How to Create a Food Delivery App?

Food delivery is the current hottest trend in the entire world which has positively changed the way how we eat.

Whenever we feel hungry, we can order our favorite food be it a pizza, burger or curry, fish, or whatever we need even just a soft drink.

Photo by Helena Lopes on Pexels

Everything that is edible is now available at our fingertips and that’s the beauty of food delivery apps that are making it possible.

By any chance if you are an entrepreneur or wanna-be an entrepreneur who is interested in creating a food delivery app, you are on the right page as here we are going to talk about how to create a food delivery app that can be used for SAAS, A Restaurant or simply a small business.

Before we actually dig into the how-to guide, here are some questions with their answers to help you understand the food delivery world easily:

What is a food delivery app?

A food delivery app is a mobile application that connects customers with local businesses that deliver food by taking orders online. These apps allow customers to order food online and have it delivered right to their door. There are many different types of food delivery apps including those that specialize in delivering takeout, delivery services, and catering too.

Why would I want to create a food delivery app?

There are several reasons why someone like you would want to create a food-delivery app. One reason is that you could make money off of it. Another reason is that you could help people save time. A third reason is that you could provide a service that isn't currently offered in your town or the city (if that's the case).

How do I know if my idea is good enough to start building?

The best way to find out if your idea is good enough to build is to talk to others about it. You should ask friends, family members, and coworkers what they think about your idea. If you don't have any friends or family to talk to, then you can always go online and look at forums where people discuss ideas.

Where can I get started?

There are many ways to create a food delivery app. You could build your own website and sell your own food products, you can create an app to deliver food, or you could partner with a company that already sells food and offer your services as a way to deliver their food. There are many different options to choose from.

Here's our guide to help you create a food delivery app:

1. Select a Type (Delivery Model)

The very first step you have to go through while you are going to create your own food delivery app is to select a delivery model and make sure you understand that properly.

Here’s a list of delivery models with their descriptions:

PCM: This is called the “Platform to Customer Model” and it is how most of the brands are working in the food delivery business. Apps such as UberEats, DoorDash and more uses this model where they create a list of restaurants and food makers that are near to a customer and they charge a 20 to 30% (even 50% in some areas) fee on every order from the business, not the customer.

Aggregator: This model is useful for JustEat, GrubHub, and Delivery Hero as these platforms are using this model where they act as an intermediary body to connect customers with local restaurants and food makers and facilitate the customer with customer support options, and offers a monthly subscription too. They make money on every successful transaction done for food delivery.

Full-stack: This is when you create everything on your own, from the food delivery app/website to food, hiring delivery staff, and cooking the food too. This is when you don’t rely on any third-party service and still offer the same services to the customers. This requires a high budget and extra human resources to fulfill the customer's needs.

RCM: This is called the “Restaurant to Consumer Model” that is beautifully working for the companies such as MacDonalds, Dominos, and Burger King they also follow the Full-stack model in which they handle everything from taking orders, to cooking food and then delivering it. But they use hybrid mode to outsource food delivery wherever possible and skip third-party apps in between.

You should select your business model and then go for creating the app on that particular.

2. Hire a Software House

It sounds like investing big for creating an app but it is not that huge. You can go to a software house and ask them if they can help you create a food delivery app that is according to your needs.

You can also check this custom mobile app development firm to help you with your app idea. They are professionals and will be able to guide you.

There's a simple guide on how you can hire a coder or software house:

1. Go to their website and check their services
2. Check if they can send you a demo of their services
3. Read about their recent work and clients
4. Read their reviews on Google, Yelp, G2, Trustpilot, and Facebook
5. If reviews are good, you can talk with that software house
6. If their customer service is good, you can hire them

And always ask them to prepare an idea on your own idea and let you know how they will create the app, on which platform, and how much they need you to pay.

This will help you easily create a food delivery app without coding anything yourself and don't get scammed too.

3. Buy a Readymade Script

If you are on a tight budget or just testing around to see if you can do something with a food delivery app, you can just buy one of these readymade php scripts and create a website on top of that.

You can also search for a free or open-source food delivery website script that you can install on a shared hosting server and get your website ready in a few hours.

Then all you have to do is just create a web-view app using the URL of your website and there you have a working food delivery app that you can handle from any device you want.

However, this is not a highly lucrative way to do it.

4. Reskin an App

You can Google for a food delivery app template (source code) and buy it from a reputable app source code vendor or get it for free from GitHub, then customize it by reskinning the app.

If you are not familiar with how to reskin an app from its source code, you can hire freelancers from Upwork, Freelancer, or Fiverr to do it for you.

This is always a quick and easy way to develop not just a food delivery app but any kind of app you would like such as a social media app, a toolkit, a browser, a game, or whatever you can imagine.

5. Learn to Code

This is our last method to tell you.

If you have some spare time of about 6 months and you are a keen learner, you should start learning a coding language that is helpful in creating an iOS or Android app.

You should watch a short course on YouTube and then go for a paid course on Udemy or any other website you like.

If you don't want to spend on learning a coding language, you can find some helpful content on YouTube alone and start practicing it to develop your very own food delivery app one day.

However, it is not that easy to learn to code and then develop an app in not more than 6 months. Cheers!

Why do people use food delivery apps?

Well, people use these apps because they want fast, convenient, and affordable meals. They don't want to go out and spend hours searching for a restaurant that serves what they want or would love to eat. Instead, they just open their phones and type in the name of the restaurant they want to eat at. Then, they choose how much money they want to pay per meal, and that's it! Their food is delivered right to them without any struggle at their side.

This is why the idea of developing a food delivery app is always a winning idea.

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