How to Create a Delivery App: The Step-by-Step Guide

Just imagine that groceries, meals, or even last-minute gifts are delivered to your doorstep in record time—this would be a huge convenience for modern living. Delivery apps change the way we shop; 

Each year, the demand for delivery businesses rises continuously. In 2023, the annual growth for the online food delivery app market was $3.7 billion and the demand will continue to reach $90.3 billion by 2030 with an annual growth rate(CAGR) of 13.4%.

Companies like DoorDash, which commands nearly 65 percent of the U.S. food delivery app market, and instacart, now valued at over $10 billion, for the huge potential of this industry.

Beyond food, delivery apps are now being embraced in industries such as retail, healthcare, and logistics, with consumers increasingly prioritizing speed and convenience. Nowadays most consumers prefer apps with real-time tracking. So, it is important to learn how to create a delivery app and how it helps you.

Real-time tracking features tend to inspire trust and enhance the user experience; hence, it would be very economical to build an app for such a growing market with the real-time tracking feature, seamless payments, and tailored offerings to meet customers’ unique demands. Hyperlocal deliveries or cross-city shipments: this is the best window for success. 

But do you know why having delivery apps is essential for businesses? Let’s see.

Why Are Delivery Apps Essential for Businesses Today?

The growing demand for delivery apps is redefining how businesses can communicate with their customers through the increasing requirement of convenience, speed, and accessibility.

In this age, fast-moving customers have no patience and want an immediate solution for their needs—whether they wish to order food, groceries, or something else—without stepping outside their homes. Now how to create a delivery app? And how did these businesses gradually rise during the pandemic? 

It was COVID-19 that helped fast-track the change, as indicated that today’s businesses are realizing that on-demand delivery services have moved beyond being just luxuries and are now necessities.

Food delivery apps ideas of UberEats and DoorDash have altered the way people access restaurants: with this, anyone can now enjoy restaurant food delivery at home—in contactless delivery mode.

Source: https://mlsdev.com/

Grocery delivery services like Instacart serve busy people who do not have the time to run through busy aisles of supermarkets full of groceries. 

Companies have also used these services to widen their footprints outside walk-in traffic, increase sales, and streamline processes.

For your business, delivery apps can help propel growth levels. The customer experiences good service, is fast and reliable, and therefore is retained at higher rates. 

Delivery apps also provide delivery platforms through which businesses can easily create valuable customer data and create marketing strategies and improved services. 

It’s possible whether your business is in the food, retail, or logistics markets: delivery apps will help keep your business competitive with the newer expectations of consumers. Maintaining the USP is also essential for your business, Keep reading to know that.

How Does a Unique Selling Point (USP) Differentiate Your Business?

USP stands for Unique Selling Point, which segregates a seller from other sellers by specifying the unique property of the product or service. It highlights what makes that product or service stand out among competitors in a crowded market size. That is the attractive feature for the customers and what makes you different from competitors.

Many of the companies out there would have a similar kind of product or service; however, your USP would mean specifying a parameter in which you do better, whether through quality, innovation, experience, or price. UPV is a unique point of sale that separates your business from others by defining the unique quality of the product or service.

Source: https://medium.com/

It helps us to know how that product or service is astounding among its rivals. That would be the point that attracts customers and also makes you different from the competitors. Many companies out there have the same type of products or services; however, your UPV will be able to say which parameter you do better than the rest: quality, innovation, experience, or price.

In this sense, Domino’s Pizza is all about differentiating fast deliveries by putting a guarantee that it will have a pizza at your door in less than 30 minutes. Speed alone puts them on top of their league—theirs was made the only one and only on quick pizza deliveries.

It is in Apple, and its cool, cutting-edge product is its USP, highlighting designs and innovations, offering sleek products and easy-to-use interfaces, making them attractive enough to practice the methods with tech-savvy clients.

Establishing and communicating a USP will bring the right audience to that business, driving customer loyalty and building a strong identity for the brand. This will make customers easily understand why they should choose a business over others. 

Choosing your delivery business type is very important because if you choose what suits you it will bring immense growth and success to your business. So, get to know the different types of the delivery business.

What Should You Do Before Building Your Delivery App?

