These best food delivery apps are quick to provide services and ensure the maintenance of the parcel’s quality and timely delivery. The food delivery apps can bring your ordered meal from your local restaurants and deliver it to your doorsteps, and it becomes possible just by a few taps on your smartphone screen.

Now, opting for food delivery apps seems a more convenient and affordable alternative instead of eating out. Luckily, there are dozens of best food delivery apps in the market with hundreds of restaurant options. For you, we have compiled a list of 11 best food delivery apps in the USA.

Source: RawPixel Website

The list will help you avoid scrolling for hours on numerous apps in search of the best services and deals. A majority of food delivery apps are available in multiple cities across the USA, and some have more options and customer reach than others. To serve a huge number of customers at a time, the apps are available for download on Android and iOS smartphones. The food delivery apps in the USA don’t include any downloading charges and serve at minimum delivery or tipping estimates.

11 Best Food Delivery Apps in the USA

Let’s take a look over 11 best food delivery apps in the USA in detail, and are as follows;

1. Caviar

Source: Courierhacker Website

Caviar is a food delivery service in the USA, introduced by ‘Square.’ Square is a company that makes credit card readers that get attached to the smartphone. Caviar food delivery app offers most of the usual essential features in the application.

Users can quickly look for their favorite restaurant in their area, order food, and get it delivered at their doorsteps. Its service is available in more than 20 cities in the USA. Caviar doesn’t charge any fee to use the app, but its delivery fee is based on the distance of the restaurant. It also charges a service fee of up to 18% on each order.

On the Caviar food delivery app, most of the order requires a minimum subtotal, and it might vary during the period of high demand. It emphasizes its services on local restaurants and high-end establishments. Caviar food delivery app in the USA is available for both Android and iOS users.

2. DoorDash

Source: Techengage Website

DoorDash is considered as one of the most popular and mature food delivery apps in the USA. It is available in more than 800 cities in the USA and Canada. It also includes major cities such as Seattle, Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Boston, and many others.

The food delivery app is available in both Android and iOS versions to serve a majority of people at once. Its fees vary by restaurant. Users can also opt for a $10 monthly subscription named as ‘DashPass’, which provides free delivery service and reduced service charges for subscribers to make orders of minimum value of $12. This service applies to any DashPass eligible restaurant.

DoorDash supports a service of Yum score on restaurants. It is not only based on the quality of the food, but also how well the restaurants work with DoorDash to ensure the timely delivery of the food to the customers. It is considered as one of the most significant food delivery services with a mobile app in the USA.

3. Grubhub

Source: Newswire Website

Grubhub is another one of the most popular and best food delivery apps in the USA. Across the USA, Grubhub has its presence in more than 3,200 cities and has partnerships with about 1,40,000 restaurants. It’s app is also available in the Android and iOS versions, which makes sure to provide the service to a significant number of people.

The app is easy to use and provides a simple search option to its users. It also features Android Pay Support, PayPal Support, Rating and Review system, and many more. It can even provide pre-order food service up to four days in advance and at the chosen time of delivery on that day.

The app is free to use and based on restaurants, charges delivery fees and has a minimum order amount. It also provides a privileged service to its user, named as Grubhub+, where the associated restaurants offer unlimited delivery on the subscription of $10 per month. The app also provides daily deals and past order viewing options at ‘My Grubhub’ option.

4. Instacart

Source: Newswire Website

Instacart is a little different from other food delivery apps. Instacart delivers uncooked food, i.e., groceries. It allows users to shop online and get their groceries delivered at their doorstep from the nearest grocery store. Sometimes, it makes a delivery in a few hours or provides you an option directly from the store.

Instacart delivers groceries from 25,00 grocery stores in more than 5,500 cities, including major cities such as San Francisco, Miami, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington D.C., Huston, and many more across the USA and Canada.

The retailers sell the products from Instacart, due to which, sometimes, the price matches the in-store price and sometimes not. Many stores even offer flat discounts to customers. The delivery charges of groceries depending on the size of the order and the delivery time. The minimum delivery charge is $4, and it may also include other associated fees, like a busy pricing fee.

Instacart also offers an exclusive membership privilege offer to its customers, which provides free delivery on the minimum order of $35 or above. Instacart is also available for all of its users in both Android and iOS versions.

5. Postmates

Source: Mindstudios Website

Postmate is another type of delivery service app in the USA. It not only delivers the food. Here, you can also get a lot more than that at your doorstep. Postmates is a delivery service that ensures the delivery of almost everything from anywhere and delivers it to you.

Postmates food delivery apps in the USA currently had its presence in more than 4,200 cities throughout the USA in all 50 states and in Washington D.C. too. The food delivery app of Postmates is available for its user in Android and iOS versions both. It charges a 5% service fee on all items delivered except alcohol. The charges for alcohol vary as it depends on the quantity ordered.

Basically, Postmates is a platform that lets you order and get anything delivered from anywhere. It is an online food delivery app that promotes a large customer radius and typically focuses on speeding up the delivery process.

Postmates charges a fee for every order, and during peak delivery time, it may add some Blitz Pricing Fees on every order. It also offers ‘Unlimited’ service to its users at a monthly charge of $10, provides free delivery from selected stores and restaurants on the order of $12 or more.

