there are thousands of reasons for having your own food ordering application, 3rd parties' high rate commission is one of the big reasons you can count and think for. We are not going to compare which one takes more commission but we are here with a solution that can help you to grow your restaurant business without giving any commission to a third party. Food Delivery App! Yes, having your own food delivery app is surely going to be a great option and step you will ever have to expand your business. After having the food delivery in-house team instead of giving the commission to a third party.

The absence or limited 3rd party delivery option is another big reason. Also, the 3rd party companies are already occupied with the orders, so they could delay your order. Hence, your customer could leave with dissatisfaction and as a result, your restaurant could lose regular guests.

So it is recommended to develop your own food delivery app so that you can satisfy your customers, and keep up with competitors, also can improve the speed of delivery, and ensure customer loyalty.

Here in this blog, you will get to know about all the latest types of online food delivery applications for your restaurant business. We will also shed light on the growing and well-known third-party platforms. Furthermore, we will also shed light on some effective tips on must-have features for a food delivery app.

The best restaurant delivery apps for you

Branded mobile app

As the restaurant shook hands with the app development company they got the potential to build up a branded mobile app for their business. Generally, a restaurant delivery application includes options for delivery as well as a pickup/carry-out.

Out of so many reasons the most pleasing reasons for creating a branded food ordering application for restaurants:

High demand.

The demand for food orders has been growing because almost every single person is leaving a very hectic schedule and they rarely find the time to prepare the food, especially delicious food. So the chart of food ordering is gradually increasing as compared to other booking services such as car booking, hotel booking, etc.

Wide customer base.

There is no limit to the customer base as any age, personality and gender can order their food by simply ordering it via mobile app.

More revenue.

As mobile apps take your business online, more and more people's engagement with your potential and target audience will increase the chances of more orders, and eventually, it will increase the revenue chart of your business.

Save the commission.

As mobile apps provide you with an independent platform, you have no need to give commission to any third party, so it will directly help you to save the commission.

Examples of branded applications with a delivery option

After the pandemic, thousands of companies have shaken their hand with technology and providing food service with perfection. But if you ask for the top-rated food delivery services provider then only one name comes to mind which is Swiggy. In India, Swiggy has earned it in the list of top-notch food delivery app service providers. Swiggy has shaken its hand with almost 5000 restaurants from up to 14 cities all over India and helping them to expand their business. As there is enormous growth in delivery service, Swiggy makes its way to the number one position in the Indian food delivery market.

With Swiggy users who are staying a long distance can get their ordered product easily, and the best thing is with Swiggy POP users will not have to give delivery charges. Also Swiggy POP assures us to deliver the product within forty minutes based on restaurant delivery time. But the delivery time of Swiggy is on average 37 minutes per order.

Third-party platform

The 3rd-party is the second option for a restaurant to grow its business. If you still want to know the main reasons for choosing a 3rd-party delivery platform:

  1. Outsourcing logistics’ convenience
  2. Increase sales by providing the access to quite a larger customer pool
  3. Quit lower costs, because there is no requirement for setting up & maintaining a delivery team

While considering a 3rd-party platform, just remember that there are two models of food delivery business. Named aggregator model, where when you partner with an aggregator, it will simply connect customers to your restaurant. Via an aggregator platform, customers place orders, and restaurants will view those orders & fulfill them. But the aggregator doesn’t handle the delivery system.

Another platform is logistics support. This platform will deliver the order of customers at their place. In this platform when a customer will make an order then you will need to just accept or reject the order and fulfill it while the logistics platform will send a delivery boy to pick up the order and bring it to the customer.

Examples of successful third-party platforms

Uber Eats! The Uber Eats application covers more than 1,000 cities and connects a big range of restaurants. The best part is its homepage is very easy to navigate, and even users can simply scroll through options or search for any particular restaurant or cuisine.

Hybrid platform

Even food businesses can easily combine their own food ordering application with the 3rd-party company’s services and this fusion is called a hybrid platform.

How does it work?

Firstly, you need to invest in the food ordering app development industry so that you launch a smoothly-running mobile app. Then your in-house management team will monitor the orders placed via the food delivery application, and a 3rd-party organization will be hired to deliver that ordered product or food product.

