We all have heard about the old adage “Necessity is the mother of invention”. And a number of businesses has achieved phenomenal success by coming up with ground-breaking ideas to make our lives better, while focussing on this old saying. One such dynamic and highly rewarding sector is the online food ordering industry, that has experienced a huge surge in demand over the recent years. Life seems so sorted when you crave for a relishing meal from your favourite restaurant and just by clicking on a few tabs on your phone, you get it delivered in your home. Isn’t it? So, considering the growing importance of food ordering apps, let us focus more on why you should consider investing in food ordering mobile app development.

Increase in demand during the Covid-19 pandemic

It goes without a saying that the Covid-19 pandemic has made us literally stuck in our homes because of the lockdowns and widespread virus infection. But because of the same, the food ordering businesses have experienced a significant rise in the number of orders being placed daily. With people across the world practicing self-quarantine and social distancing to stop the virus spread, these businesses have speed up their operations and capitalize on the opportunity as much as they can. Also, it helped the busy people to get food within few minutes who don’t have much time to go to a restaurant.

Increased transparency and convenience for both restaurateurs and customers

Online food delivery apps have matured over the past few years in terms of penetration of both funding and technology. But increasing the transparency and convenience for both the customers and restaurateurs have always been a vital objective. With the help of an app, it has become much easier to offer real-time information and details of the orders and transactions for both users and merchants as every single relevant data will be present in the app’s screen, thereby making everything more authentic and convenient for them.

Increased number of return customers

With the help of an intuitive food ordering app, it has become easy to retain the customers and drive them to make repeat purchases. By developing a feature-rich and highly functional app, you would be able to offer your customers an enriched, convenient, and effortless ordering experience which, in turn will increase the level of customer satisfaction and repeat purchases.

Continual engagement with customers

A mobile app can be a great way to stay connected with your audience or customers over time. By enticing the users from time to time to place an order, offering exciting coupons, to placing the orders and even recommending friends and family to use the app, you can actually derive a myriad of benefits from a customized mobile app.

What makes a successful food ordering app

When it comes to developing a food ordering app, you need to be specific of the various features of the three crucial applications including the customer app, the restaurant app, and the driver delivery app.

Inherent features of The Customer App

• Search: Your customers should always be allowed to search and compare in between the different cuisines, restaurants, offers by using the app. You should equip them with the convenience of searching by cuisine, price, location, restaurant names, review as per convenience.

• Order: It is important to make the ordering process easy for customers where they can add and remove the items as per their wish from the cart. They should also be able to cancel/reorder the order as per their wish.

• Coupons: Alike all your competitors, you must have this feature in your app to encourage your customers to place orders and build up a loyal user base.

• Real-time tracking: Your customers must be able to track the order starting from preparing the order, to shipment and doorstep delivery.

• Favourites: This feature will help customers to mark and save some of the favourite eateries so that they don’t need to search them once again while making repeat purchases.

• Payment details: The payment system needs to be fast, secure, and easy and you should also integrate different payment gateways including net banking, e-wallets, COD, and more.

• In-app chat: This is important to allow customers discuss on the disputes/queries with the representatives or delivery personnel and get them cleared.

Inherent features of The Restaurant App/Admin Panel

• Manage orders: It will help restaurateurs to receive orders with all the details and then manage them accordingly.

• Manage the content/details: Here restaurateurs will be able to manage name, address, and contact details, menus, prices, etc., of their restaurants.

• Manage deliveries: This feature will help the admin to keep real-time track of location of delivery personnel and work accordingly.

Inherent features of The Driver App

• Registration: It is important to allow the driver to get himself registered by using a username and password.

• Status update: The delivery personnel must receive real-time updates in case of any change in order, location, cancellation of order, etc.

• In-app chat: It is also important to provide him with an in-app chat which, will help him to get in touch with the customer directly about tips on the way to reach their locations, and more.

• Manage the deliveries: It is important to receive the orders on time for the delivery personnel. This would actually help him to prioritize, accept, or reject the orders and keep a track on the deliveries as well.

The bottom line

The food ordering sector is going to make it big and flourish steadily in the upcoming times. Considering the same, investing in food ordering mobile app development seems to be a profitable venture indeed which, can drive steady sales and growth if implemented and managed properly. However, crucial aspects involved in the development process including choosing the right programming language, database, cloud storage option, IDE, utilities, analytics, deployment platforms, and more require profound technical knowledge. And this is why you should always try to hire a leading app development company that will understand your business idea, your customer base, and will offer a tailored solution.

Liked our blog? If yes, please browse through our blog section for more information on latest updates and industry insights. And if you have any unique idea of building a food ordering app, we’re here to be your ultimate guide. Feel free to reach us.