How to Make a Food Delivery App Like Zomato or UberEats

A mobile food delivery app may be a great idea for a startup, or an additional sales tool for a food outlet owner.

Mobile food delivery apps typically work as aggregators, but you can develop such an app to meet your own facility’s needs. In general, there is not much difference in features. Therefore, you can consider our article as a collection of universal tips.

In the United States, a survey conducted among American citizens concerning the use of food delivery services and applications shows that only 2% of respondents have never resorted to them, but the other part periodically orders food delivery services:

In this article, we will share our experience in mobile food delivery app development and describe the main features that should be implemented in a product like this.

How to Build a Food Delivery App: Essential Features

We will list the most requested features that users expect to have in this kind of app. You can make them available gradually, starting with the most necessary functions.

Push Notifications

Using these, you can notify your customers about their order status in real time, as well as any order status changes. For example, after your operator has processed an order, a customer may get a push notification from your catering facility informing them about the estimated delivery time.

Personal User Account

This is a kind of administrative center and database at the same time, where all user personal information is stored. It may be a list of “Favorites” with the user’s favorite restaurants and dishes, order history, and the ability to add multiple delivery addresses and credit cards.

The personal account may also include a separate tab with the data on a current order and its progress status.

Dynamic Menu

If you are going to develop an aggregator mobile app holding a list of many catering facilities, you have to make it possible for your users to create their personal menu and change positions in it. For example, let them add and delete dishes, attach images, indicate prices, and show other elements.

[by Phylisha Berry]

Dish Card

To make people want to order food, it has to look appetizing and attract attention. Therefore, you have to focus on cards containing high-quality dish images that your customers will want to look closer at and order the food to taste it.

Advanced Search Filter

If the restaurant and dish catalog is large, you have to provide users with the ability to quickly search and filter results by various criteria like:

• cuisine (for example, Italian, Japanese, etc.)
• dish type (salads, soups, desserts, etc.)
• price category, and so on.

You should also provide the ability to search by restaurant name or a specific dish.

Cart

In this section, users can store the selected items before the checkout stage. The feature should provide the ability to add items to the list or remove them, specify portions, and aggregate orders from several restaurants if necessary.

Restaurant Catalog and Facility Card

This element is optional and not relevant if you are developing a mobile app meant exclusively for one particular catering facility. The end user has access to a multi-level format structure: a catalog of restaurants; a particular facility; the menu of that facility.

The aggregator operation principle is quite simple: the service presents the up-to-date menu and prices currently available at various catering facilities to the end consumer. Then it takes the order and sends it to the facility delivery service. Otherwise, the particular affiliate account owner receives the order directly and processes it independently.

From a technical point of view, the affiliate restaurant’s section is a user role with a separate sign-in panel. This user role has the ability to add all the necessary content unique to their facility and display it on the facility card.

The app should keep individual statistical data on each restaurant and allow menu editing, order processing, and other similar features.

Maps and Geolocation

GoogleMaps or OpenStreetMaps integration will be a useful feature for this kind of product. Using the geolocation technology, the app can automatically locate the user. When the user selects a dish and adds it to the cart, the dedicated fields designed for data on the current address can be filled out automatically. All the user has to do now is confirm the order.

Take taxi services as an example. Their apps allow users to pinpoint the location on the map where their services are required and the exact destination site. In the same way, your food delivery app should allow customers to mark the delivery point.

Integrated Payment Systems

If your mobile app features online payment functionality, the customers can avoid using cash when paying for the food ordered. It would be beneficial to make several payment options available, so that the user can choose the most convenient one.

We wrote about the ways of implementing this feature in our article “How to Integrate a Payment Gateway into Your Mobile Application”, and we recommend that you get acquainted with it in more detail.

Loyalty Program

You can also implement a system of cumulative bonuses in your food delivery app, making them dependent on the number of orders made. Later on, your customers can use the collected bonuses to get a discount for the food ordered or to get free delivery services.

Nowadays it is difficult to surprise users with a loyalty program, but the audience always responds positively to features like this and it will encourage users to place repeat orders more often.

Feedback

If your app displays ratings and feedback from other users, the app conversion rate will increase even if some reviews are negative. People just want to see a kind of “social proof” which confirms that others use this service as well.

[by zonkafeedback.com]

Along with the ability to score and evaluate catering facilities and the services provided, it is also worth adding the feature that allows users to provide feedback on a particular dish. The users will be able to leave their reviews only after the selected dishes have been delivered and paid for.

Let Us Summarize

The advantages of a mobile food delivery app for restaurateurs are obvious: profits from home delivery, a larger customer database, and a universal customer communication channel. This product is a must-have for both everyday eateries and high-end restaurants. Being closer to the client is the objective for everyone, regardless of the format.

Little by little, online food ordering is transformed from a once in a while event into an everyday habit. That is good, as you can free up more time previously spent on cooking and spend it communicating with your loved ones, reading a new book, or entertaining yourselves with your favorite hobbies.

Do not hesitate to use innovative technologies in your business and get additional profits. We hope our article will help you do this.

Moreover, if you have already decided to use a food delivery application and are looking for developers who will help you with this endeavor, feel free to contact us, and Lvivity will readily become your reliable technology partner!