Before developing your delivery app, it is a good idea to prepare a solid base for its success so it is essential to come up with a plan. It will not only save you time and money but also ensure that your app addresses the needs of your target audience by taking the necessary time and effort to carefully plan and strategize. Here are some steps to consider: 

1. Conduct Market Research

It is essential to conduct market research before starting your business. Researching helps you to know about customers’ behaviors, what they need, and their priorities, and it gives a clear understanding of the current geography and demands. Also, study your competitors to identify where they lack in the market; that’s the key point your app should fill.

This will help you choose suitable pricing models and popular features that are trending in the industry. It also provides an opportunity to recognize customer pain points so that your app can address them by offering better solutions, convenience, or user experience.

2. Define Your Niche

Defining your niche is quite important to differentiate your app from others. Whether food delivery services, grocery, or package courier services, there is a niche that one can focus on to give their offerings a specific face.

 For example, for a food ordering app, you could specialize in healthy meals, local eateries, or exclusive restaurant partners. Understanding your niche is what allows you to formulate targeted marketing strategies and even develop features that appeal to the specific user base.

3. Plan Your Core Features

Determine the core features that your app should possess to meet the users’ needs. This can be a user-friendly interface, real-time order tracking, secure payment processing, and personalized recommendations. Think of communication tools, including features such as chat support for customer support and interaction with the driver.

4. Prioritize User Safety

Security is very important in a delivery app so that users and delivery personnel feel safe. Implement robust authentication methods, encrypted payment gateways, and clear privacy policies. Driver background checks and real-time tracking should also be considered for peace of mind.

5. Choose the Right Development Team

The choice of technologies to power your app should be done right. It’s between native or cross-platform, databases, cloud services, and third-party integrations such as payment gateways or GPS tracking.

And, most importantly, you should choose the right development team. Build in-house or outsource; make sure that your team has experience in the delivery app industry and can deliver quality results within your budget and timeline. Hope, you have learned some knowledge about delivery business apps, now it is time to learn how to create a delivery app.

A Step-by-Step Guide for Delivery App Development Process

This section will guide you through the development process of the delivery app so that you can get enough knowledge and analyze what you want and don’t want while building your delivery app.

Source: https://www.valueappz.com/

1. Pick the Business Model

First, you need to carefully choose a business model for your delivery app because it’s the fate that decides your app’s profitability. This decides how your app works and revenue systems, whether it is a commission-based model that charges a percentage of every transaction, a subscription-based model, where users pay a fixed fee monthly or yearly, or hybrid models, which charge both methods.

2. Choose Your Economic Model

Choose the economic model based on the audience, the type of services you’re going to offer, and the long-term goals of your business.

For example, whether your customers will buy often, once in a while, or rarely, knowing that can help in deciding an appropriate model for a regular app; a subscription would probably provide more regular and reliable revenue, while commission-based would serve better for a transactional app, like food or parcel delivery services.

If the target audience is sensitive to cost, this could also mean that a delivery fee model is probably the best for your app since that will most likely reflect very well on pricing. Adding a freemium model gives free features while charging for premium will help draw many users.

You may also think of what might be possible: hybrid models where some features pay a subscription for premium features as well as charging a commission on the transactions.

It depends on what your application feature is, how you will engage the users, and how you would scale your business while still providing value to your customers.

3. Decide on the Delivery App Type

Choose the right software development type for the delivery app whether it is for a food delivery app development, like Uber Eats; a grocery delivery app, like Instacart; or a general parcel delivery app, like Postmates.

This choice will affect the nature, functionality, and time it takes to build your app, as well as its user satisfaction. Here is a more exhaustive detail on the various methodologies and how to choose the best one for your app:

1. Agile/Scrum

This is an approach where the whole project is segmented into cycles called sprints of 1 to 4 weeks. Typically, each sprint adds a tiny improvement, and then it goes off to testing and refining in the next cycle.

It is most suitable for apps that change frequently, such as food or grocery delivery apps, as it can quickly adapt the application according to user feedback or changing market demands making it an excellent methodology for apps that will be complex and in constant evolution.

2. Waterfall

The development phases in the waterfall are planning, design development, and testing. It is completely different from agile because there is no going back once a phase is completed.  

It works best with simple apps that have fixed requirements, like a basic parcel delivery app, because there will not be many changes or updates after it has been rolled out. It is predictable and very easy to manage because the entire process is planned upfront but does not offer flexibility in case some changes may be required during its development.

3. DevOps

DevOps is an approach to developing tasks, wherein app development and operations are committed to achieving a common result with camera-like efficiency in CI/CD or Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery.