6. UberEats

Source: Theeconomictimes Website

If you trust Uber to drive around the city safely, then you can easily trust it to deliver and maintain quality service in being one of the best food delivery apps in the USA. It is a food delivery app service that is effective not only in the USA but also in many other countries.

The UberEats food delivery app service covers more than 500 cities in 24 countries such as Austin, Amsterdam, Singapore, Baltimore, Portland, Tokyo, and many other locations throughout the globe.

The UberEats food delivery app charges a service fee of 15% on every order and has a small order fee for orders less than $10. This service fee may vary based on the restaurant and the location. UberEats also offer a privileged service to the subscribed customers with a $10 per month Eats Pass Subscription. In this, it charges $0 delivery fees and a 5% discount on orders of $15 or above.

It also provides loyalty bonus or reward points for its loyal customers on both Uber and UberEats usage, and it gets translated into cash rewards, flexible cancellations, and more. Like other food delivery apps in the USA, the UberEats app is also available for all the users in the form of Android and iOS versions.

7. Delivery.com

Source: Delivery Website

Delivery.com is another different food delivery app in the USA, which delivers not only meals but also groceries, dry cleaning, a bottle of wine, and other products too. It is quite similar to food delivery apps like Grubhub and Seamless.

The Delivery.com food delivery app service is available in 1800 cities around the USA, with more than 15,000 merchants associated with it. It charges a delivery fee to customers based on their distance and pickup. The restaurants also have a clause of making minimum order for home delivery.

The app is very easy to use. Users can search their preferences based on restaurant, dishes, type of cuisine, estimated delivery time, price range, delivery fee, and can also filter the search by rating. Delivery.com also offers to its customers to check out exclusive offers, free delivery, new restaurants, or suitable for group dining.

Delivery.com’s food delivery app is available for all of its customers based on Android and iOS users. It also offers multiple payment methods, i.e., cash, online, pre-delivery payment, mobile banking, and wallets.

8. GoPuff

Source: Crunchbase Website

GoPuff is one of the best food delivery apps in the USA. It works differently as compared to other app delivery apps services. GoPuff is more like a digital convenience store, instead of being a middleman between restaurants and customers.

GoPuff delivery service offers not only finished meals, groceries, and wine bottles but also delivers products like phone chargers and bathroom-tissues. Its food delivery app service has a strong presence in more than 150 cities throughout the United States. The company is focused on expanding its business into new locations as well.

The food delivery app charges $2 as delivery charges to its customers. It also provides a monthly subscription facility to its users. In this, it offers free delivery to its customers at $6 per month membership. The GoPuff food delivery app is available for all its users of Android and iOS phones. The app is free to use, only charges for its services.

9. ChowNow

Source: Unicornhunt Website

ChowNow food livery app follows a different approach in this service. It works with restaurants to take their business online and can work directly from their own website. In addition to this, it also provides its delivery platform to restaurants and attracts customers through its own app. It allows users to order from different restaurants in one place.

ChowNow provides its food delivery app services in cities across the USA, including Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Atlanta, Seattle, and other major cities. Its app is free to use and is available for both Android and iOS users.

It charges a delivery fee to its customer based on the distance between the restaurant and the delivery location. Hence, before confirming the order or placing the order, ChowNow shows its customers the delivery fees that the particular restaurant is charging from the customer. It is an easy app to use and provides you all the information you might require to make up your mind in placing the order.

10. Seamless

Source: Theverge Website

Seamless is an on-demand food delivery app service. It is one of the best food delivery apps in the USA. One of the oldest and mature service providers in the USA, since 1999.

As the name represents, Seamless makes sure to provide a seamless and fast food delivery service to its customers. The app is focused on attracting a great number of customers. Therefore, it is available for its users in Android and iOS app versions.

Seamless charges flat delivery fees of $6 to its customers but offers a good number of offers and discounts as well. It is quite a good marketing strategy by the Seamless food delivery apps, which keeps it going in the market for so many years.

It works very effectively in adopting its customers’ feedback and making sure to work upon it and update the app. While considering the customer’s request, Seamless changed its service to accept cash and provide Paypal for payment, as a customer complained about the payment issues.

11. Yelp Eat24

Source: Medium Website

Yelp owns Eat24 food delivery app, hence, renamed as Yelp Eat24 food delivery apps in the USA. It has vast access to thousands of local restaurants and makes sure to deliver your favorite dishes at your doorsteps.

Yelp Eat24 is widely available in many cities of the USA and effectively works towards delivering quality services to all the customers. Its delivery service charges vary depending on the restaurants and the distance between the restaurant and the delivery point.

The app is available for all of its users in both Android and iOS versions. However, it also provides a discount of $10 to its customers on their order when they sign up to its newsletter.

Why are Food Delivery Apps so Popular?

A considerable number of people use food delivery apps. Therefore, it is essential to understand how food delivery apps are becoming so much popular in some way or another. Let’s take a look over the few significant reasons that make food delivery apps so accessible:

• The menu of each restaurant is visible and readily available within the app. along with images and customer feedback.
• These food delivery apps offer to order options for home delivery or takeaway. It is solely based on customer preference.
• All food delivery apps offer real-time in-app tracking of the delivery and also inform every step through in-app notification methods. It becomes easy for customers to look over the process and don’t need to navigate through apps for each update.
• The food delivery apps are very well-designed apps that offer excellent performance and provide great customer experience.
• These apps allow restaurants to use location-based services, By using geo-location notifications to connect with customers and deliver the services perfectly.
• Food delivery apps are built to provide convenience and easy to use features for customers and aims to provide a seamless shopping experience.
• Most food delivery apps accept major credit and debit cards, whereas some even provide Paypal and cash payment facilities.

