Last updated on July 28th, 2023
Online Food Ordering App: Having food delivered to your home is a convenient, easy, and, most importantly, secure way to enjoy your favourite dishes. Studies show that takeout and online ordering have become more prevalent in the post-pandemic world.
Apps that facilitate the ordering and delivery of food have grown in popularity in recent years. According to research, between 2022 and 2030, the worldwide market for online food delivery services is expected to expand from its current value of USD 50.70 billion at a CAGR of 18.7 per cent.
The time is now to introduce an Online Food Ordering App to cash in on this fad and join the crowd. With so many apps already available, there are a few things to keep in mind to make sure yours is a hit.
The next step is to decide on the specific features you’d like to incorporate.
To that end, we’ve compiled a list of 15 must-have features for a restaurant app to win over diners.
To create a high-quality app for your food service, you must first grasp the fundamentals of an on-demand Online Food Ordering App.
15 Essential Features For Building an Online Food Ordering App
The 15 most crucial functions of Online Food Ordering Apps are outlined below.
1. Create a Profile and Register
When processing payments or handling sensitive user information, registration is required for any app. Multiple signup methods are commonplace in today’s applications.
Via email, phone and SMS verification; via social network integration (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter).
Integration with Google Play and the App Store makes registration possible in virtually all apps. Users accustomed to making purchases using Google Pay and Apple Pay will find this a welcome addition.
2. Looking for Food
The organisation of a user-friendly search and menu is a crucial function of a food delivery app designed for mobile devices. It’s essential to search in a way that helps the system “get” what’s being asked of it. It is necessary to examine the search functionality in depth because users may need to learn the dish’s name.
The menu, likewise, needs to be user-friendly and flexible. The options for subdivision include places to eat, cuisines, and other classifications. If there are multiple options for locating and selecting a meal, that’s ideal.
Verify the item(s) selected and proceed through checkout; determine the total cost of the purchase; ensure that all required utensils are included in the cart; decline to make impulsive purchases.
3. Looking Over the Restaurant’s Background
The best way for a customer to get a feel for a restaurant and its food is to read reviews and ratings before placing an order. Product and service evaluations benefit those in the market for both. Recent years have seen a dramatic shift in how people obtain product information: ratings and reviews are now the norms. Accordingly, nearly all respondents (95%) read reviews before making a purchase, with about a quarter reading reviews before every purchase (24%).
4. Schedule Orders and Add Food to Your Shopping Cart
Making money is the primary motivation behind any food delivery app. The shopping cart is one of the essential tools for generating revenue within an app. A customer can submit items for purchase on a particular page called a “shopping cart.”
This is analogous to going to any other grocery store. Customers carry shopping baskets as they browse the store; items are placed in the basket and later checked out.
5. Paying for an Order Inside the App
Integration with payment gateways is required if the application will either directly accept payments for orders or act as an intermediary in this process. Payment should be easy and safe, so finding and connecting the right services is a significant undertaking.
Reliable payment gateways, which link a single web service to multiple payment processors, are highly recommended for this purpose (Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, bank cards, etc.). The time and money spent creating software could be cut by hundreds of hours.
To protect sensitive information, developers of the app must follow specific guidelines.
6. Geographical Reach and Service Availability
Navigating is integral to all cutting-edge online food delivery apps. The courier’s location can be tracked, a route from the restaurant to the delivery location can be planned, and more, all thanks to these handy tools.
7. Informing and Disseminating
Users are alerted via notifications when significant events occur, such as the completion of a transaction, the receipt of an order, the arrival of a courier, or the proximity of the courier to the delivery location. As a result, user satisfaction is raised, and brand loyalty is boosted.
There are two common forms of alerts used for this purpose:
In other words, push alerts. Notifications are messages that appear on a smartphone’s screen, even if the app that generated the notification is closed.
- SMS. A brief message was sent to a phone number.
8. Loyalty, Rewards, and Cashback Programs
Offering discounts and coupons are a great way to attract new users to your food delivery app. Customers can be kept interested with regular sales.
Attracting potential customers is more critical than increasing brand visibility to earn customers’ trust. That’s why significant corporations prioritise reward points so heavily. Similarly, Starbucks’ sales increased by 80% after the company implemented specific programmes.
9. Profile Creation and Management from the Admin Side
The restaurant’s patrons and delivery drivers who have registered with you and permitted you to store their personal information are kept in this section. They can change and remove information about themselves. Customers can be categorised in various ways, such as by gender or whether they have opted into mailing lists. This is helpful because it lets you focus on informing the right people about a sale or discount.
