With an influx of modern technology into smartphones and mobile applications, our lifestyles have changed over the years. Starting from socializing, shopping, managing finances to ordering and getting food at our doorsteps – mobile applications are bringing the entire universe into our hands, making every “impossible” thing possible.
A few years ago, people used to dream to get delicious, mouth-watering food delivered at their doorsteps. It was beyond everyone’s imagination that ordering your favourite food without moving an inch from the sofa and receiving it within a few minutes would ever be possible.
The market for food delivery industry is in its boom these days. According to the MCA report, nearly 60% of the entire proportion of UK adults is actively using food delivery services, ordering at least two meals per month on an average.
The report also found that in 2018 UK food delivery market was worth £8.1 – up 13.4% per year. However, per the same MCA survey, conducted in 2018, the market will be worth nearly £9.8 billion by the next three years (2023).
There are multiple on-demand food delivery platforms in the UK at this moment. Just Eat is one of them. A recent press release report of the company reveals that they have already served more than 500 million orders only in the UK.
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Apart from a successful website, Just Eat owns a mobile application for both the Android and iOS users.
If you are also dreaming to develop an app that works like Just Eat, but do not have much idea on the approximate budget and benefits, then scroll down to reveal the secret about the cost:
Let’s Know More About Just Eat
Just Eat is one such rapidly growing online food delivery service chain that performs as a mediator between various restaurants and the customers. This platform was first introduced in Denmark back in 2001.
Since then Just Eat has spread its wings globally and has reached multiple countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, France, Italy and others.
As per Just Eat Annual report 2018, this leading online food delivery platform has already achieved annual revenue of more than £779.5 million.
This app allows its customers to choose their nearest takeaway restaurants from the given list, order their favourite food, paying online and then selecting the delivery or pick-up option to get the food at hand.
Just Eat mobile app has spread a hug network all around the world enlisting more than 30,000 eateries in the team.
Some of the key features of this app include:
- Exploring multiple restaurants before choosing the right one
- Push notifications on placing orders
- Easy online payment facilities
- Order tracking
- Real-time rider location tracker
- Customer rating and review options
- Social media sharing
- General settings with lots of customizable options
- Admin dashboard
- Online card payments or PayPal
How Do Food Ordering Apps Help in Business Growth?
It is highly advisable to set up a food ordering app if you already into the food business industry to boost business growth and drawing more customers.
But before doing that, you need to be a 100% knowledgeable on how the app flow process works in case of online food delivery. Check out this infographic which should give you a fair idea.
The primary benefits that can expand your food delivery business are as follows:
- Scalable Business Model: Scaling a business model becomes easier if you add food delivery app to your restaurant business.
- Smooth Ordering: Food ordering apps can reduce the unfortunate cases of misunderstanding what the customers are ordering over the phone calls.
- Better Customer Service: You can serve your customers and understand their needs with the help of a food ordering and delivery app.
- 24*7 Support: Physical restaurants often get closed by the night while virtual restaurants give 24*7 customer support, allowing the customers to place an order for food at any time of their choice.
- Reaching More People: Food ordering apps usually follow a set of digital marketing strategies that can make your brand in popular on various media platforms. And thus, you can get more customers ensuring business revenue within a short time.
The Things to Keep In Mind While Developing Own Food Delivery App
Investing your time and attention in building an impressive app interface is not enough in case you are planning to develop a successful food delivery app like Just Eat.
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There are few things to remember and understand before getting into the process of processing the app.
- The Location: A good geo-location always helps the customers to take away their orders from the nearby outlets. Also, it can help you to evaluate the delivery charges for delivering the food at the user’s doorstep.
- Updating the Complete Menu: When it comes to food, the first thing one looks for is a complete menu. While developing the app you need to focus on updating the complete menu of food that you offer along with their prices and pictures to engage the users.
- Location Tracker: A navigation tracker can save both the delivery person and the customer to avoid the hassle. Sometimes finding the location of the restaurants or the delivery address becomes troublesome; hence an effective navigation tracker – Google maps – is necessary.
- Quick Ordering: Going through the long-listed menu is not always what the users want. A quick ordering feature can let them quickly choose from their past orders or from the listed popular food that is available in a particular restaurant.