Your app will be perfect if it has a DevOps model because of repeated cycles or quick responses with an app. 

Faster releases, when integrated with the new features, would probably suit high-scale applications with huge user demand and continuous improvements, for maintaining operations and adaptability in the long run.

Source: https://spdload.com/

4 Assemble the Right Team

Build a competent development team for success. Experts in UI/UX design, mobile app development, whether iOS or Android, backend development, and quality assurance must be present in your team. The team helps make your dream come true while ensuring that your app is built to be robust, user-friendly, and secure.

5. Design the App

Just think about it, if you’re opening an app, which part attracts you? It’s the UI/UX design. Having an intuitive interface is essential for the delivery app. For example, your app can welcome users as this makes them explore further and encourages them to purchase things on your delivery app. 

So, designing your app’s interface in an easy-to-navigate format can help users. Clear icons and readable texts, a seamless transition from one page to the next, are some of the characteristics that should define a good app for a customer experience that is not overwhelming.

Their attention will mainly be shaped around important features like real-time tracking, order confirmation, and push notifications that will be made more accessible to further keep the user informed throughout the process.

Perspicuous speed and security meant that the app had to be able to fast process user input and secure payment options. Responsiveness to different sizes of devices and consistent branding add to the engagement and trustworthiness of the app.

6. Choose the Right Tech Stack

Choose whether your app is developed from a native platform or cross-platform.

Native development involves writing separate applications for iOS and Android, with the resultant applications providing the best performance and user experience while also giving full access to the specific features of both platforms.

It requires a higher cost and longer time because both codebases need to be maintained, and, therefore, it is advisable to use native solutions for projects that are high-budget, performance, and scalability-centered.

Cross-platform fills the gap by creating a single app using a common codebase for both platforms, thus providing relatively good performance while at the same time providing faster and cost-effective development cycles.

While this does not seem to match the sophistication of a native app in some complex features, it is a great option for startups or budget-bound projects needing a quicker time to market. You decide: on budget, performance, or timeline.

Source: https://www.apptunix.com/

7. Develop the App

The development process for your delivery app started by gathering requirements and defining features you need to have in your app.
Developers get to know what kind of delivery business you gonna start be it food, groceries, or parcels, and what functionalities you want to include in the app this may be real-time tracking, payment options, or a user-friendly interface.

The design phase comes next, which maps out the layout and UX of the app, ensuring that it is intuitive and accessible to users. This will next be coupled with the necessary technologies, frameworks, and programming languages to develop the app, both front-end (user interface) and back-end (server, database) components within development.

It’s important to conduct frequent tests during development time to find out the bugs, analyze the performance,  and ensure that secure features are included, especially around payment processing. With a good plan, you can choose the right team that has more experience in coding, provides continuous updates, and integrates user feedback. This will help you to hear the dynamic needs of users.. 

8. Test the App

Now the next process is testing to ensure it works smoothly. Testing the delivery app thoroughly if any bugs, glitches, and usability issues before launch.

Make sure the app is stable and user-friendly by performing functional testing, performance testing, and security testing. The beta test’s feedback can be a fine-tuning agent in your efforts to remove remaining bugs in the app.

9. Launch the App

After full testing and optimization of the app, it’s launch time. Marketing your app through various campaigns attracts more users. Your app must be downloadable on any of the Apple app stores and must be ready for smooth operations.

Observe the post-launch performance and feedback to update the app. Is it enough if you have an app without core features? No, It is vital in attracting users and creating a positive experience for your customers. But, how to create a delivery app with the core features? Here are some 

Core Features to Create a Seamless Delivery App

Building an own delivery app needs to include functions for customers, delivery personnel, and businesses. Below are the key features of an on-demand delivery app.

1. Multiple Payment Options

You have to create a delivery app with various payment types that make transactions easy and convenient-acceptance of credit cards, digital wallets, and also cash on delivery. 

Thus, increases the chances of converting customers and further allows for reaching a wider market. Let’s know some additional details of each type

Credit/Debit Cards

Your delivery app should have credit and debit card options to make the payment process easier. Partnerships with well-developed payment gateways, such as Stripe, PayPal, or Square will keep customers’ transactions secure.

Additionally, implementing security features such as 3D Secure serves as another layer of security for payments and tokenization which replaces sensitive card details with a unique code to prevent fraud. Also, it provides users with a better and quicker payment experience.

