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Developing an Aggregator vs New Delivery Food App

Nataly Palienko 36 Stories

Monday September 24, 2018 , 6 min Read

Over the last few years food delivery market has greatly changed. Eating out or ordering a meal from outside is becoming the norm today. It is no wonder, since such service provides us with so much comfort.

If you are a startup, food delivery market is a perfect spot to fit in. According to McKinsey&Company research, online orders are supposed to exceed offline orders in the future. Therefore, if you are thinking of developing an on-demand food delivery app, it is high time you got in!

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Source: https://www.mckinsey.com

How to get started with the food delivery app development?

In the first place you need to find out what you want to be. On-demand platforms can be of different types ranging from aggregators to new delivery apps. Both of them provide users with an opportunity of comparing offers, placing orders and having an access to reviews via a single app. The difference lies in logistics.

An aggregator serves as a middleman between a customer and restaurants. It accepts orders from users and transmits them to a restaurant. The restaurant takes care of the dispatch.

A new delivery app, in turn, has its own logistic service and offers delivery for the restaurants that do not have their own couriers.

Further information on the difference between these two types may be found in How to Build a Food Delivery app for Restaurant?

As aggregators and new delivery players differ in logistics, they are rather different in their structure. However, their core elements are quite the same:

Login page;
Connection to the user’s bank account;
The ability to compare offers, search restaurants, cuisines and dishes;
Making an order right in the app.

The key challenge for developing a food delivery app

Evidently, one will face some problems, if he decides to be involved in developing a food delivery app. Yet, “Nothing worth having comes easy” as Theodore Roosevelt once said.

As different parties have different objectives, their interests may conflict. Still, it is vital to content everyone. Thus, the application is to work perfectly with everyone. This means that the service should satisfy a consumer, a restaurant owner and a delivery service. There should not be any tension among them. Once you find out the way to make all three collaborate, you are more likely to prosper in the food delivery business.

Solutions to resolve conflicting interests

At first sight, it may seem totally impossible to make all three work together. Nevertheless, there are several ways to fix the problem.

They are:

To create a separate app for each stakeholder:
consumer;
restaurant;
driver/courier.

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Source: https://stormotion.io

To build one application with different logins for each stakeholder.

Creating separate apps for each stakeholder

The first way out would be to develop an individual app for each stakeholder. All three apps may have the same or similar branding and be structured to meet the participant’s needs:

Consumer app should have a quick and easy access to the menus of the nearest restaurants to compare offers and the possibility to place orders.

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Source: http://www.comeneat.com

Restaurant app should have an opportunity to manage placed orders. It would be handy to have an option to differentiate between rejected, completed, ready for pickup or delivered orders.

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Source: http://www.comeneat.com

Delivery app should have a database of all the available orders. It would be absolutely useful for the app to provide couriers with the ability to communicate with the consumer who placed an order and the restaurant that is managing the order.

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Source: http://www.comeneat.com

Creating one app with separate logins

The other solution is to create one application consisting of three different logins. The interface would vary according to the login type:

Consumer interface: comparing offers, making orders.
Restaurant interface: taking care of arranged orders.
Delivery interface: managing pickup/dropoff of orders.

Features to make your food delivery app successful

Features for the customer

Essential elements to satisfy the client’s needs:

A sign-up page. User’s journey begins at this stage. The first impression is extremely crucial. Everything should be easy and attractive. Besides, to make it more convenient, a sign-up page should provide the users with an opportunity to create an account with the help of social media logins, i.e. Facebook, Instagram etc.

A profile/account. Once the user created an account, they need to have an access to the profile. It can consist of profile photos, favorite places, food preferences and saved payment options.

Restaurant search/locator. This page is absolutely important as it provides users with the necessary information. Keep the navigation simple by adding a search button to seek restaurants by its name, address or dishes. It should also comprise detailed information about the restaurants prices, special offers, reviews, menus and open hours.

Order placement. Once the user has made the choice, they should be able to add the dishes in their online cart. The users should be provided with the option to include or exclude things from it. Of course, there should be the summary of an order before confirming with the option to cancel.

Payment processing. To make it trouble-free, you can supply the users with different payment systems. It must be secure, quick and simple! You can add an alternative of paying cash on delivery for those who are unable to pay online.

Features for the restaurant

In some way the restaurant app is similar to the customer app with some peculiarities. To keep order management hassle-free, restaurant owners should be provided with admin panel. It enables to monitor users’ orders and couriers’ requests.

Registration/log in page. This page is ought to let restaurant administrators create an account by putting their business’ details (restaurant’s name, ID, password etc.)

Content managing is intended to provide users with the necessary information, such as contact information, working hours, menus (with the ability to delete items or change the prices).

Order managing is aimed at tracking orders in real time (submitted, cancelled, prepared, ready for pickup or delivered etc.) This page should be well-equipped with order details, e.g., quantity or some additional information.

Features for the driver

A sign-up page should be kept simple by entering courier’s login and password.

Order status of pickup/dropoff page can include the list of the available orders and their details. This page should also cater to the need of real time order tracking statuses (rejected, accepted, in process etc.)

A perfect time to develop a food delivery app

There is no room for hesitation. The food delivery app market is an excellent area for startups. Morgan Stanley Research reports that by 2021, the food sales via online delivery platforms will have reached $21.6 billion. Along with the increasing use of cell phones and tablets, developing an on-demand food delivery app would be an excellent business strategy with a prosperous outcome.