How to Build a Food Delivery App (Like Uber Eats)

It’s said that great bonds are built over shared food. In fact, since time immemorial, food has been bringing people and cultures together all over the world in a way that nothing else can.

So, if you are in the business of food, you’ve made a great choice. And, if you run a business in the food industry, you must have wondered about how to build a food delivery app like Uber Eats, one of the best food delivery apps that the market has seen.

Food delivery apps are catching on fast as more and more people opt for the luxury of having their meals delivered to their doorsteps. Think about it, why not skip straight to the gourmet meal and avoid the time-consuming steps in between, like getting ready and driving down to the restaurant of your choice?

Naturally, as a business owner who wants to connect food to your end-users more quickly and effectively, you would have given some thought to food delivery app development.

In this blog, we’ll take a quick look at the relevance of online food delivery apps, the main features and functions your food ordering app needs to have, and how to create a food delivery app that helps you reach more food enthusiasts.

Keep reading, and you’ll have the knowledge needed to make an app like Uber Eats in no time!

How to Build a Food Delivery App?

Building a food delivery app that has the capability to reach a large audience is not an easy task, but it can be done if you approach it the right way.  And, as you already know, the right way to approach any new task is to get as much information as you can before you start the actual work. Which brings us to our first step in creating an app like Uber Eats:

1. Do Your Research

There are no shortcuts to success. You need to know your business idea and its potential like the back of your hand before you foray into the food realm.

To get an idea of the types of research, you would need to do, read our notes on the research methods you need to employ before starting a startup.

2. Finalise a Budget

Budgets are important and help you avoid spending too much in one place or spending on the wrong things. When you get down to the actual software product development, you might have to stretch your budget a bit, but you still need to set a budget like it’s the final one.

Our blanket guide may be able to help you understand the cost to develop an app and figure out a budget that is right for your business vision.

3. Identify Your Audience

It is important to identify and understand your audience before you start your food delivery app development. Doing proper market research can help you with that. If you don’t know who you are catering to, you won’t be able to decide what features and capabilities to equip your app with.

More on that later, though! So, keep reading!

4. Choose a Business Model

Choose a business model that will help you generate the revenue needed to meet your financial projections.

Take a look at the different business models that are relevant for startups and see if you can come up with your own!

5. Figure Out the Logistics

Once you know your audience, you need to figure out how to get the food from kitchens to their tables. Consider questions that will help you understand the support staff and equipment you will need to cover the last mile of your business process.

6. Hire Right

Your food ordering app will only be as good as the team who builds it. Take a look at our tips on how to hire the right app developers to help you with your mobile app development.

7. Design Your App

Consider the user experiences you wish to provide while designing your food delivery app. You can design great user flows if you get UI and UX designers who know the market.

8. Develop Your App

Finally, you move on to the development stage! Once your food delivery app looks good on paper, it is time to make it a reality with the help of your development team.

You might want to refresh your knowledge about the different stages of product development with our guide.

9. Test Your App

Make sure your app works and does not have any significant bugs before you launch it.

Read about Test Automation Frameworks.

10. Launch Your App

Market your app across different social media channels and launch it for the world to enjoy! You can refer to our blog to figure out the best time to launch your app.

11. Adapt, Adopt, and Evolve

At the end of the day, it is all about making innovation and technology your best friends. If you wish to stay relevant, keep evolving!

Why Does Your Food Service Business Need a Delivery App?

Cliches as this sounds, the world is certainly going digital. And as consumers chase convenience, you need to keep up with the changing trends in the food industry if you want to stay relevant in the market. See the statistics showing the significant growth of the food delivery market over the past five years.

Also, it is not enough to prepare tasty food that melts in your mouth. After ensuring a certain quality of food, the restaurants and hotels involved should make sure that their food reaches their audience.

While it’s still hot.

Truth be told, the logistics involved in creating a online food delivery app like Uber Eats is certainly complex, but it can be done. And, with the right support team, it can be done easily. So, go for it!

SUGGESTED READ: On Demand App Trends & Statistics to Know in 2022

What Are the Main Functionalities Your App Needs to Have?

It’s not really enough to create an app like Uber Eats that can offer food delivery services.

Your app also needs to address the needs of all the stakeholders involved. Which is to say you have to develop a food delivery app that benefits your customers, the restaurants involved, and let’s not forget the heroes who make it all possible – your delivery boys and girls.

