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Mobile App Development
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Mobile technology has given a paradigm shift in our lives. With a few clicks, you can play your favorite music album; control your devices, order delicious food, and book movie tickets. Users have embraced convenient, comfortable, and time-saving mobile apps that minimize efforts and offer the highest gratification in return. Take the example of grocery delivery app solutions. Visiting grocery stores every weekend is a tedious and time-consuming task, and the solution is right here- online grocery delivery apps. You can order household products without moving an inch.
InstaCart, Peapod, Vons, Blue Apron, Fresh Direct, and Purple Carrot are some of the significant on-demand grocery delivery apps. If you want to make a grocery delivery app, hiring a top company for mobile app development will help you step in with the market changes and evolving users’ preferences.
Let’s delve into the depth of the article to know how you can accomplish building an app for your grocery business, and get faster returns on your investment.
Bricks-and-mortar grocery shops are everywhere, and people still prefer visiting these shops to buy things required for their daily needs. However, in recent times, priorities are changing. Let’s discuss some of the prime reasons:
Technology progress, evolving customers’ expectations, and changing market conditions are creating opportunities for grocery retailers to fill the void by landing on the trajectory of grocery app development. The state-of-the-art on-demand solutions influence the state of grocery retailers positively, which is best understood with a couple of statistics.
Let’s have a look at the apps for delivering groceries that have made it large in recent times catering the best services with a difference.
The grocery delivery app serves 5500 cities across the USA with more than 25,000 stores. More than 500 million products are delivered by this popular app for grocery delivery at variable costs with a same-day delivery window. The app has performed outstandingly during the latest pandemic in fulfilling grocery needs as early as possible, which has doubled the Instacart app downloads in less than 2 months.
Gorillas lead the position in faster grocery delivery services in less than 10 minutes. The platform enables grocery delivery through bike drivers with groceries packed in a paper bag. The faster delivery at a nominal cost is made possible through the distribution center and multiple dark store development, but it has a limited product range and geographical area.
Turkey-based grocery delivery app launched by a Turkish entrepreneur in 2015 picked up the pace and scored high popularity with expansion in London, Paris, Germany, and UK cities. Post-acquisition of BLOK- an online grocery firm, the mobile app made inroads into the Spanish market with 3.5 million active users. The faster delivery window is 10 minutes with less than £10 fees brings it in limelight worldwide.
The USA-based mobile grocery app has served more than 50,000 customers across the USA. The partnership with retailers such as Target, Costco, Whole foods, and others allows shoppers to buy a range of products from a single app. With more than 600 employees, the platform has made $120 in revenue with its unique feature of allowing users to buy items that are previously purchased in a single click or request for a product that’s not listed on the app.
The brainchild of one of the largest companies in India – Reliance Industries, Jiomart leverages the extensive network of mom and pop stores spread across India and acts as a medium between the retailer and the customer. Within a short period of time, Jiomart has emerged as the largest online grocery retailer in India. The reason for its phenomenal success is that it already had a pretty good offline presence in the form of its Reliance Fresh grocery stores.
Owned by Tata Group and backed by Alibaba group BigBasket.com is a supermarket grocery supplier that primarily delivers grocery goods found in convenience stores, home essentials, and food supplies to its customers. It manages procurement, storage, and delivery, thus acting as a full-service grocery delivery platform. The secret sauce of success for BigBasket is the high level of personalization that it offers.. By focusing on delivering on-time every time, BigBasket was able to garner the attention of its customers. BigBasket is also a part of a super app that includes some other big brands like Tata 1MG, Westside, Tata Cliq, Croma, Starbucks, Air Asia, IHCL, Tata Play, and Qmin.
Founded by two IITians, Grofers is an on-demand grocery delivery platform that started as a facilitator between shopkeepers and customers. But over time it realized that it needed an inventory-based model. Today, it has its own warehouses at certain strategic places and follows a model similar to that of BigBasket. Grofers focused on hyper-local delivery and this was the reason why it delivered goods much faster than others.