10. Taking Charge of Orders
The customer places an order by adding the desired items to the virtual shopping cart (the “Cart”). Once this happens, then what? The manager receives the application and can view it in the control panel. The content management system (CMS) and customer relationship management (CRM) integration is responsible for this. In addition, to prevent information loss, the updates must be uploaded in both directions.
Managers keep tabs on orders after they’ve been processed. From “approved” to “packaging,” “fence” (indicating the restaurant’s location), “delivery,” and finally “, completed.” As a result, a complete picture of the restaurant delivery app is taking shape.
11. Control Panel
This control panel’s descriptive name says it all. Several accounts of the restaurant’s progress are presented here. The sum of all orders, customers, discounted purchases, cancelled orders, and refunds. Aside from that, the number of meals explored and purchased, the number of bonus points awarded, and the total commission paid to affiliates.
12. Controlling the Contents of a Site
The most significant benefit of a delivery app that includes a CMS is the presence of a visual interface that facilitates interaction with published materials, pre-added graphics, and text files. Managing tasks without a CMS requires digging deep into the hosting provider’s database to locate individual components. Images, for instance, are uploaded from the control panel using a dedicated editor. The necessary steps can be accessed by clicking on the appropriate action icon and then browsing and selecting the proper file.
What you’ll have to do with content without access to the admin panel is as follows:
You need to:
- upload an image to hosting;
- locate the section in the HTML tags, or CCS styles where you want to add an image;
- use tags to create a link to an image (remembering that you cannot make mistakes, as the added code can destroy other elements on the site);
- verify the page’s content.
13. Including a Way to Reach the Delivery Person
It will be assumed that the customer has placed an order and paid for it. It’s polite to provide the customer with the delivery person’s name and number. In this fashion, patrons can get in touch with the courier and monitor the status of their deliveries.
14. Add in Social Media
You can get tons of free publicity by encouraging app and social media users to share photos and ratings of the food they’ve purchased. As a bonus, you and your social media team will have access to a wealth of valuable data. The positive feedback from customers will draw them in and increase revenue.
15. Virtual Work Assistance
The development of artificial intelligence has enabled the introduction of virtual helpers. One word or a messaging app can be all necessary for a customer to purchase an item they’ve been eyeing. For instance, Amazon’s virtual assistant Alexa can now be used with GrubHub to reorder previously placed orders. Furthermore, the virtual helper provides an approximate delivery date for the purchase.
Related Article: How Much Does It Cost To Build A Food Delivery Application
Do you want to create an Online Food Ordering App for your business?
Given the current state of the market, developing the ideal on-demand food ordering app may seem impossible. Nonetheless, this is a market that is expanding. Because of the increasing demand for a wider variety of dining options, the popularity of food delivery apps is soaring worldwide. When it comes to this type of market, it takes more than just making an app to succeed. Having features that make your brand stand out and provide unmatched functionality is equally important. To achieve this goal, you must have a seasoned professional team on your side.
Frequently Asked Questions For Online Food Ordering App
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How to create an online food ordering app?
We have stated below a step-by-step procedure on how to make a food ordering app. Please take a look –
- First and foremost, research the market before starting off
- Get to know both your competitors and consumers closely
- Decide onto the key features of all the modules of your app – consumer, delivery personnel, restaurant, and admin
- Bring onboard as many restaurant partners as possible
- Likewise, hire as many delivery personnels to strengthen your logistics
- Now, hire a food delivery app development company
- Make sure that you share each and every detaIl of your app vision with it
- You may also chose to go for MVP development first to test the waters
- Make sure that the design of your app is stimulating and user-friendly
- Keep in contact with your developers as long as the process of development goes on
- If your app passes the test, it will be instantly launched into the market
- Consult with your app development team with regard to marketing before the product is deployed
- Get your app maintained and updated from time to time by your hired developers
2. What is the cost of food ordering app development?
The cost of the development of a food ordering app depends upon a number of variables, some of which we have mentioned below –
- Size and complexity of application
- Platform chosen for the launch of the app
- Native vs. cross-platform app development
- Complexity of the design of the app
- Advancement of the tech stack to be used
- Size and location of the app development team
- Number of features of the app
On the basis of the above factors, we have come up with a generalised idea of the cost of online food ordering app which is presented as under –
- Basic app – $ 20000
- Complex app – $ 52000
With iTechnolabs’ app development services, you get your app developed within your budgetary limitations.
