Although online food delivery came into existence mainly in the year 2000, then it was not so popular among people. In fact, it was not at all popular among the general public. The service was majorly used by the upper-class people of the society. Before online delivery came into existence, food delivery used to happen in offline mode from the time of WWII, when the British government used to deliver food packs to their soldiers who were fighting the war. Restaurants started delivering food items to people around them. So the trend of food delivery started then.
For some years the delivery used to happen via mobile phones. The online food ordering services started when pizza hut launched its website in the year 1994. But at that time, only a few people used to have access to the internet. Therefore, online food ordering services were not popular at that time.
The Rise of Smartphones
The rise of online food delivery services happened when there was the rise of smartphones. The introduction of smartphones made it very easy for people to access these services. And for restaurants, it becomes very easy to market their services using the internet. In the starting phase of the decade, mobiles were not a very general thing in society. Even if it was, getting access to the internet was a major thing. But slowly and gradually, online delivery services started to spread out. After some time when food delivery firms like UberEats and Deliverro launched their own dedicated apps for their services, online delivery became quite a popular thing. At that time these apps used GPS and internet banking systems to handle customers.
Challenges Faced by Food Delivery Apps
As food delivery is one of the biggest firms in today’s time that is contributing a major portion to the economy. Along with being a popular service used by many people, there are some challenges faced by them.
Some of them are mentioned below:
1) No Loyalty
Since there are many food delivery apps that provide online services to people for a long time. When it comes to customers, there is a high chance of them getting shifted to another food delivery apps after some time. This brings us to the greatest bane of the business. It is that there is no loyalty when it comes to customers sticking to one food delivery apps for a long time.
They can easily shift to another one who is offering better quality at cheaper rates. The best example of such apps is Swiggy and Zomato in India. The quality of food offered by them is quite the same. In fact, the interface of the app is also very much similar in many senses. The main difference comes in the marketing tactics used by them. Due to this reason only, Zomato is more profitable than Swiggy.
2) Cost of Creating Own App
The minimum features that every food delivery app should have are the following:
1) Notifications: Push notifications feature helps users and restaurants to get instant notifications about the status of the order, it also helps in letting customers know about discounts and orders.
2) GPS tracking: It is one of the main features of any food delivery apps which allows users and delivery executives to track the live location of each other.
3) Payment: It is another most important feature of a food delivery app where it allows users to do instant payments using integrated methods. Many integrated methods such as Paytm, Gpay, PhonePe, etc allow users to use any of them to make their order.
All these features tend to increase the cost of developing a food delivery app from scratch. But there is another method instead of developing an app from scratch. A cloned app can also be developed for the same purpose, it is quite cheaper than developing the app from scratch. Therefore, if you are looking to develop a solution like this, you can consider a food delivery app clone for your business. There are many such apps like UberEats clone app, Zomato clone app, etc.
3) Need to have Dedicated Versions
The development of any app does not end up right after the launch of the app. You need to provide time to time updates to the app based on the user feedback and reviews. Not only this, for a successful app, you need to develop separate versions of the app for the following:
A) App for the customer
b) App for the delivery agents
c) App for the restaurants
Each of the following versions required dedicated time and effort in making its interface, adding features, and updating.
4) Issues with Delivery
Along with online services, you need to make sure that the process of getting an order from the restaurant to a customer is safe from any fraud. Most of the customers have issues with delivery executives. Therefore, to run a successful food delivery business, you need to check out these things. To satisfy customers, ensure that the delivery executives are maintaining every hygiene norm.
5) Ensuring Quality of Food
It is the main reason why people are sticking to your app for some time. You need to maintain that trust for a long time. Therefore, you need to check on food delivery from time to time. Based on user feedback and reviews, you can constantly review the quality of the food.
6) Adhering to the Certain rules
While running a food delivery business, you will have to adhere to certain rules and conditions. These rules are as follows:
A) Dispute redressal
B) Labour laws
C) Taxation laws
D) Information Technology rules
Conclusion
If you want to step into the food delivery business, it is the best time to do so as the online services are on a hike. For your food delivery business, you can consider clone apps like the UberEats clone app. With this app, your business is completely set to achieve more in the future. Just an UberEats clone!!
Apart from this, if you want to know about Digitize Your Food Delivery Startup with an App then please visit our Business category