Amazon Fresh is a subsidiary of the American e-commerce company Amazon. The online retail giant Amazon has forayed into the lucrative grocery delivery market by launching its service Amazon Fresh. Amazon has one of the best logistics and supply chain solutions in the nation and this is one of the major reasons why Amazon Fresh is touted as one of the top grocery delivery service providers in the sector. They have also beta launched Amazon Fresh Pickup, a drive-in-type grocery store for Amazon Prime subscribers.
There are many benefits of on-demand grocery apps for customers and app owners:
Indeed, our lives are hectic and stressful nowadays. Millennials use technology that makes their lives more comfortable and convenient. When you develop a mobile app for grocery delivery, it saves a lot of time for the users especially with the 10-minute grocery delivery apps.
Users can place an order from anywhere, irrespective of location. All they need is their smartphone with an internet connection. It is comfortable, easy to do, and streamlined. Doorstep grocery delivery saves a lot of time for users which they can utilize in doing productive things.
One of the most common traits of visiting the mall or a grocery shop is that shoppers end up purchasing items that are not on their shopping lists. It is a temptation issue. With a grocery delivery app, users can avoid it.
On-demand grocery delivery apps come up with many exciting promotional offers, gift coupons, and discount deals from time to time. Festival season offers, loyalty programs, and discount coupons are money-saving schemes offered to customers to lure them. It helps to make them their regular shopper.
Users can pay for their groceries online while placing an order with a safe and hassle-free payment process. User can choose from various online payment modes such as credit cards, debit cards, UPI, and others. Many apps offer cash-on-delivery payment options too. Users can pay online or offline when the ordered items are delivered to their doorsteps.
If you are selling groceries from the local store, then you must complement the grocery store with a grocery delivery mobile app. The backup of mobility solutions helps you to automate business operations, follow current trends, and stay above the competition. As your local customers can find you online they are likely to connect and trust you more as well.
An on-demand grocery app development is a good fit for startups who don’t want to break the bank but prefer to sell online. They can opt for MVP development for their grocery delivery app idea which will include basic features. It will enable entrepreneurs to get build a mobile app without spending bundles and reduce operational costs in the same vein.
An alternative to this can be the Instacart-like clone app development which will cost much lesser than a custom grocery delivery app with almost similar features. Even if you opt to include all the features that’s available in popular apps in the upgraded versions later on, the total investment required will be still be lesser than what is required to build a custom version with the same set of features.
Handling a large user base for grocery delivery requires the investment of a lot of time and resources. The on-demand solution, be it custom or clone of a popular grocery delivery app, it brings efficiency to the services with the convenience of handling customers and grocery delivery with ease.
When you are operating a physical grocery store, the user reach is based on personal relationships or word-of-mouth publicity. On the flip side, the on-demand application takes your grocery delivery services to the world and help you gain access to a wide range of audience without any geographical restrictions.
The on-demand grocery delivery solution development means increasing reach to the global userbase and online channels provide a myriad of opportunities to market products/services at a comparatively lesser cost. Also, digital channels enable the business market to their offerings to targeted audiences and have the flexibility to gain insights into users’ behavior.
Before we go through the business flow, we need to discuss the business models of such grocery delivery apps. The abundance of business models makes the decision difficult for startup entrepreneurs, refer to this guide to better understand the pros and cons of each business model. There are 4 types of grocery apps you can build so select the best suitable one.
The grocery goods delivery app allows multiple vendors to sell their products or services through the platform. The customers can purchase the product from any vendor after comparing their prices and the app owner receive a percentage of the transaction that occurred through the platform as a commission. The logistics needs are either handled by vendors individually or by the grocery marketplace owner internally.
The on-demand delivery mobile app with a hyper-local model serves the need for speedy deliveries, thereby helping people to fulfill their grocery needs in a short window of 10 minutes. This model requires the close collaboration of business owners with local vendors or building dark stores in particular areas to meet the demands of the people of specific regions accordingly. The hyper-local delivery app helps the stakeholders as well as users as the market owners get more orders while shoppers get fast delivery of their grocery products.