These were the top 11 and best food delivery apps in the USA. All these apps are in high demand and provide the best service to their customers not only in the USA but also in other countries. All these apps are readily available on both Android and iOS platforms and free to use.

Source: Rawpixel Website

If you are looking to build such quality apps and mark your presence in the market of food delivery apps in the USA, then it is an appropriate time to go with it. You can share your business idea with EngineerBabu and develop the best quality app. We had a qualified and experienced team of Android Developers and iOS Developers. For any kind of details and discussion, you can contact us, and we are here to help you in taking your business idea live.

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The online food delivery industry is making lots and lots of effort to understand their customers in order to discover their preferences and tastes. When people order food from a dining joint or any other restaurant, then they expect that food to be delicious and at most be at reasonable prices. They expect their food to be delicious and meet their expectations. Thus, it is no surprise that there are several food deliveries and restaurants like Zomato, Swiggy, Uber eats, Food Panda, McDonald’s, Dominos, etc. apps that have flooded the app market.

Role of Data Science in Food Delivering industry

Smart investors invested in the food industry because of the advanced age of new and innovative apps that are available for food delivery and restaurant booking. Apart from restaurants, food delivery chains, other grocery stores, young cafeterias, fast food outlets, greengrocery suppliers, diary/farm suppliers, seed/pesticide suppliers have also been benefited by these apps.

Recommended Reading: Data Scientist vs Data Engineer

Big data has helped this industry to grow faster and to reach the desired goals of a larger market share. Data is in the form of customer orders, location for home delivery, GPS service, tweets, social media messages, verbal reactions, images, videos, reviews, comparative analysis, blogs, and updates have become widespread. The data facilitate users to access information on average waiting time, delivery experience, other records, customer service, the taste of food, menu choices, loyalty and reward point programs, and product stock and inventory data.

These apps are not only helping in boosting sales but also guarantee that they build brand image and create a special bond and relationship with customers. This leads to repeat customers’ rate that tends to become purely hearted to their favorite brand.

Benefits of Data Science in Food Ordering

1. On-time Delivery: Food delivery can be reformed in terms of time by using different big data analysis tools and techniques. There are vast numbers of restaurants which are specialized in food delivery or home delivery of your food parcels. The predictive analysis is done with the help of Big data. Big data can collect data from various sources like road traffic, weather, temperature, route, etc. and provide an exact estimation for the time taken to deliver the goods.
2. Improved Quality: A customer always expects his food to be delicious and of the same taste in any season of the year. But it depends upon their quality, storage, and proper measurement of ingredients. Here, big data can help to check these changes and able to predict the impact of each of the food quality and taste.
3. Opinion Analysis: Sentiment analysis is based on the customer’s emotions or reactions over social media networks or reviews given on the particular food ordering app. Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques like natural language processing (NLP), big data analysis tools go through this text and classify in the groups positive, negative or neutral responses. This technique of big data analysis is commonly being used by food delivery apps to analyze their customer emotions on a scale. Any negative review can be analyzed at scale and appropriate actions can be taken to prevent the spread of harmful or false words which leads to negative publicity. These techniques are incredibly beneficial for large-scale food chains like Dominos’, McDonald’s, Starbucks KFC, PizzaHut, etc.
4. Customer Service: Customer satisfaction is the hardest part of any organization to achieve. The food industry is no better. These days there are multiple channels available to be in touch 24/7 such as mobile apps, websites, social media, etc. All of these give a brief and clear idea about the services’ satisfaction. Big data can help to improve customer service and satisfaction by analyzing all the inputs from different sources.

Final words: As the on-demand marketplace growing, food delivery businesses will need to quickly capitalize on all its data that they have on various demand patterns, food preparation time, delivery routes, and more – to optimize their services and gain a competitive advantage in this firm. Restaurants and food delivery businesses that are not using big data or its techniques are missing out on a profitable opportunity to increase or gain their customer satisfaction. If the food industry cannot collect or accumulate their big data now, then it would be too late to go back, revamp the data and analyze it.

Recommended Reading: Create an App like Seamless

Being a leader in offering big data services, EngineerBabu helps businesses to manage, store, and integrate massive datasets. Also, we help businesses to gain predictive insights that facilitate proactive business decisions and pre-emptive planning. Additionally, EngineerBabu promises to deliver best-in-class frameworks for multi-dimensional data aggregation and utilizes visualization-based data discovery tools for insight generation.

Hire a dedicated Data Scientist from EngineerBabu

EngineerBabu worked with 700+ small and big startups. We understand the problem in-depth and give an optimal solution. The Data Scientists of EngineerBabu are trained in all the skills of Data Science. If you are looking for a Data Science expert, hire a Data Scientist from EngineerBabu.

