How to Create Food Delivery App: Trends, Features & Tech Details [2021 Guide]

Food delivery services are gaining traction and won’t slow down in the near future. The market is projected to reach over $182.3 billion by 2024.

Food delivery app development can help you build a successful startup.

On-demand food delivery services became especially popular during COVID-19 lockdowns. The pandemic has more than doubled the food delivery business.

• why on-demand delivery services is a good idea to start in 2021
• key food delivery business models to start with
• features that you should have in your food delivery app
• step-by-step process to create a food delivery app project
• technical aspects of food delivery app development

Let’s get to business.

Why Invest in Food Delivery App Development

The change in consumer behavior gave the industry of food delivery a huge boost. The four leading companies on the U.S. food delivery apps market raked in around $5.5 billion in combined revenue from April through September 2020. They doubled their revenue from $2.5 billion as compared to the same period last year.

The Covid-19 delivery boom

The four top U.S. food delivery apps saw revenue rise $3 billion collectively in the second and third quarters, as the coronavirus pandemic required shelter-in-place restrictions.

Right now, 52% of consumers don’t feel like returning to bars and restaurants when they open again. Thus, restaurants, cafes, fast-foods and other dining organizations have no other choice than sign up for food delivery service apps, since it’s the only way for them to survive.

Today, food delivery applications are generating huge revenue. Just take a look at some industry leaders on the U.S. soils.

Food Delivery Business Models

• aggregators with logistics
• aggregators without logistics
• hybrid food delivery solutions

Let’s find out how they differ from each other.

Food Delivery Aggregator with Logistics

In the first case scenario, after an order is placed within a mobile food delivery app, it is redirected to the restaurant. After the restaurant prepares and packs the order up, the driver provided by the aggregator picks it up and delivers it to the client. Such applications are usually making money on taking some commission for an order or food delivery. Such solutions are numerous with a DoorDash being a great example.

Food Delivery Aggregator

Very often startups at the beginning of their journey work on this business model with GrubHub being a great example.

Hybrid Food Delivery Applications

Restaurants that want to create a branded application but don’t have many resources to organize their own fleet, often choose this type of food delivery app development. You can partner up with Uber Eats or DoorDash to deliver the orders that you get within your application.

Key Features of Food Delivery App Development

Let’s take a look at the main features for on-demand food delivery apps.

• Sing up and log in – users should be able to create an account with your application and then sign in when needed.
• Profile/account page – after users sign up with your application, they need to have the ability to provide their personal data, such as name, delivery address, and even add their payment details.
• Restaurant search – this feature can be implemented in different ways and it should help users to find restaurants. You might include different solutions, such as search by location with GPS, cuisine, etc.
• Order placement – this is the main feature that allows consumers to choose food and make an order.
• Integrated online payment – after a user puts an order within your application, the next step is the payment for that order. You can integrate your application with different payment solutions, the most popular being Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Stripe, and others depending on the location where you will provide your application.

• Notifications – these will help you keep customers informed of their order’s status, notify them about new offerings, special offers, etc.
• Order tracking – the feature designed to help track the status of the order in real life.
• Loyalty programs – this feature will help to retain customers by offering special offers and discounts to the most loyal ones. You can build a robust loyalty program and integrate different rules.
• History of orders – it might be good for users to have access to the history of all orders ever made with your application.

Food Delivery App Features for Restaurants

• Registration and log in – provides restaurants with the ability to create their business profiles.
• Account page – allows restaurants to provide their business information and update it when it’s needed.
• Content management – since an application should provide users with the choice of food, restaurants need to have the ability to add their menus and meals they are offerings. Content management features can allow creating menus with photos, descriptions, a list of all the ingredients, and so on.
• Order management – the feature that allows restaurants to manage incoming orders and track their statuses.
• Payments receiving – after the order is delivered, restaurants receive payments made by clients through the app.

• Loyalty program – restaurants need to have the ability to create a loyalty program for their clients to improve retention.
• History of order – access to the whole history of all orders received through the application system.
• Revenue dashboard – an additional feature that provides an overview of revenue history made with the app.

Food Delivery Application Features for Couriers

• Sign up and sign in – provides a way to register an account with an application. It’s possible to integrate the social login option with Google, Facebook, etc. to make the process faster and smoother.
• Order status – displays the list of available orders and delivery details.
• Pick up management – the feature allows couriers to manage pick-ups, like track the locations and time where they need to get and to deliver the feature.

Aside from basic features, there are some additional, nice-to-have ones:

• Revenue dashboard – provides couriers with all the money they make with an app. This feature might give the ability to filter the revenue by days, months, etc.
• History of orders – access to the whole history of orders with different filtering options.

How to Create Food Delivery App Step by Step

Creating a food delivery app like Uber might seem like a good idea at the start. However, you won’t be able to get far with a copycat of a popular solution. The main secret of creating a successful application is to build a unique solution that solves the problems of target users.

In this section of the article, we discuss how to create a food delivery app to increase its chance for success.

Analyze the Market

• Select the market where you want to launch the solution
• Identify your main competitors and analyze their strong and weak points
• Come up with ideas on how you can make your application better
• Find your target audience and learn what they are looking for
• Test your app idea to see how your target audience will react to it

Create a Value Proposition

Aside from being unique, your application should address the needs of your target audience, being user-friendly, and help you with your business targets.շ

When you have everything sorted out, you can create a business model canvas to highlight the main value of your solution.

Design and Develop Your App

You can use such platforms as Clutch, GoodFirms, the Manifest to find reliable technology partners. The choice of such platforms is numerous.

• UX/UI design
• Project planning
• App development
• QA and testing
• App launch

All of these services combined will help you create a robust food delivery app.

Promote Your Food Delivery Application

A comprehensive approach will help you create a robust marketing strategy. Consider concentrating on the following types of promotion:

• Paid ads
• Social media marketing
• Influencer marketing
• Partners

How to Create Food Delivery App from Technical Side

Here, you can see the main technologies used for app development.

You might be wondering how much it will cost you to create such an app. Food delivery app development cost starts at $60,000 for an app with a basic set of features for a single operating system (iOS or Android) and can reach $500,000 or even more when you add additional features and platforms.

Concluding Thoughts on Food Delivery App Development

The main secret behind the success of the whole process is finding a reliable tech partner that will help you along the journey, successfully identifying your USP, and coming up with a unique app idea.

Frequently Asked Questions