Keep these keys functionalities in mind while developing an app like Uber Eats:

1.Customer-facing side:

The front-end of your app is what your end-users, that is, the people buying the food, see first. You need to ensure that you provide an application that appeals to your end-users and makes them want to purchase food from the restaurants you list.

Here are some of the main capabilities the user-facing side of your online food delivery app must have:

• • • An easy to onboard platform with minimal procedures for signing up.
    • Once your user has on boarded your application, they need to be able to find what they want quickly. This is where your listings page comes in, which in essence is a catalogue of all the food outlets that will deliver to your user.
    • So, yes, you need to ensure seamless navigation and a clutter-free interface so that your users don’t get confused and give up on their quest for good food.
    • You will need geolocation features to help your users find the restaurants or other food outlets near them and also to help them track their food once the order has been placed.
    • Once your user has found a restaurant to their liking, they will need a functional cart they can place their food into (virtually, of course). It’s also a good idea to give your users the freedom to place multiple orders from a range of restaurants at once, rather than just one restaurant at a time.
    • Make sure you have the right payment gateway integrations to give your users a smooth check out experience. Don’t forget to focus on ensuring that your payments are conducted in a safe and secure environment.
    • Your patrons will also want to track their food, and once the food is delivered, they would want to rate the delivery personnel as well as the food quality. So, order tracking and rating and review systems are features you cannot overlook.
    • You can also include features like order scheduling, provisions to pull up order histories and repeat orders, and push notifications to get the best deals and offers across to your users.
    • And, last, but not the least, don’t forget to add a robust help and support system to your application so that you can stay connected to your customer needs at all times.

Also Read: What are Progressive Web Apps? How Can it Benefit Your Business?

2. Restaurant-facing side:

Now that we covered the features your restaurant app should have to delight your customers, you need to think about the restaurants that prepare the food.

Let’s take a look at the features you need to incorporate for the food outlets that serve their food through your app:

• • • The primary feature any restaurant would look for is order management. So that they can manage multiple orders simultaneously.
    • Your restaurant clients will also appreciate a good finance and accounts module that helps them keep track of all the financial transactions they have made using your application.
    • Another feature you can add to make your restaurant-facing users happy is a centralised dashboard that lets them get a 360 view of the orders they handle, such as new orders, cancelled orders, and completed orders, among others.
    • Let’s not forget that you will need to give them a choice to accept or reject orders that come their way.
    • You also need to make sure that your restaurant-side users can easily update their listing page to keep their end users up to date on new dishes, discounted prices, and food availability.
    • As always, payments gateway integrations play a huge role in retaining restaurant-side clients, and they will be even more pleased if you can help them manage their brand across multiple locations.
    • You can also add additional features such as new order alerts and notifications, payment tracking, order reports, and personnel management modules.

3. Delivery people-facing side:

Your commitment to delivering exceptional food delivery experiences should extend to the delivery personnel involved as well. After all, if not for the hard-working delivery partners out there, the great food your customers order would just go stale in restaurant kitchens.

Here are some capabilities you need to keep in mind while making an app like Uber Eats so that your delivery personnel are also satisfied:

• • • The most important features that will aid your delivery personnel include a quick and easy registration process, followed by a simplified process.
    • You need to help them get order request assignments from restaurants that are near their location, and also help them track the deliveries and corresponding payments that they handle.
    • One of the main capabilities a delivery person needs is the ability to stay connected at all times – to the restaurant and to the end-user. So, ensure that you include a thriving chat support feature that is synced both online and offline.
    • It is also a good idea to equip your delivery people with features to manage orders, track status updates, and accept or reject orders.
    • Now, here’s something most people overlook – the feedback feature. The ability to give ratings and reviews should not be limited to your front-end users alone. You need to give your delivery personnel the power to give their feedback on their delivery experience as well as to ensure that all your stakeholders are satisfied.

Also Read: 13 App Marketing Strategies That Startups Must Know

Takeaway

Food never goes out of style, so it is always a good idea to explore the correlation between food and evolving technology.

You will find that online food delivery apps like Uber Eats are not going to be a luxury but a necessity in the coming years.

So, if you want to dip your toe in the food delivery business, now is the time!

If you need to build a great food delivery application and make sure that all parties involved are satisfied, just give a shoutout to one of our experts, and we’ll help you out!