The development of the Internet has a positive impact on business development. We can say that these are interrelated processes. Businesses are improving, and completely new directions are appearing. A few years ago, one such area in the catering industry was food delivery services. Meal delivery service is a profitable business. Unlike large-scale fashionable restaurants, it does not require much space and is a more convenient solution for the modern man.
The meal delivery site performs several functions at once. If we draw an analogy with the many representative institutions, the food delivery site is an advertising billboard, and the waiter and administrator. Thanks to this site, the customer can sit at home in a relaxed atmosphere, choose from a menu of institutions, its dishes, and order delivery right to your home with a couple of clicks. It is not surprising that food delivery service has become incredibly popular since its inception because it is very convenient and practical. You don’t have to waste time cooking, and instead, you can take care of other, more important things.
The competition in the food delivery market is growing, not the least of which is the quarantine restrictions. Owners of such establishments are looking for new methods of attracting customers, and some of them have already succeeded in this by creating mobile applications of their establishments for smartphones. Thanks to this, the number of orders in their establishments has increased significantly, and the business’s profitability has reached a new level. But how do you create a meal delivery app? What should be in a mobile delivery app, and how do you make it popular? That’s what we’re going to talk about in this article. Let’s get started!
How to create a mobile app for your delivery
If you don’t outsource a mobile app development to a software development company, your mobile app for your food delivery requires paying as much attention to creating a business plan. How user-friendly your app will determine its popularity, the number of customers, and, of course, your profits. Next, we’ll take a point-by-point look at all the steps of creating a mobile app and start with the website.
Food delivery website: Why it’s better to start with a web resource and only afterward think about creating an app
When launching your food delivery site, you need to know your potential customers and the niche. Every city has its competition and level of employment, so to start a food delivery business, the best solution is to create a website first.
Your website should have all the tabs your potential customer may need to place an order. Consider the fact that your website is a product showcase of your establishment. Its design and photos located on it should be of the highest quality and show your food in all its glory. Also, do not forget about the intuitiveness of your potential client should take a minimum amount of time to select your favorite dish, add it to the basket and make delivery to your home. The principle of order payment is also essential. It would help if you allowed the consumer to pay for orders in whatever way is convenient for them, including adding the option of online payment to the site.
Easy to navigate
When downloading the app of your establishment and getting to its start screen for the first time, the user should immediately understand how to order delivery and where to find the dishes you offer. A lot depends on how successful the app will be and how it will affect the income from your business.
All tabs should be signed or marked with icons that the consumer can understand for ease of navigation. For example, you can use the pizza icon to note that this is the tab where your potential customer can view the pizzas your establishment delivers. You can improve your customers’ experience and attract more users to your establishment.
Informative
Your user should be able to find out all the information they are interested in, both about the food and the history of your establishment. Opening your mobile app, the client should immediately know about promotions you are currently running and the most popular dishes among consumers. Also, a good solution would be to add to each dish card its composition so that consumers who have allergies to certain products know what is safe for them and what is better not to order.
Convenient
Ordering through the app should take less time than through the website. The desire to save time and usability will cause users to download your app. A successful solution would be to place an interactive shopping cart that will follow users as they scroll through menus and explore your app’s tabs. Among other things, your user must have the ability to know at any moment the delivery terms, its cost, and delivery time available at the moment.
Incentive
In addition to selling your meals, you can also add a so-called “personal account” to your app. In it, users can see what they have ordered before and what they liked best. To encourage users to sign up for your app and thus promote it in app stores, you can create a reward system in which a discount promo code or a special offer from your establishment will be provided to the consumer for signing up. Thanks to the “personal cabinet,” you will be able to communicate more closely with the consumer and get his opinion on all the innovations. You can also inform him about all the changes and promotions planned for the near future.
Attractive
Creating an app, you should take care of its attractiveness. The appearance of the app, its style, and design should please your potential customer, and at the same time, be thematic about your establishment. For example, Japanese characters and civic symbols are great for a Japanese food delivery mobile app, while northern themes are better for a steakhouse.
You should also pay attention to the design of all the buttons and tabs of the program. There shouldn’t be anything on the client’s screen that he can’t predict. This approach will improve your customer’s user experience and increase your food ordering program’s chances of constant use.
By taking all of the above points into account and treating them properly, you can give your potential customer the most comfortable application where they can quickly and easily order the meal they like. Thus, you will be able to make your delivery service more popular, increase the number of orders, and increase the business’s profitability, allowing you to develop it in the future.
How to create a mobile delivery app on your own
We’ve got the basics covered, but what about the process of developing the app itself? Where does it start, and what does the work plan look like that you need to do? Next, we’ll take a detailed look at each point of developing a mobile delivery app that can make your establishment popular.
The plan for creating a mobile app looks like this:
1. Concept Creation.
In this step, you need to think about all the pages and tabs of your upcoming app. It will allow you to further concentrate on the design of your app while not being distracted by adding pages that you didn’t initially plan for.
2. UX prototype.
Creating a prototype will allow you to understand how intuitive your app will be. When developing a prototype, you can specify the dimensions of all the elements present in the pages of the future application. It allows you to quickly create the look and design of your app without fear that one part will overlap the other, making the page work incorrectly.
3. Design Development
In this step, you can create the look and feel of your future application. Thanks to the dimensions you specified when creating the prototype, this process will take much less time, and you will be able to focus all your attention on the visual effect of the design. You have to pay special attention to this point because the design of your app and its visual beauty will attract your potential user.
4. The design of all the pages of the app.
At this stage, you can put the finishing touches on the design of your app. Pay special attention to the small details and elements on each page. They are often the ones that attract users. Their incorrect format can lead to a negative opinion about your institution.
5. Programming
At this stage, you can write your application’s code and implement all the functions you plan to add to your resource. At this stage, you must take responsibility for everything you are going to do. The slightest mistake in writing the code can cause the application to work incorrectly. Such a situation can cause many problems, from a bland page that won’t open on the user’s screen to difficulties paying for orders in your application and loss of customer data.
6. Integration of payment methods
For a food delivery service app, your users must have the option to pay for their order directly from the app. To do this, you need to integrate different payment methods and add the ability to pay for the order using Google Pay and Apple Pay. Users will appreciate this possibility, and their loyalty to your establishment will increase significantly.
7. Adding social networks
This step is also worth special attention. By integrating social networks into your application, you allow your users to register in your app using their data from social networks and make it more popular in terms of app stores of different operating systems.
8. Security
The last stage of development is to create a security system for your service. Keep in mind that with the addition of the ability to initialize your resource with data and social networks, you automatically begin to be responsible for the data that the user has provided you. The same goes for paying for orders. Suppose you miss the point of developing a security system. In that case, it is possible that your users’ data and personal information, along with credit card numbers, will float online and get into the public view.
Conclusion
Suppose you pay attention to each of the points mentioned above. In that case, you will be able to create a comfortable and welcoming service that can attract more new customers to your establishment. Also, with the help of a mobile app, you can expand the target audience of your delivery. With its competent advertising, you can increase the number of potential customers many times over.