 Why hire Remote Data Science experts from India

• New Ideas and Fresh Energy: India is a young country. More than 65% of the Indian population is under 40 years. Thus, they come with a unique idea with positive vibes.
• Flexible Time Zone: India follows 5:30 GMT format, which gives flexibility to every country to hire developers from India.
• No Infrastructure Cost: If you hire a Data Scientist from EngineerBabu, you don’t need to build an infrastructure from scratch. Just hire a remote team and go. We have everything with us.
• No HR Manager and Recruiter Required: Exactly, no punch-ins/out, no salary slips, no time to recruitment. Just chill at your place. We will handle the entire troublesome task for you.

If you are having a project and searching for a Data Scientist let us know or can drop an email at mayank@engineerbabu.com

I am very open to any kind of feedback, suggestion, or questions if you have any kindly write in it to the comment section below!

The post How to implement Data Science to a Food Ordering App and Why? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

Craving Thai food in Manhattan? From Queens to Boston and Miami, food delivery apps have got you covered. Today, a food delivering app like Seamless is no less than Tinder! It is easy to use, satisfies your thirst and is accessible at any place on any given day. Except that there’s no swipe but a single scroll, tap, and checkout!

Talking about on-demand food ordering solutions… it is something that has transformed our lifestyle and eating habits entirely. Social media platforms have more cheesy platters than cheesy smiles. But that’s not it.

• Hungry but it’s raining outside? Seamless.
• Feeling sick but can’t get out of bed for meals? Seamless.
• Need to order a cake for your SO’s birthday who lives miles away? Seamless.

Lately, EngineerBabu has witnessed a visible growth in the demand for developing food delivering mobile apps similar to Seamless. Although, not everyone can communicate their requirements with Seamless being a huge platform.

So, for all budding entrepreneurs out there who wish to create something as the likes of Seamless, Grubhub, UberEats and Deliveroo… here is a complete guide for building food delivery apps a.k.a Seamless clone!

What is the business model for building a food delivery app like Seamless?

If you’ve done your research prior-hand, you might be aware about the foolproof profit-making business model. It’s a profitable venture that can even go as far as deciding which restaurants stay put in business.

You do not need to have your own chain of restaurants. With calculated algorithms to every individual/group involved in the process, a smooth functionality is facilitated. Thus, with a marginal amount of investment, you can rise to become a unicorn company like Zomato & Swiggy.

Coordination with the third party is made to plan a supply for the demand that arises. The only 3 key stakeholders for a food delivery app like Seamless or a Seamless clone are:

1. Platform Owner
2. Restaurant Owners
3. Delivery Professionals

To get the restaurants listed on the specific mobile application, a certain amount of fee is levied on the restaurateurs. It’s the same case with any given platform, be it DoorDash, JustEat or Postmates.  All three stakeholders receive a notification whenever the end user aka a foodie places an order.

The business ease of building an app like Seamless is driving so many entrepreneurs in the industry. But how do you make sure that yours would stand out from the rest with the same business model?

Trustable Food Ordering & Delivery App Development Companies

What makes Seamless different from other Food Ordering Mobile Applications?

It was thought that Seamless would gradually deteriorate in the US market after a merger with GrubHub. Instead, Seamless has maintained its status as one of the top 5 food deliveries in the USA. Seamless is based in New York and has partnered with a number of restaurant chains in the USA. Well known for fast deliveries, it has a wide variety of menu to choose from.

Unlike other food delivery applications, Seamless comes with a feature to search for food within your price range! Also, you can leave certain special requests based on your preferences. Customers can browse by food or location to have their grub delivered at work or home. They can also arrange to have their meals ready for pickup.

Along with that, features like Seamless Gift Card make it stand out from others. Seamless provides gift cards which can be used to order online without making any payment. After having bought, these can be presented to your neighbours or friends. They are available in both forms: digital and physical cards.

The 4 Important Features of Seamless:

1. Allow Users to Easily Navigate Through Nearby Food Restaurants

Food delivery market has become extremely competitive. The very first essential feature of an on-demand app like Uber for food delivery is to allowing the end-users to find nearby food restaurants. Users can choose from a variety of local food restaurants. Although a feature quite common in food delivery apps, it’s an essential one.

A user-friendly experience while ordering food helps in making hassle-free decisions. Ofcourse, ordering online has evolved to become the easiest platform for consumers. Thus, a user-friendly platform for your users to easily login and search for their favourite dishes is a must-have feature.

2. Enables Users to Pre Order or Re-order Their Favourites

The next important feature is quite unique. It enables the app users to pre-order and reorder their favourite meals. The app displays top five favourites and gives users the option to reorder items from their order history itself.

App users can even pre-order items 2 hours and four days before! Undeniably, it is pivotal to stay one step ahead of your rivals by offering more of such advanced features. Try adding value into your users’ busy lives.

3. Push Notifications

One of the most pivotal features is – push notifications. Along with providing the easiest way of user communication, it earns your users’ loyalty.

(a) Get Instant Updates: In a hurry? Instant notifications on the go is your answer. Get notified of every new order, track the dispatch and delivery.

(b) Improved App Engagement & Retention Rates: Push notifications feature gets a higher view and click-through ratio. Apps with push notifications have 92% higher retention rates and 26% higher open rate!

4. Ratings and Reviews

The feature allows users to effortlessly rate and review restaurants from where they have received food orders. It provides transparency between users and restaurants. It’s an opportunity to improve the services. Also, you can provide them with a list of high-rating restaurants to deliver high-quality services.