- Tracking Food: Now who wants to wait for a long after ordering food? Let your customers updated about their food processing with the help of an inbuilt food tracker that will also include the location of the person who is coming for the delivery.
- Scheduled Delivery: This unique option helps the users to place an order for their food in advance and schedule their preferred delivery time. For example, the user can order his dinner sitting at this office desk and receive the delivery on his way back from office or directly at his doorstep.
- SMS Notification/Push Notifications: Enabling the SMS notification is another impressive way to update your customers about the status of their food order along with the details of the delivery person or the restaurant.
- Online Payment: People these days, prefer not to pay by cash but cards. Therefore, you need to keep in mind to make your online payment system smooth, fast and hassle-free for the users.
- Social Media Integration: In this era of social media, everyone likes to showcase their activities in forms of status to others. Direct social media login can help your app to reach more people and also help you to keep updating about the on-going affairs.
- Custom Search: Custom searching option on the mobile app allows the users to customize their preferred location, find out the favourite restaurant by name or by the popular cuisine. This can save the user’s time when they are in a rush.
- Rewarding for Loyalty: Rewarding gift coupons, special offers or points to your loyal users or customers can help in building a long-term business-customer relation.
Cost To Develop A Successful Mobile App Like Just Eat
It is a new-age trend to expand a business online. Several mobile apps dedicated to a particular business act as a catalyst and engage more users or customers easily in today’s world.
Studies found that the food delivery industry UK have taken an incredible rise as the concept of online food delivery stepped into the market.
The total market estimation was to be 6.2 billion British pounds in 2017. Developing an outstanding food delivery app like Just Eat is like adding a new feather of glory to your crown (business).
However, the cost to develop a food delivery app like Just Eat usually varies depending on multiple factors, as follows:
- Functionality: The budget for building an app firstly depends on the purpose and functionality of the app. If you want to make the app with lots of features and functions instead of a simple straightforward app, then the cost will increase.
- Smartphone Platforms: App development cost varies depending on the mobile platforms – whether you are looking forward to making the app especially for the iOS or Android users or for both the OS users.
- App Design: If you are looking to develop a stunning and impressive design like Just Eat with complex ideas your app building cost might rise high.
- Using Visual Objects: The budget can also increase in case you want to use complex visual effects to make the app more engaging for its users.
- Maintenance Plans: Your responsibilities do not end once the development process is over. You need to regularly maintain the app ensuring smooth customer service and this might cost an entire technical support team.
Now, you can’t reach the destination with a strong team working shoulder to shoulder. The core members required for this entire expedition include:
- UX/UI Developers: These experienced professionals will help you in making a sleek and smart app interface that will easily impress the app users.
- Android/iOS Developers: Apart from the clean interface, performance is necessary. So, Android/iOS developers are going to help and improve the performance of the app on various mobile platforms.
- Backend Developers: They are the web programmers who will take care of the “server-side” ensuring a smooth running server. They will also help you in maintaining data using their analytical minds.
- Project Manager: Project managers will be responsible for planning and executing of the entire project and for delivering the project within the specified time-frame.
- Strong QA Team: Apart from all of them, a strong quality assurance team is required for the testing of the app before and after the app development to ensure a smooth and faster performance.
However, the estimation to develop a on-demand food delivery app like Just Eat ranges between $15,000- $20,000 on an average, which might rise to $30,000 and more in some cases depending on the above-mentioned factors.
The charges for such app development also depend on the country and location of the app developers. As per recent market studies, the US-based app developers charge around $300 per hour, the European developers might charge nearly $200 per hour while the Indian based developers charge around $100 per hour.
Also, the app development cost for the iOS will be a little cheaper and the entire process will also be faster as compared to app development for Android OS.
Read Also: 10 Best Health and Fitness Apps 2023
Wrapping Up
Are you already into the food delivery industry and still do not own a delivery app like Just Eat? Well, you are then swimming the current. These days, a huge number of restaurants and food outlets are either collaborating with on-demand food delivery apps or developing their own.
Food delivery apps do not only make it easy for the customers to find the best eateries around them but also make the business digital.
Last but not least, in this age of high-end smartphones and mobile applications, it will be a worthy decision to invest your hard-earned money to develop a food delivery app like Just Eat, because its cost is affordable and as we all know it is always better late than never.