Here, you have your warehouses where grocery items are stored. You might have multiple warehouses if you operate in various cities. You can store items as per the demographic requirements of different cities. Now, when a customer orders something from your app, your delivery person will pick up the requested items from the warehouse and deliver them to the client with your delivery network. An Indian grocery delivery app BigBasket is an example of this business model, which has warehouses and a robust delivery network.
Here, you don’t own a warehouse. When a customer orders an item, the item will be picked from the local supplier and then delivered to the customer. You can make a professional partnership with as many local suppliers as you want. The main advantage of this business model is that you can offer competitive prices to the customers as different suppliers will charge different amounts for a specific product.
If you own a micro-fulfillment warehouse, such as Instacart for instant delivery, or a warehouse-like BigBasket, this particular category belongs to you. Local traditions and tastes play a huge role when it comes to procurement. You need to identify them and procure those items from reputed buyers who have carved a niche for themselves by offering quality supplies. It will give your customer gratification and help you to win their loyalty and trust. In addition to that, quality products will not get more order rejections and in turn, reduce wastage.
When you rely on suppliers for products and delivery, procurement management will differ from what we discussed above. Here, you need to partner with the local suppliers and amend procurement accordingly. You can evaluate past data and procure items that are in demand.
Here, technology can help you to a great extent. Manual inventory management might lead to chaos as the business demands accuracy, efficiency, and productivity. Many platform owners rely on automatic inventory management tools that place automatic orders once the inventory is about to finish. However, you might need to recruit the staff for inventory management for warehouse inventory for cleaning, washing, packing, and dispatching products.
You need highly convenient and effective logistics management to function better. Along with logistics, your delivery mechanism should be robust and highly controlled.
The customer will love it if you deliver orders quickly. They don’t like to wait. However, when you follow the supplier model, sometimes, certain possibilities might delay on-time delivery to the customers. When you have your warehouse, you can schedule your delivery module slot-wise similar to Big basket. In the supplier model, you need to design a robust delivery mechanism to address all possible constraints that come your way.
Remember, on-time order fulfillment is one of the core qualities that customers expect from suppliers. From product pickup to route planning, you need to plan in a manner that your delivery model fulfills orders as quickly as possible.
How to build an On-Demand delivery app that perfectly caters to the customers’ needs?
There are four types of on-demand grocery delivery apps in the market. We will discuss each one of them in brief:
In this category, a user will find a list of grocery stores located near them. First, a user will select a store and from the menu, the customer will add products that it wants to buy. Then, customer completes the payment process; a store will confirm the order and the store delivery boy will deliver the order to the user’s home. It is an aggregator app model where you act as a mediator between the user and the store owner. Even the delivery liability is of the store owner and not the platform owner.
It is quite similar to the aggregator app model with one significant difference. Here, the marketplace owns a delivery network to deliver products to the users.
Here, a grocery store is also a platform owner and is responsible for everything from maintaining the app for updating the menu to delivering the products to the end users. It owns an on-demand grocery delivery app that facilitates users to browse items and place orders.
When a grocery store has multiple stores, it develops an app to offer online grocery shopping services to users. It is, to some extent, similar to a single-store model.
You should understand the simple fact that the end-users will use the app and a more user-friendly and straightforward app means more customer engagement. Even today, there are certain pain points customers face, and being a service provider; you need to address them adequately. For example, Instacart came up with a unique feature called a one-hour delivery service.
Analyzing the core strengths and weaknesses of your competitors can help you add unique features that address the issues that are yet to be explored. Go for a thorough competitor analysis and identify such matters they have ignored.
Another thing to consider is the mobile app design. Make it as simple as possible yet impressive and visually stunning. Ensure that the app has simple navigation and superior features and functionalities.
Implement personalization strategies to make your app user-friendly. For instance, Design sections such as “favorite” and “Popular” where users find products of their preferences. It will give them a more personalized experience.
The grocery delivery app comprises 4 interfaces that work in conjunction to ensure smooth order placement and grocery delivery. The app should include the must-have features that make it superhit. However, each interface has a set of features that are specially designed to make the app work flawlessly.
