With the two major things such as convenience and high-quality, on-demand food delivery startups have received numerous attention from the customers and they became the revenue opportunity for the entrepreneurs. Within the short span, the stakeholders involved in this startup-like restaurant owners, delivery boys, service providers all are getting plenty of profits from numerous ways.
On the base of this concept, several food delivery businesses have evolved. Starting an on-demand food delivery business is the critical task and the digital platform called food delivery application used for the startup must provide equal support to all the activities of the players involved in the business model.
If the service providers or the app owners approached the development players in the market for the above-said application, then they must be focused on certain things termed as ‘features’. Awareness about what are all the features must be included in the food delivery application is the necessary thing prior to the food delivery app development.
This blog brings such awareness to all the entrepreneurs in the market and makes them the challengeable competitors in the market. Besides, this also presents the changes in the food delivery industry due to the digitization and how the delivery boys get ready to handle such changes in detail.
How Digitization Brings the Changes in the Food Delivery Industry in the Year 2020?
On looking into the traditional food delivery business model, the players involved are only two such as restaurants and the customers. Ordering by the call, waiting for a certain period, and getting the food on the doorstep are the top activities performed by this model.
Alternatively, the evolution of the digitization platforms greatly impacts the food delivery business and introduces several changes. The top-noted changes are observed in business models and delivery sides.
These changes made the conventional food ordering business into the full-fledged service platform step-by-step. Prior to knowing the changes, it is necessary to know the stats of the food delivery business in both the current and future years.
- The revenue of the online food delivery business was observed in the year 2019 was $107,438 Million in the US and it is expected to be $122,739 Million US by the end of 2020.
- The forecast analysis for the food delivery business for the years between 2019-2024 predicts the rate of increase of the revenue value to be 8.8% and the value attained to be $164,002 Million US.
From the stats, you are getting awareness about the scope of the food delivery business in the future scenario. Now, the next move is to know the impact of digitization on the food delivery business.
Changes In Business Model
The first important change observed is delivery by less human interaction and this model is followed by many giant companies to deliver high-quality fresh food items and the items for food preparation.
This model has received numerous attention from the investor side and they started to invest their money to adopt these changes to their business. Through this model, they provided the convenience services to their clients in a timely manner. The changes are aggregated into the following categories:
- Mediators: These are the platforms where the multiple cuisines or restaurants are getting interacted with the customers in a seamless way. The customers participated in this model, selected the restaurant based on the good reviews, and placed the food orders. Mediators passed these orders to the restaurants for preparation. Here, the delivery part is handles\d by the restaurants itself.
- Delivery Platforms: With the top features like the selection of restaurants based on the comparisons and the collaborating delivery platforms, these models provide food delivery to the customers. These models bring fame to the newly evolved restaurants with direct aggregation.
Changes in Delivery Side
The second important change is noted on the delivery side when the customer demands food delivery is on hourly-basis. Hence, digitization explores orderings ways like websites, mobile apps, smart devices, and social media. In the same way, the restaurants also expand their delivery channels like human, smart devices like drone-based delivery.
Initiation of Full-Service Platform
The third important change is the essential thing for the customer side and this is a highly healthy conscious business model where there are no third-parties available. The service provider itself acts as the in-house chefs and they hire the independent players for the delivery process to fulfill the customer’s food demands easily.
In all the above-said digital disruptions, the delivery side plays a huge role and they are the persons who have direct contact with the customers. They know the exact expectations of the customers and played several intermediate roles in the food delivery business. The entrepreneurs who look for the food delivery app development must know the diverse roles of the delivery boy.
How Does a Delivery Boy Get Ready to Meet the Demand?
Reaching food from the restaurants to the customer’s doorstep is highly achieved by the solution called last-mile delivery solution where the delivery boys are involved in this stage. Providing high-quality delivery services during various situations like seasonal demands, natural disasters, pandemic crisis, and the normal scenario may bring stresses to the delivery boys.
Keeping them as one of the partners for the business rather than the employees is the necessary thing for the service providers. To make this process an efficient one, it is necessary to understand what are all the roles they play while delivering the food.