Source: https://enatega.com/

Digital Wallets

Using digital wallets for payment in a delivery app is one of the best ways to expedite and ease transactions for customers. Choosing popular online wallets such as Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay allows users to make transactions effortlessly.

You can also add local digital wallets such as Paytm, Venmo, or Alipay based on your market scope. This reduces the need for filling in payment details over and over again. After the final tap, everything will be fast and smooth, creating a hassle-free experience, thus increasing customer retention.

One-click payments are real magic to increase the possibility of quickly getting to the checkout.

Cash on Delivery (COD)

Being paid in cash at the time of delivery is popularly known as cash-on-delivery (COD). The direct target of this option is to attract customers who do not prefer to prepay before they receive their order.

Your delivery app should have the COD payment option in case of any special discounts or other related incentives as it makes it more desirable. Apart from this, it provides real-time tracking of orders paid in cash at the time of delivery to assure transparency and limit any inconveniences in the delivery or collection.

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL)

You can incorporate buy now pay later (BNPL) such as Afterpay or Klarna into your delivery app, giving an option to the customer to pay in manageable installments for larger purchases.

Customers prefer the flexibility of paying in installments otherwise not place the order because the full payment is due upfront. With BNPL options, average order value improves as customers are encouraged to make larger purchases because they can pay over time.

Offering such options could reach wider financial preferences and make your app more attractive and accessible across customer segments.

Cryptocurrency

If your target audience consists primarily of tech-savvy users, then integrating cryptocurrency payments like Bitcoin or Ethereum into your business may be a wise decision.

It would provide clients with a fresh and decentralized alternative to modern, safe, and customer-preferred methods of payment.

However, the entire system of accepting online payment through cryptocurrency should be entirely reliable and secure because transactions involving these currencies are pretty sophisticated.

Setting up protective systems like encryption and multi-signature wallet will secure your customer as well as your business from the contact of fraud and allow smooth transaction processing.

2. Order History and Reviews

With this option, customer preferences become evident, making way for personalizing future offerings and marketing strategies.

Through the service, customers may view previous orders and ratings before providing any feedback, thus serving as inputs for improving services and enlightening decisions.

3. Task Notifications

This ensures that the delivery agents are always going to have a new task to undertake and hence, workflow optimizes on ensuring timely deliveries.

They get to receive push notifications about new deliveries, thereby keeping them organized and on top of things.

4. Navigation and Route Optimization

Delivery agents give actual time route suggestions to help them take the efficient path which means quicker deliveries are less likely to be delayed.

Reduces delivery time and fuel expenditure while elevating the overall efficiency of your operation.

5. Earnings Dashboard

Gives you an overview of earnings involved in the delivery service and hence helps you view how the agent is performing for payout purposes.

They could monitor their earnings which provides them with transparency regarding the motive for performance.

6. Delivery Tracking

Live data on all deliveries will help you keep track of the progress of your deliveries, resolve issues rapidly, and guarantee quality service.

Customers can follow the real-time tracking of their deliveries, which improves their satisfaction with accurate delivery time estimations and transparency.

7. Analytics and Reporting

Offers key data to understand how the app is performing, customer behavior, and operations’ efficiency. You can leverage this information to make business decisions and optimize service.

You indirectly benefit customers by means of better service, thanks to insights such as faster delivery and better product offerings.

8. Payment Processing

Ensure a secure payment experience and give assurances to customers that their financial transactions will be safe and processed in an efficient manner.

It builds confidence in your app, ensuring revenues and payouts are monitored-bringing it peace so it can purchase things confidently the next time.

Why Appkodes to Launch Your Delivery Business App?

Are you ready to build an effective custom food delivery app similar to Instacart for your own delivery business? Interested but confused about how to create a delivery app?

Choosing Appkodes can be the best option for you. Our highly scalable food delivery app scripts allow you to customize according to your needs. 

Appkodes delivery app development makes available important features such as real-time tracking, secure payment gateways, intuitive interfaces, and sound admin controls for your app’s smooth operation.

Our Other clone scripts such as Instacart clone and DoorDash clone, have been built with rich features such as route optimization, delivery scheduling, and multilingual support that help your local as well as your global audience.

Also, our ready-made formulas reduce the app development process time and speed up deployment while retaining high-end performance. So with Appkodes, you will be availing yourself of highly expert technical support, updates from time to time, and cost-effective maintenance services for your app to always compete in the food delivery app market.