Sign up/Sign in: Users can Sign Up/Sign in using their Email ids/Phone numbers and passwords.
Choose Supermarket: View a list of supermarkets and select any one and check out the products available.
Location: Enter the delivery location and complete address for the delivery.
Google Maps: automatically detects the user location and considers it as a shipping address, thereby reducing efforts to type address manually.
Search & Filter: Users can search for various products with their product name or category name. Also, they can apply multiple filters.
Buy: Select the product from the available list and add it to the shopping cart.
Shopping Cart: View all the selected products, view prices, and move to check out.
Payment: Pay through available payment options for the order they have placed and click on submit to pay for a particular purchase.
Wallet: View the balance available and recharge wallet options.
Return & Cancel: Return or cancel the placed order if not happy with the product or changed their mind.
Schedule Delivery: The scheduled delivery allows selecting a particular time for receiving the orders and deliveries as per convenience.
Track Order Delivery: Track order delivery and view the status of the current delivery order.
Delivery Order History: View all the previous delivery orders with the date-wise order summary and details.
Rate & Review: Provide a rating & review for the particular product.
Wishlist: View a list of all the products added to the wish list for future reference. Add them to the shopping cart or delete them.
Chat/Message: Send messages regarding the placed order to the delivery person and inquire about the same.
Notifications: Get notifications about orders, promotional offers, and deals. Offers & Coupons: Money-saving deals and offers.
Order management: View a list of all the orders and notify a relevant store about it.
Manage Inventory: Manage all the product items available in the store and manage inventory details for the same.
Accept/Reject Order: According to product availability, accept/reject the orders.
Receive Payment: Stores will be able to receive payments for the completed order after the order is delivered to the user’s location.
Review & Ratings: View reviews & ratings for particular orders.
Sign up/Sign in: Delivery Drivers can Sign Up/Sign In using their Email id/Phone number and password.
Dashboard: View a list of all the completed as well as ongoing deliveries. Status: Turn the delivery status on or off.
Order request: Receive a request for grocery delivery where they can view it along with the scheduled delivery time and accept/reject the request.
GPS-Navigation: Start navigation to the grocery shop’s and customer’s location.
Chat/Message: Receive messages from the user regarding any query related to their orders after drivers accept the order.
Payment: Receive payment for the completed delivery through the platform and view the summary of the payment.
Wallet: View the amount in the wallet received for the completed delivery and withdraws it.
Order history: View the summary for the past completed deliveries with the transaction and user details.
Push Notification: Receive push notifications regarding the order status or other order changes.
View feedback: Delivery personnel can check the users’ feedback to know their experience regarding services offered and improvements required to enhance customer satisfaction rate.
Dashboard: View various order-related information and manage orders for the particular grocery shop.
Order Assigning Logic: System will auto-detect the driver’s current location and assign to a nearby delivery driver for a specific order.
Manage Payments: Receive payment from the user for the completed order and release to store & delivery drivers according to the terms & conditions decided.
Manage Stores: Manage stores and view orders for particular stores.
Assign Order: View and assign incoming delivery orders to a specific driver for the order.
Delivery Order History: View past orders with their date and complete order summary.
Push Notification: Send push notifications to the customer, stores, and delivery driver regarding any system-related news/offers.
Offer & Coupons: Generate new offers and coupons which can be availed by the customers while placing orders.
Behavioral tracking: Enable tracking users’ behavior for the services such as items frequently searched, recently placed orders, time spend on browsing products, and others.
AI-powered deliveries: Improve grocery deliveries with route optimization, drones, or unmanned fleet that fuel up productivity and prevent risks ahead of time.
Menu and item category management: Manage products based on various parameters that users use to search for products to ensure seamless navigation.
SMS Gateway: Integration of SMS API to send SMS notifications related to the grocery/promotional offer.
Payment Gateway: Integration of payment API for ease of payment.
Email: Integration of email API which will allow the system to send automated emails for order-related details to customers.
Analytics: 3rd Party Analytics API to get the analytics regarding the number of user registrations, order confirmation, order cancellation, and successful order deliveries.