Thus, if you have ever thought of creating an on-demand food ordering app like Seamless, then these features are worth including.

Must-Have Features for Web Portal of Food Delivery Apps:

Web service is under the accountability of the platform owners. Simply put, if you develop a Seamless-like mobile app, or Seamless clone, you would be in charge of handling the web service portal.

(1) Admin Dashboard:

To manage the overall functionality and different stakeholders, admin dashboards have the capability to view the number of users, a list of the restaurants and delivery professionals associated with your brand. The admin can add and remove any stakeholders at any point of time using this feature.

Analytics and Reporting:

The data insights & metrics based on the bookings made are shown by generating reports. An analysis can be done about the total number of users on board, the usage times, demographic data, the total number of delivery professionals and restaurants listed, profit and loss calculation per week, month and year, etc.

(2) For Delivery Professionals-

This is specifically for use by the delivery men. After getting a delivery request and as soon as they accept the request from the app, they are provided with the information of the order, restaurant details and the address of the customer.

(i) Trip Information & Navigation:

Delivery men receive the restaurant’s pickup address and the drop details of the user. The app for the delivery men consists of GPS which is integrated into the app for easy navigation. It consists of the route and the total time estimated for the delivery.

(ii) Route Optimisation:

Maps integrated with the app helps delivery professionals to access the possible route to beat the traffic and make their deliveries as fast as possible.

(iii) Start/End Trip:

After accepting the request and beginning the trip towards the restaurant, a driver’s trip starts. In a similar way, another trip begins when he is on his way to make the delivery.

(iv) Contact the User/Restaurant:

The feature helps the driver call the concerned stakeholders without having to copy the number and dialling it manually. It makes their work hassle-free.

GroupPal: A Mobile Application for Networking, Profit Sharing and Much More!

(3) Users App-

(i) Easy Log-in (Social media integration) and Search Option:

Manually signing up is a task. Make the process easier for your users by enabling them to sign up with their social media accounts. New users will find it easier to access the app with a search option. Based on their preference of cuisine/ dish, they can get a list of restaurants with their desired food items.

(ii) Multiple Payment Options & Notifications:

Give your users an option to pay with their desired mode of payment. Give them multiple options like a Debit Card, Credit Card, Cash on delivery, Mobile wallets, etc. The user must get a push notification about their order, trending search, favourite restaurant, etc.

(iii) Call Restaurant/ Driver & Track Driver:

Calling directly to the restaurant/ driver in case of any specific instructions to give against their order is a user favourite. It boosts transparency in a way! And with the help of the tracking driver feature, the user can access the map integrated into the app and track the status of their food.

(iv) Personal Favourite- Social Community:

Allow your users to integrate their social media handles for creating their profiles. The users would be able to connect with each other, follow and make recommendations on cuisines, dishes, puns, restaurants, etc.

(v) Veg Option and Real-time Availability

Users must be given an option to filter out the veg and non-veg dishes. Also, the online reservation system of the app allows users to check the availability of the tables in case of dine-in options.

Things To Consider Before Getting the App Developed:

The competition out there in this industry is immense. Be innovative to step higher than your competitors,  when it comes to building an app like Seamless. But how to do that?

It’s quite easy. Please your customers with the quality of your service. Give them remarkable features to leave a lasting impression of your brand. It will keep them engaged with your platform. Ultimately, you will be able to scale up your Seamless-like business.

Unique Selling Point:

Carry out a research of the industry before starting working on the development process. Make a track of the changes and campaigns that your competitors have successfully carried out, or are planning to. Check to see if they have any fall-outs.

The users must feel acknowledged when it comes to their reviews or suggestions. Give them a, “Why should I install your app?” point that your competitors lack. It will go a long way in driving a large amount of traffic, engagement, and ultimately conversion.

What is your primary aim with the launch of this app? Try to understand your target audience well. Carry out surveys for a detailed market analysis. Make a note of who your buyer persona is. Check if you can cater to the demands from the platform. Plan the supply that is inline with the demand and create a long-term business relationship with the users.

Your competitors will definitely have some drawbacks. Come up with creative solutions and fill in the gaps. Try experimenting by tweaking the business model if you may. Set your brand apart from the rest.

Thorough Knowledge & Research:

What would be the best technology to go to for the app? Try to pinpoint the needs of the app and consult the right team of developers if you’re not technologically updated. You just have to know the basics and the right team will do the rest for you.

What devices does your target audience use? Try to find out the most preferred ones and you can shortlist the platform accordingly. And, make sure you never neglect the focus from your brand recognition.

Plan the features well in advance. you have to make sure that the scalability is in-line with your future expansion plans.

The Power Of Referrals/ Discounts:

Try to get as many followers and customers on-board right in the beginning. Use strategies like discounts, happy hours, promotions, etc to your leverage. Make them deals they cannot ignore and refuse. Provoke them to come back later with cash-back in forms of coupons.

Need any sort of help with ideation or the app development? We are just ONE CLICK  away!

The Factors Affecting The Cost of Building a Mobile App similar to Seamless:

The cost for developing such apps will depend on the number of features you wish to integrate in your app. Also, decide the platform where you would launch the app. There’s iOS and Android. With Android being used by masses, you need to make sure who your target audience actually is.

