It is often stated by business gurus that you never sell a product or service but a solution! The solution can be in terms of convenience or efficiency people have always loved restaurant food for the variety and the unit test they offer but there was a time when people had to essentially go to restaurants to enjoy that food. There was also a possibility to pack the restaurant food and get it home, but it still meant that you needed to go to the restaurant.
Food delivery solutions presented a great opportunity for people to enjoy restaurant food in their homes. The ushering of food delivery on-demand applications has opened up a new avenue for restaurants, people looking for gig engagements, and even for aspiring entrepreneurs to build a business out of these applications. UberEats can be considered one of the pioneers when it comes to delivery applications. The very presence of the term ‘Uber’ has given the credibility to be the market leader when it comes to food delivery on demand.
Today, a lot of businesses that embark on food delivery on-demand having looking to build an app like UberEats. UberEats has been considered the gold standard for food delivery apps. A lot of businesses look forward to emulating the business model of UberEats in every sense.
The Revenue Models
For any business, it is important to figure out the different channels of revenue that keep the profit flowing in. For a business like UberEats, there are different channels of generating revenue.
UberEats charges a flat delivery fee for all deliveries, and at least they used to. Today, the delivery fee is calculated based on parameters like the distance between the customer and the restaurant. It varies anywhere between $2 and $8 per order. All this might seem like a small amount on paper, the sheer number of orders, and the volume of business makes it a huge stream of revenue.
It cannot be denied that UberEats is creating a new stream of revenue for restaurants and they are making restaurants enjoy the fruits of some businesses that they would never have had access to. For this gesture, UberEats charges a commission from the restaurants for all the orders that are made via their app. The charges are anywhere between 15% and 40% of the order value.
Just like any other platform that has accumulated quite a good number of users, UberEats also has its own sponsor platform. Any new restaurant that would like to gain more visibility can pay the app and earn themselves a sponsor listing. Even this premium listing contributes to the revenue of the app.
The Different Delivery Models
Another aspect to be figured out before you start a food delivery business is the business model that you will be adopting. Some food delivery business can find their responsibilities only in the territory of facilitating Orders and the delivery is left to the restaurant. Some other platforms handle everything from end-to-end starting right from facilitating orders until delivering them to the customer.
The 2nd model is preferred by both the restaurants and the users because it presents a host of advantages for all the parties involved. On one side, restaurants can find themselves preparing and packing food which can be considered their core responsibility. The users do not have to coordinate between multiple parties to ensure that their food gets delivered. The presence of multiple touchpoints only contributes to conclusions and delays. Finally, the order-and-delivery model provides gig employment opportunities for a lot of delivery executives and the fleet of delivery executives could include people looking for part-time income and even students.
Both models offer lucrative monetization avenues and have their own share of advantages and disadvantages. Depending on your capital, your market, and your competency, you will need to arrive at the right business model for you!
Researching Your Market
When it comes to choosing the right business model, market research is of paramount importance. Only upon understanding your customers and your market will you be able to arrive at the perfect business model, and even decide on whether or not your app idea will work. Sometimes, it would be a good idea to define a profitable niche within your target market. For example, you could start a food delivery app exclusively for vegans or diabetics.
To research your market, you will need to ask the right questions. You will need to understand the social characteristics of your target including but not limited to their gender, age, and income spectrum. You will also need to understand the way in which your target audience spends their free time. A strong correlation has been found between Netflix-watching habits and food ordering habits. You will also need to position yourself competitively against the other players who have already established a presence in the market.
The Usual Features
Creating an app like UberEats involves putting together a lot of models that need to function in tandem to execute the desired task.
- Your app needs to facilitate easy registration including simple mechanisms like email address, phone number, or using legacy logins like Google and Facebook.
- The app needs to be equipped with a robust search feature that can help users search by the dishes they want for the restaurant they want to order from. The search feature should also have a filter in place, so the users can easily narrow down on their choices like vegan or Chinese.
- One of the greatest advantages brought about by the on-demand ecosystem is the presence of GPS and its assistance in tracking. Once the order has been placed, the user should get live updates on the order including but not limited to the status and the movement of the delivery executive.
- At a time when the whole world is plagued by the coronavirus crisis, contactless delivery needs to be insured at all costs. One simple step that can be taken towards this endeavor is to make your payment gateways versatile. You will need to tie up with a payment service provider like Braintree or Stripe that can accommodate multiple payment options including debit cards, credit cards, internet banking, and wallets.
- To keep the entire system democratic, you will need to have a review and rating system in place which helps users to rate the restaurant and the delivery experience distinctly.
Some Finer Points
Most of the food delivery companies look at the technological and operational perspective of the business. However, they forget the aspect called customer delight. There are certain trains that need to be taken into consideration when you develop your app like UberEats.
Social media plays a major role in your food delivery ecosystem. You can use social media for facilitating an easy login and registration, and can also use it as a channel for providing customer support through specific hashtags. In addition, some food delivery ecosystems even enable ordering using social media. Domino’s, for example, lets you order pizza through a treat but you will need to create a pizza profile to ensure that your orders are spot on.
The entire world is moving or rather ambling towards Artificial Intelligence and virtual assistance. Your food delivery application should facilitate ordering through chatbots and messengers. More often than not, ordering involves choosing a specific name and figure to find the quantity, and in rare cases, it might involve customization and addons. Given this factor of monotony, ordering using virtual assistants can make the entire experience interactive and fun! Domino’s, GrubHub, and JustEat have already embarked on facilitating orders using chatbots.
Smartwatches are slowly catching up to becoming a global craze. The number of smartwatches is all set to breach the 60 million mark and it can only be expected to grow faster than before. Therefore, having a smartwatch app can go a long way in ensuring customer satisfaction. Simple updates about your order to this can be updated on the smartwatch, so people do not have to take their phones out every time there is a notification.
Conclusion
Food delivery was already looking at a steep curve moving up and toward the right and the COVID-19 crisis has only catalyzed the magnitude of rising. If you would like to ride on this wave and surf on the profits that it promises, all you need to do is get in touch with an app development company that specializes in white label clones of UberEats. They will not only take care to develop your UberEats-like app but also customize it according to your business needs.