Acts as A Best Human Interface Between Food Ordering and Receiving
The best role for the delivery boy is the human interface where the customers in the food ordering side and the restaurants on the delivery side exchange their wishes. When the customers request their foods, they claim two factors like in-time and the freshness of food.
These two demands make the delivery boys get ready to meet the packaging and optimal distance travel. Digitization in order preparation and finding the optimal route are the necessary things for the delivery boys.
Provider of Robust and Brand Delivery Service
Since the delivery boys are next to the customers, the quality of the entire delivery service is the necessary thing. Keep the brand value of the restaurant and the reputation of the entire system lie in the hands of the delivery boy.
Partnering with the feature-rich platform, the delivery boy notifies the customers with the appropriate notification while traveling and greeting the customers with the timely services. Hence, the next metric to focus on by the delivery boy is to register themselves in the app.
As a Contributor to Revenue Growth for Restaurants
When the restaurant owners provide the food delivery services to the customers, they either partner with the third-party logistics services or the direct hire. In both cases, the revenue growth highly depends on how far you recognize the delivery boy activities.
To recognize the activity of the delivery boy, the service providers are in need to keep an eye on customer’s reviews and feedback. Based on the good reviews, the top-level delivery boy is selected and values their services with the valid promotional offers and the repeated access process. To make the delivery boy fit into future demands, getting the right food delivery application is the necessary thing.
How the Food Delivery Application Offers Support in Delivery Boy Activities?
Generally, the food delivery application provides numerous support to all the stakeholders involved in the business. While looking into the delivery boy side, their impact is highly appreciable. Besides, they changed the way of activities in a high-professional manner. The professionalism lies in the following aspects to make the food delivery process the prosperous one in the market.
Handling Multi-Dimensional Food Orders
As soon as the launch of the food delivery startup, the restaurants, and the customers participated in the application more. And this leads to huge orders. Handling huge orders can be a difficult task observed in both the restaurants and the delivery side.
Fulfilling customer expectations against multi-dimensional orders is the necessary thing. The Auto-allotment of the orders is the specialized feature in the last-mile delivery solution where the manual-based order is the absent one.
Auto-allotment of the food preparation to the restaurants after order placement, auto assigning of the delivery boys available in the region reduces the time, cost, and human energy in the food delivery sector. With this automated process, the handling of the multi-dimensional orders is the easy one.
Top-Level Recognition from Real-World
Providing high-quality services in all aspects gets proper recognition from the customer side. The service quality is highly affected by the following factors: unaware of food status, lack of feasible communication platform, and the inconvenience payments.
But, the food delivery application lies in the back of the delivery side means, getting the top-level recognition is the easier one by resolving above said issues. With the consistent status update to the customers, while the trip, built of a stable communication platform to convey the location changes and the convenient payment platforms, the last mile delivery solution allows the delivery boys to process the food orders easily.
Stress-Free Delivery Schedules
Handling food delivery to customers who are receding in various places is a critical task. Generally, the application allows the customers to set when the food is required in case of any events. Delivery of the food on a prescribed time period is high depending on the distance where the delivery boy traveled.
The unaware of the optimal route from the number of routes available may bring the delay in the food delivery trips and this leads to stress on both sides. But, the inclusion of feasible options called GPS navigation and the route-optimization techniques, identification of an optimal route is an easy task.
With this feature, the traveling distance is considerably minimized and makes the delivery boy reach the destination on the prescribed schedules.
From the detailed review regarding the impact of the mobile application on the delivery activities, the major key takeaways are listed as follows:
- Seamless interaction platform for all stakeholders
- Smart route-finding options to minimize the traveling premises
- Tracking options to know the status of the food
- Easy payment solutions
On the whole, the above-listed are the prominent features for the food delivery app implementation and that makes the business as profitable and lively-one compared to traditional call-based ordering.
What are all the Must-Have Features of Food Delivery Boy Application
The last one is the core value of the blog such that what are all the features must be incorporated in the food delivery application. As we all know that the stakeholders involved in the food delivery business are four and each of them has the desired features to carry the activities. For all the interfaces, the registration by the email, mobile numbers, and social media accounts is common. Besides, various features exist. They are listed in detail as follows:
Customer-Side
Food & Restaurant Selection: After login and create their own profiles, the customers are directed to the searching process where they searched and picked up the restaurants and food based on their taste and experience.