The price can be segregated based on 2 things: MVP and additional advanced features. Your admin panel will have to have additional features. It cannot just constitute of the basics. You will have complete control of this panel and can customise the same accordingly.

How We Created Lebanon’s 1st Mobile App For Service Providers!

For the driver and the user app, you can rely on the MVP model. Also, it is recommended that you do the same. It’s an opportunity for you to experiment and make progressive moves. If you’re lucky enough, engagement rates can be dependent on how good your minimal app works.

Further, when it comes to your team… there are options to choose from. You can hire your own team or outsource the project. It will impact the final result of your product as well as the prices. Basically, the most basic version of the app with MVP features and a simple UI/UX can cost around $7,000 to $10,000 for development of all the three apps- restaurant, driver and user app.

For a more advanced version with additional features, the estimated price can be somewhere in between $35,000 to $50,000. And just in case we consider the full-fledged Seamless like app, the price rises up to $75,000 and above.

Finding the Right Development Team:

This is the first step towards building a dream project into an actual mobile application. The right team is essential and will affect the quality of the app. Hence, you dream project’s success relies on it. To get started, know the number of people that you would require.

Now, it is time to decide whether you want to go for hiring your own team or freelances. You can also outsource the entire project to one trustworthy app development company. When you have built the entire roadmap for your entrepreneur venture, this step is remarkable.

Many app development companies have their own pricing models. From a pool of companies, if must shortlist one that’s best suitable for this work. To begin with, make a list of your requirements on the basis of the research you carried out. Accordingly, search for the developers using the credible sources and websites.

Now, read about their resources and case studies on the websites. Try to find out what their existing customers are saying about their work and only then make your decision. When in doubt, talk to them and get your query resolved.

To Sum Up…

We would love if we can aid you with our expertise in the domain. Having faced a number of challenges with the limitations of technology and the innovative demands of our customers, app development for our developing team has been a practice to perfect episode.

If you have already built the roadmap for your Seamless-like business, get ready to put the plan into execution, you can reach out to us for the development and launching your food delivery mobile app and generate recurring revenue.

Drop an email at mayank@engineerbabu.com. Hate waiting? CLICK HERE 

Did you like this blog? Let us know in the comments section below.

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• How to Build a Food Ordering App
• How To Set Up An Offshore Development Center In India?
• How we Developed a Grocery Delivery App with 1,00,000+ Downloads!

The post Create your own Seamless – A Food Delivery App appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

Food delivery apps are a new rage, from restaurant owners making their own food ordering app for you to deliver food while sitting on your couch to services like zomato, foodpanda, swiggy which act as a collaboration platform between the restaurants and clients.

Who doesn’t have a dream of opening a food place, some restaurant which will only serve the food of their choice or a place which will serve food which is different than others and has a knack? Something with a difference.

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More than that, there are more and more startups every day getting in the food industry and every startup today needs a mobile app even more than that, it needs a website.

Building a mobile app is easy with the advent of so many tools and technologies, but depending on the kind of app that you’re building, you may need to follow certain guidelines and adhere to some criteria. Food ordering app development is not a linear process, but one that entails a lot of complexity.

Not just for the purpose of developing an app for your own sake, mobile app industry is a huge revenue giving area at present and food startups are all increasing daily with every one of them needing at least an app for one single platform with most of them targeting multiple platforms such as Android, iOS, Windows and more.

Comparison between Popular Food Ordering Apps

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Research and analyzing is a crucial part of any development process, you can add your own insights to make your product better but need to add features and other little things from already existing competitors as well. Food ordering app development makes it easy to access immense features and functionalities.

Some of the most popular food delivery apps from which you can take a clue are GrubHub, eat24, seamless.

GrubHub

This food ordering app is one of the most used food ordering services, it gives the feature of searching for your desired cuisine or browse through the list of local restaurants that are nearby.

You can create your own favorite list to personalize it and not having to search and find every time. It has an additional feature of user reviews as well.

Eat24

Eat24 works on a slightly different approach than most of the others, here you gotta add your address and then it will after a quick search, show up all the food types and different restaurants available near it.

Afterward, you can either browse through based on cuisine type or you can simply initiate an online food order via ‘What’s Good’ section.

You can either order at the moment or save it for later.
It also helps you track your food from restaurant to your doorstep so that you know when will your food be delivered.

Seamless

Unlike others, this Seamless food ordering app has the feature to search for food by the price within your desire to order. You can also leave certain special requests such as based on your preferences.

Things to Take Care of While Building a Food Delivery App

There are many things to do before you start building an app, instructions, and procedures while you build an app, evaluation, and feedback after you have successfully build a prototype and/or launched a beta product. Food delivery app development has many aspects to it.

Before you proceed further and we indulge with you the steps of creating and launching a food ordering app, you may want to take a read of detailed review of famous food delivery apps in continuation of the brief we covered above.

I have created a guide below in the format of step by step detailed instructions for you including the various aspects and coverage of different integral parts of the process of app development.

If you think of starting from scratch, then the development of an app can be hard and tricky let alone that of a delivery app based on consumers feedback and appreciation.