Geo-Location: Integration of API to get the geolocation of the delivery drivers and real-time tracking for grocery orders.
Developing an on-demand grocery delivery app can be smooth sailing if you have planned. Experts recommend writing a Product Requirements Document before proceeding. The simple steps to create a mobile app can help you build a successful app that is user-friendly and can help you generate the profit that you are looking towards. The primary development process is divided into six steps as shown in the image below:
Each delivery app has its revenue stream. An on-demand grocery delivery app can generate revenues through various ways described below:
A platform owner usually charges higher than the actual price for some of the items.
Most grocery apps charge extra for delivery services. However, they can offer free delivery to users located nearby.
A platform owner can ask for a certain amount as a commission from a grocery store owner for each order that comes through the app.
Highlight a particular grocery store in the app and charge a certain amount for it. For a warehouse model, it does not apply.
Allow 3rd party advertisement services to post ads on the grocery delivery app.
The cost to build a simple grocery app ranges from $10000 to $25,000. Remember, estimating the app development cost depends on many aspects such as the platform, features, app size, technology stack, and additional functionalities. Though it is not easy to get the total grocery delivery app cost, a professional and experienced app development company can provide you with a more accurate figure considering every aspect based on your requirement.
The total time frame when multiplied by developers’ hourly rates, the total grocery app development cost is calculated. However, the developers’ hourly rates depend on geographical location which brings differences in the cost to develop grocery apps.
The hourly rates of the developers of the same location also vary, which depends on the seniority level of the developers. Say- junior developer, middle-level developer, and senior developer, we have based on their tech expertise and years of experience. It ultimately impacts the hourly rates and so is the development cost. When you have partnered with a USA development company, the cost of developers looks like this-
All in all, the location of developers, team size, tech stack, functionalities, design complexity, and tech specialist involvement assessment allow you to get an estimate for the grocery app development. In fact, the guide would help business clients to know the development cost for a customized solution.
The on-demand grocery delivery app development is a collaborative effort of a team of experts that are maestros in their niche field with unique tech skills and experience. The tech talent that everyone wants in the best team-
App Developers: Choose to hire iOS app developers, Android app developers, and cross-platform app developers according to your requirement
App Designers: UX/UI engineers with expertise in graphics designing, CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.
Project Manager: Have good management and leadership skills that can make team work collaboratively as tasks are assigned.
App Testers: QA and testers test the app to ensure there are no bugs, performance issues, or resolution issues.
On-demand grocery delivery apps are in demand, and you should always start locally and gradually expand to multiple regions. However, developing such an app is a tedious and challenging task, but becomes a plain-sailing journey when you hire dedicated developers. Also, the demand and supply ratio fluctuates randomly and so should be aptly scaled. There is no plethora of grocery delivery apps in the market yet, and it is a golden time for you to grab an opportunity. Keep your end user in mind and strategize accordingly to witness superior results. Address problems they face in their locality, offer solutions and you are ready to go.
A grocery app can streamline the shopping experience for your customers, allowing them to browse, order, and pay for groceries from the comfort of their homes. It can also enhance customer engagement, help in inventory management, and offer insights into consumer behavior.
For a simple app, the grocery delivery app development cost ranges from $10000 to $25000 and as the features and functionalities increases the cost also increases. Keep in mind that the cost varies based on features, complexity, platforms (iOS, Android, or both), and the region where the app is being developed.
Essential features include product listing, search functionality, a shopping cart, user accounts, order tracking, payment integration, and customer reviews. Advanced features might include loyalty programs, personalized recommendations, and integration with other platforms.
Yes, ideally. Customers need an app focused on shopping, while store managers or staff might benefit from an app tailored to inventory management, order processing, and customer service.
AI can enhance personalization, offering product recommendations based on user behavior. It can also help in inventory forecasting, chatbot customer service, and data analytics.
With in-depth knowledge in International Business Management and Information Technology, he can effectively craft business enhancement strategies and can skillfully untangle technical complexities. This has laid the path for him as the Co-Founder and MD of Prismetric . Writing about the new age technology and sharing his thoughts on the continuously evolving business trends keep him content.
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