Win your Fooders with Apps like Uber Eats — A Complete Guide for Startups
Food delivery service enables a startup to improve customer experience and increase profits. Restaurateurs or entrepreneurs can build their food brands and grow their businesses with a unique on-demand food delivery app. Fooders look for easy, quick and convenient food fixes. ‘UberEats’ and ‘Grub hub’ are trusted by millions of foodies for seamless ordering, convenience of payment and doorstep delivery! One should think that what keeps these apps in demand. Let’s find out..
How do On-demand Food Delivery Apps Work?
Millennials have an uber-fast lifestyle and want everything in a few clicks. The contemporary food delivery apps empower a user to select from a wide array of menus, place orders, pay through convenient mode and get it delivered.
· UberEats — A Case Study
‘UberEats’ is the most in-demand food delivery app and a go-to place for many diners, automatically, making it a hero for the entrepreneurs in food industry. ‘UberEats’ works in dual way — an online delivery agent (the first impression) and a restaurant aggregator (the catch).
As an aggregator, ‘UberEats’ works with different restaurants as an online delivery agent. For example, if any home-based chef plans to expand their food services or food truck owner wants to deliver food to a user’s doorstep, they can partner up with ‘UberEats’ and use their logistics network to safely deliver food, keeping fresh and on time!
As a food startup, owners have a lot of hassle managing their small setups with limited staff. ‘UberEats’ offers convenience, a pleasant experience and seamless transactions for both- owners and app users. Foodies get their food delivered on time and entrepreneurs get returning customers and bolster revenue.
The Three Key Players — Customers, Restaurants and the Delivery Agent
· The restaurants or food startups enlist themselves with apps like ‘Uber eats’.
· The app uses customer location and offers them to place an order with any nearest food point to ensure quick food delivery.
· The app has verified payment methods; a user can select from the list and pay through a card, digital wallet or in cash.
· The restaurant is notified after the payment and processes the delivery confirmation. Meanwhile, the nearest delivery agent is assigned to the customer’s location for delivering the order.
· Once prepared, ordered food is handed over to the delivery agent and the customer is notified about the food status.
How Can You Make Your App Stand Out like UberEats?
When developing an app like ‘UberEats’, make sure you know needs of your target audience. This app is for people, therefore, you make sure that your app is aligned with latest market trends and meets users’ demands in a way that nobody else is doing. For example, you are sending notifications about amazing deals with the current order or you are giving them a special discount on every order. It helps in increasing returning customer base.
Alternatively, develop the app with common features from existing ones. While option 1 has the potential as users will be able to relate to something and find ease with but the latter has its own challenges. The payment gateways are integrated according to the region these apps are serving.
On that note, I have listed some striking features to help you build a winning app, get majority of users on board and launch your new food delivery venture.
· Contactless Delivery
Contactless delivery is a compulsion of pandemic. Even though this trend gained importance recently but as a foodie many of us always wanted minimum contact of our food with the delivery agents while not being perturbed from arranging cash, late at nights. Here, the contactless delivery through digital wallets and debit cards comes in handy. A customer pays to the app and the owner is notified of order completion. It’s a win-win situation for both customers and owners-increases customers’ confidence in online food ordering and helps startup owners bolster revenue.
· Geofencing
This is the best way for increasing user engagement and ensuring quick food delivery. The app catches users’ location and notifies nearby restaurants. The app informs users about any food point that is not serving due to rush hour. Such information keeps users informed and helps them make decisions; resulting in a better experience.
For a custom approach, app can include mobile push notifications, advertisement messages or special deals of the hour through email or text messages. Adding this feature can bring additional revenue to restaurants or startups wanting to promote their services.
· Personalization
With on-demand apps, users’ in-app activities and interests can be tracked. The app can be designed to upsell and cross-sell based on user’s interest. Such as if a user is searching for pizza, the app can notify a user to check available deals with amazing discounts. Also, notifying users when checking out to add additional food items that go with the main order is like helping a customer to decide on an order. Simultaneously, increasing bills brings more revenue to business.
· Multiple Payment Options
Quick service is something that every diner wants today. Nobody wants to wait in long queues to place orders and make payments. The ability to pay through app makes the entire food delivery process systematic, streamlined and convenient. Users get to choose suitable payment options, complete the sales funnel, bring transactions to an app, and eliminate any third-party handling.
It’s better to incorporate popular and commonly used payment options like debit/credit card to UPI, cash on delivery and digital wallets. The seamless ordering and payment help in getting returning customers.
· Integrating ChatBot’s
Integrating AI-based chatbots in the app is the best way to collect users’ feedback and learn about their queries. The app can include improved features if getting similar requests from customers to know about any deals or to list any new restaurant with the app. The AI chatbots can reply to customers 24/7 helps in improving customer satisfaction.
· Loyalty Programs
By incorporating loyalty programs into online food delivery apps, your customers can receive benefits in the form of cashback and discounts availed on every purchase. Introducing new features like referrals and improving credit history will increase user loyalty and will attract a new customer base.
How to Monetize Apps as Uber eats
Food delivery apps can generate revenue in different ways, a couple of them are explained below for your convenience
· Delivery Charges
If you can offer delivery services for restaurants that do not have their independent delivery teams, then you can make a considerable profit from the percentages charged in every order. Like Deliveroo, they are making $129 million just from their delivery services. They charge $2.50 per order, earning a decent profit daily. The delivery charges can be calculated based on the distance or can be a percentage of the total cost of each order.
· Daily Deals
To increase revenue and customer base, food delivery apps are working along with restaurants to offer their most ordered dishes at throw-away prices on the app. Once the customer places an order, it is passed on to the restaurant, the restaurant can offer side orders that go with the discounted orders to enhance customer experience and upsell. It’s a win-win situation for all parties. The fooder gets to enjoy the best deal, increases order bills and the commission for the food delivery app increases too.
· Advertising
New food startups or restaurants can pay for food delivery apps to display their services in top searches. The app can list paying clients in top searches and can charge them a percentage for the number of orders increased with the help of this service.
· Email Marketing
Users give their personal emails to food delivery apps to get emails about deals and offers. Sending dedicated emails with catchy headlines to offer coupon codes, discounts and promotions can increase user engagement. Especially, on special occasions like Mother’s day or other celebrations, any user would like to know which restaurants are giving offers and with your email marketing, you can help users to make informed decisions.
· Rush hours
Hunger sees no time! A user can order at any time of the day. The food delivery app can charge an additional percentage for delivering food in peak hours or at night when no other eatery is offering delivery services. Hungry foodies will definitely pay additional charges to get a hand on their bite.
Your on-demand food delivery app can bring quick revenue if you know your target audience. Look for operations of other apps in your region and their service structure. Identify the spot where you can cut in. Making necessary improvements in this area will definitely bring ROI.
Final Thoughts
Based on the current scenario, investing in developing on-demand food delivery apps can be considered a successful business. It is one of the best and safe ways to launch a business with less investment and generate immediate revenue. The food delivery app will work as an intermediator between restaurants, food startups and customers. Let me know your thoughts on this!
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Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