For creating the hybrid platform, there are 3 main reasons:

  1. Make hassle-free transactions.
  2. Some upfront investment in technology s requires a hybrid platform, in the long term, your delivery costs will be lower.
  3. Via your mobile application, you can easily stay in touch with your customers, increasing brand loyalty.

By utilizing a hybrid platform, you can smooth out most of the -ve factors of cooperation with a 3rd-party delivery industry. But if you see, poor packaging still remains a threat. To reduce the risks, consider utilizing special packaging.

Food delivery app features for customers

The most important step to building an app is to list down the feature they want in the app. Have a glance at the basic features:

  • A sign-up page: To win the loyalty of customers, Sign-up must be simple, efficient, and attractive.
  • A profile/account page: Once the customer has signed- up on the page, the customer can easily access the profile where they can check out the history, be able to reorder the product, save the payment options, and be able to save their favorite items.
  • Restaurant search/locator: This feature will show the list of the restaurant's names where every important detail will be given about each restaurant such as their menu, location with distance, time of delivery, prices, special offers, and last but not least user reviews.
  • Order placement: After comparing the restaurants, and finalizing the choice users should be able to place their order via the online ordering system. If users want to add or simply delete food items from their orders then they should be capable of doing so. And before making the payment an order summary should be presented before to the customer with complete payment details. So that if they want to make changes to the list of items they can do it before making the payment.
  • Payment processing: Making secure and fast payments through an online ordering system is ideal, so your app should allow for multiple payment options (Cash on Delivery, coupons, PayPal, cash upon delivery, credit cards, Apple Pay/Android Pay, etc.).
  • Notifications or real-time tracking: This feature will simply keep the users informed about the update on the app and will also inform them about their order items' status.
  • Social media integrations: Allowing the users to link with their social media accounts to share photos of their food which will boost loyalty while increasing the exposure of your restaurant as well as the app.

Food delivery app features for restaurants

The app or interface aimed at restaurants should include the following features:

  • A registration page: This page will allow the restaurants to create accounts.
  • Content management functionality: With this feature, restaurants can manage their menus, including food images, pricing, ingredients, and promotions.
  • Order management/tracking: The staff of a restaurant can see the incoming orders and are able to update order statuses. Also, they can track the order preparation process. And update about the cancellation or complete the order status.
  • Cross-interface communication capabilities: This feature is about notifying the user or courier that a particular order is ready for pick-up or is on its way.

The main goal of this mobile app is to simply and efficiently pass the order information from the valuable customer to the restaurant. The management of orders should be easily done by the restaurants and deliveries must be done either by a courier or the restaurant itself or delivery driver from the app.

Food delivery app features for couriers/drivers

  • A sign-up page: The process of sign-up and making an account on the app should be easy and simple.
  • Order status and pickup/dropoff management: Show the item's list in detail available to orders and they also should provide the pick-up and drop-off locations. Also providing real-time order tracking statuses (where the customer got to know that an item has been placed, is in process, accepted, rejected, or canceled, etc.).
  • Cross-interface communication capabilities: This feature will update the consumer & restaurant about the status of any particaular order.
  • Account history: This feature will let the customer see the history of their orders.

How much does it cost to build a food delivery app for your restaurant?

Designs, features, platforms, and backend infrastructure are some factors that influence the cost of food delivery app development. Though, cost also depends on the country you choose to outsource your mobile development. However, the cost will also depend on the feature we add, as we increase the list of features it will gradually increase the cost of app development. Therefore, we would suggest you first share your ideas with the development team you have hired for your app then they will let you know the exact number of food delivery app development costs.

Get started with your own restaurant app development

Getwidget, is one of the growing industries in the app development market, from where you can hire the app development team on an hourly basis, and project basis too. And they will deliver you the best app that will match your app requirements without compromising the quality of services.

In case you want to get the ready-made app then Getwidget is able to provide you the same, with the help of this you will be able to launch your mobile app in a short time period. So why wait? Just contact us, right now and ensure your success through our feature-rich and smoothly-running mobile app.