The main thing is that you don’t have to do that, the fundamentals and basics of all food delivery apps are same. A few basic things that you need to take into consideration while building a food delivery app are things such as simple and clean design, minimalistic UI/UX with no unnecessary features, visual enhancement, and local restaurants data integration.

Before you start development of a product, it is always good to remember your target goals from it, characteristics you want in it and the advantages you are going to focus upon. For food delivery app development, consider these factors:

➤   Start locally, test your concept, launch a marketing campaign then scale onto a large scale, when it comes to crafting the perfect online food ordering app.
➤   Hire some experienced and skilled app developers who have previously working in this field to work on your food delivery app. Read this guide for outsourcing app developers.
➤   Promotion is necessary before you launch your beta product and from the very start of the initial phase. Engage your potential customers via social media, emails etc., through the online food ordering app.
➤   Focus on getting feedback from customers and making improvisations based upon that for your food delivery app.
➤   Hire a team that’s worthy and make it stay, competitive salary, flexible working hours, work from home option, incentives, rewards etc are just a few common perks. Food apps like FoodPanda require a lot of thought and careful planning.

There are many different types of food delivery apps, you have to first decide which kind of food mobile app you are looking forward to creating.
●   Apps which home deliver locally cooked food (pizza hut and other locally franchised restaurants which cook and sell their own stuff).
●   Platform Interface Food delivery apps such as foodpanda, GrubHub etc which act as a bridge between restaurants and customers.
●   Apps which work as a sort of grocery delivery service such as postmates etc.
●   Apps which deliver cooked food as well as encourage home cooking such as plated, chef’d etc.

Before we proceed further, you might want to take a look at 101 pointers to keep in mind while development of a product.

Market Research & Target Audience

The very first step for any potential product development is defining the range of people whom you’re targeting and researching the market for it. Food delivery app development needs to be research-based.

Apps are used mostly by people with a busy lifestyle such as working class professionals, entrepreneurs, students who spent most of their time on it amongst others. They should be the primary target of your app.

Before you set out to make your product it is always advised to check out your competitors before starting not just for their features and what makes them popular but also to ensure that you aren’t copying anybody’s idea. Food delivery apps are not about being copycats, but innovating instead.

Spent your time in research beforehand so that you won’t have to make any modifications at a later stage.

Research your competitors well, see their features, the services they provide and what makes them different from others, when it comes to food app design. For example, if you seek a sample business plan for tiffin services, you need to understand the scope of the online food ordering system project.

Technical Aspects

Choosing the right technology before you start food application development is very crucial, depending on your budget, platform and features needed it can vary from PHP to ruby.

Other features such as iOS or Android, native apps or hybrid ones, creating an app from scratch or using third-party tools such as APIs, app clones, and SDKs.

Whatever choices you make they will directly affect your cost and effort needed for app development.

Another thing that comes in technical aspects but is slightly more related to design is the UI and UX of the food delivery app. The aim is to make it flawless, smooth and as fast as possible inclusive of payment systems, menu processing, and food order selection. The more personalization a customer can give to his account in your app, the more likely he is to stay for the long term.

After All, food is nothing but personal to anyone. So do factor in personalization, when you consider how to develop an app.

Functions & Features: Apps for Ordering Food

What sets anything apart from the rest is where it separates itself in terms of its functions and features.

Those people who order food online from delivery apps are looking to be in their comfort zone, thus your app must be simple to navigate and easy to customize as per the user needs.

A sleek design and an introductory tour that can help users find their way the first time around for your food apps helps.

Some of the main features that you should remember to include other than the ones you have already in your mind are listed below for your food app design experts:

●   The very first thing is to contain detailed information of the restaurants along with their complete menu with prices indicated, and pictures if possible are preferred in the menu as they increase the aesthetic taste.
●   An option for quick ordering such as past orders of that user or the popular items from that particular restaurant should also be there.
●   A geolocation feature is a must as it helps the user to pick from the nearby restaurants that deliver to his location. It also helps in the calculation of delivery charges for the restaurants who don’t provide free delivery or don’t have a fixed delivery fee.
●   An inbuilt tracker to keep track of the food order status along with the Google Maps integration for route purposes works great. Having a navigation system saves both the delivery guy and the user from a lot of trouble.
●   For people who don’t keep cash in hand or prefer online payment, a payment gateway integration with wide support is required. You can choose from several existing gateways such as stripe, Paypal etc. for your food mobile app.
●   Along with food order tracking, SMS notifications for things such as order confirmed, order dispatched, etc also is recommended as it saves the user from tracking the online food order all the time and keeps him relaxed.

●   A custom search option for finding restaurants by cuisine, location, availability, etc should also be there. Going through the vast list of options available is not what a user wants always when it comes to a flawless food mobile app.
●   A scheduled delivery is another trend that’s keeping up, unlike monthly dibbas and tiffin services, people prefer to eat various different items daily and this option helps them in ordering ahead of their busy schedule what they want to eat.
●   Programs that reward loyal customers, as well as time to time, offer also help in engaging users and keeping them for a long term.
●   Social media logins and integration such as directly being able to post on your social accounts what you are eating can go a long way with this generation, for any food mobile app.
●   Other than SMS based notifications, you can also go for push notifications, they work as a great retention tool for keeping customers for your food delivery app.
●   A user account separate for each user is not just mandatory, it also helps the user in giving the app exactly the customization it needs and personalizing it according to his needs.
●   Other than that, having the ability for users to leave ratings, give reviews, bookmark their favorite places, and most importantly user’s transaction history is a must to have.