Set Scheduling Limits: In case of events and urgency food requirements, the customers are allowed to set the time period for the food. This feature allows the customer to get the food ahead of the event.
Tracking of Food in Real-Time: After setting the time period for food, the application allows the customers to consistently track the food status from preparation to delivery at their doorstep.
Payment Gateway: After the receiving the orders, customers are allowed to pay the amount through either cash or cashless apps.
Ratings and Reviews: After getting a complete service, the important feature that needs to be included in the customer panel is the ratings and reviews. From these, top-level players in the restaurants and the delivery boys are evaluated.
History of Orders: After every order completion, they must be saved to the history side. The customers can directly select the orders next time instead of a random search.
Restaurant Side
Home Page: The information regarding the completed orders, pending orders, and processed orders are showcased.
Food Availability: When the customers are requested, then the restaurant owners do the inventory process where the food is available or not. Based on the availability status, the restaurants may accept or cancel the requests easily. This way helps the customers to choose the other restaurants easily.
Own Profile Management: Each restaurants have their own account name, logo, food details, quantity, and the price tag. In some cases, the restaurant owners include the necessary discount options at the end of the menu to attract the customers.
Revenue Reports: After every completion of the orders, the restaurant owners may switch over this action to analyze the revenue earned for the day.
Delivery Boy Side
Orders Status: After the preparation of the food is over, this option contains the number of orders to be delivered to the customers with the location information.
Commit or cancel the order based: on the location information, this option makes the delivery driver either proceed with the order or cancel the order. This option is helpful in emergency scenarios.
Geo-Location: The most important feature to be included where the delivery boy identifies the customer’s location, distance to reach the location optimally. This reduces the time and cost of travel.
History Maintenance: Right from the new orders to the completed orders the status of all the orders on a day is completely included in this option where the delivery boy can easily track their process on this feature.
In-app Call Preference: certain scenarios, the delivery boy is in need to call the customers regarding their location and other details. This option allows the delivery boy to make the call with just a single tap in the app.
Multi-Payment Mode: After the completion of the delivery, the payments regarding every order, and the status of the payment are showcased in this option. The special thing to meet the future demand is to support multi-payment with any currencies.
Engaged with Notifications: If the order is handover to the delivery boy, then the work for notification starts here. For every process, the notifications periodically send to the customer to make them feel better after ordering.
Admin
This acts as the brain of the entire system and it contains the following features in order to provide the full back-end support.
Secure Account: Since the admin is the important interface, authenticity is the major thing. With the password and the two-factor authentication methodologies, the accounts are highly protected from unauthorized access. While the system is handled globally, the admin can play multiple roles. This feature is supported in assigning such roles.
Clear Contents: Managing the contents like food items, prices, restaurant details comes under the control of admin. They can easily create the pages for the restaurants and their food items and make the customers choose among them.
Right Discounts & Offers: After assigning the prices to the food items, adding the discount coupons or offers is the necessary thing to attract the customers. This feature allows the admin panel to provide the percentage reduction of the original prices using the right discount logic. This will be a helpful one to protect the customer base.
Multi-user Management: This feature allows the admin to make an eye on user login details, their favorite food preferences, and the history of orders to promote the service across various platforms.
Delivery Boys Management: The next feature supports the admin to monitor the activities of delivery boys during the delivery process. The number of delivery boys is an active state and off state, delivery orders handled for the day, trip details, etc are shown in this feature.
Real-Time Analytics: The important feature for the admin panel is the analytics that includes the delivery time duration, familiar orders with the timestamp, and the location details. This feature can help the admin to scale-up the business into the higher-level.
Conclusion
On-demand food delivery is the wonderful money-making business platform where it attracts many entrepreneurs and the restaurant owners to start and scale up their business respectively. The emergence of mobile applications dilutes the pressure of the stakeholders involved in business with attractive options.
While approaching the app development company for the food delivery process, the business owners must focus on certain things related to the market and customer demands. Innovations every day highly impact customer behavior and they change their expectations frequently.
The must-have features for the food delivery boy app in 2020 to meet the customer expectations are clearly demonstrated here. Make sure if all the features are included in the application and launch your own food delivery startup to provide quality food to the customer timely.