Pricing & Budget of Apps for Ordering Food

Whether you are an entrepreneur or a businessman, it doesn’t matter when it comes to keeping the cost down and in the budget.

Undoubtedly, pricing is the major thing to decide before proceeding with things, as far as food delivery apps are concerned.

While deciding pricing and your budget for development, few things to keep in mind are for your food mobile app:

●   The extent of features that you want in the app and the functions you want to provide to users.
●   Whether you are going with iOS or android, android usually costs less.
●   You are going to backend development or third-party integration. Server backend may cost more initially but is preferred for long-term, while third-party works if you have a short budget for now but in long-term in adds up to huge recurring costs.
●   Whether or not you are going with social media integration in your app and if you are planning on keeping an admin panel in the app.
●   If your approach is to develop a cross-platform app, then your cost will be lower as compared to that of developing a native app.
●   The team that you’re hiring takes a huge chunk out of your budget so don’t be overboard when hiring overqualified people.
●   More visually enhancing you want your app to be and more complex its design is going to be, higher will be the cost.
●   Maintenance required after the release and the upgrades you are planning on releasing.

Recommended Reading: Trustable Food Ordering & Delivery App Development Companies

Based on above-varying factors, you can see that there is no specific range to the development and maintenance costs of the app. However, we can generalize and categorize the apps roughly and based on those price brackets, further notch down the price range of the app we need.

1. Basic food ordering apps such as those with plain UX/UI, item lists, a simple search and basic minimal required functionality can cost up to $10,000 for development only. Post-development maintenance costs for such apps is minimal. So when you consider how to develop an app, do take pricing per feature into account.
2. Food ordering apps with more advance feature lists and functions integration, custom UX/UI, tables support added, payment gateway integration, social media integration, navigator, push notifications etc can range anything in between $10,000 to $20,000.
3. High-end food delivery apps that include the complexity of advanced level, audio/video processing, real-time tracker enabled, custom graphics, third-party APIs integrations, server backed with multiple databases, offline local cache etc can cost anything upwards of $20,000.

Now depending on your budget and functionality, you require, you will have to hire team members integral to the development process. Depending on your needs, you can go with either team structure.

Basic team
It consists of core members only needed to complete the job.

• UI/UX designer
• 2-4 Developers in total
• Quality Assurance Engineer
• Backend Developer
• Project Manager
• Advanced Team

Team Manager/Project Manager

• UI/UX designer
• 3-4 developers for each platform
• Quality Assurance Engineer
• 2-3 backend developers
• Admin panel developer

Apart from that cost of the food delivery app may also vary from location to location around the globe, so you may want to think about outsourcing and hiring from third world countries.

At an average, costs can be approximated at $10,000 for app development and $10-15 per hour with the time for development ranging around 3 months. You can also hire dedicated node js developer or a dedicated php developer since the dedicated hiring method is very cost effective and you do not even have to worry about the tiresome chore of expanding your team.

Launching Prototype & Getting Feedback

Any product is launched first as a beta product in its initial stages then as the final product, this step is crucial as it helps the developers get informed of errors which they might not have noticed and get feedback about potential improvements.

You don’t need to put all your design aspects and other things into it, just the basic minimalistic features required to run the app.

This helps in identifying weak and strong spots and gives time and scope for the improvements before launch.

After you got your first feedback from beta testers, what you have to do is perform more tests such as A/B tests to identify more problems and fix them and finish the development process.

Not just that, if you are planning on launching your app on some marketplaces such as iOS app store or google play store, then you will have to fulfill their requirements as well to be able to show your presence there.

Google Play Store Launch Checklist

iOS App Store Guidelines

Also, add these analytics tools to track and monitor consumer behavior for further improvement prospects.

Now that you have gone through all the above stuff, and theoretically prepared your app and are ready to launch it on whatever app store you have chosen, but your job is not done yet, not by a long shot.

Continuous improvisation and constructive criticism, these are two things that you gotta love if you want to stay for a long time in this hyper-competitive market.

Now, after you’ve gone through all the above, you must be looking forward to hiring some professional or getting some professional advice and building a team and then proceed to the planning & development stage.

Well, it never hurts to let someone experienced and skilled share their opinion and provide a solution to your problem and clear your doubts.

You can go through the numerous case studies done by our experts on the various range of topics.

If you feel intrigued or need to know further about us then you can take a look at our long and happy list of clients and what they say about us.

If still not satisfied, then have a detailed look at some of the apps for ordering food (Eat App, Breezymeal, Food temple, Mann ka dabba, Food triangle) that we have built for our other clients and use them and test them to your satisfaction, until you feel we are the utmost choice when it comes to development of apps for ordering food.

We would suggest to drop us an inquiry and talk and discuss your needs with our experts and get to know them. Doing this will not only clear your needs from your point of view but also help you to understand the development process of food delivery apps.

Hopefully, we have covered all that you needed to know about building a food ordering app, in case you have any doubts/queries/suggestions.

Let us know in comments or shoot us an email at mayank@engineerbabu.com and we will get back to you in a jiffy. You can even directly talk to us here.

The post How to Build a Food Ordering App? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.