Jan 18, 2022
by Alexei Falco

How To Create A Mobile Delivery App Like DoorDash?

The food delivery market has been prospering for the last couple of years. A leap was provoked by circumstances of the quarantine: people perceive food takeout as a good choice for their health and their relatives’ safety. This business sector takes over $151 bln of the world economy, which means that such duties are highly demanded. Facilities like that are aimed at people, who work a lot and have a tight-scheduled lifestyle. With a big variety of offers, customers are free to choose whatever they need and get it in a short time. This case could become a gold mine for entrepreneurs and an appealing task for developers.

People’s habits have drastically changed: a quality in-home dinner is now equally appreciated as a night out. Just imagine: you don’t need to spruce up to go anywhere or cook any fancy dishes. Some popular apps like Uber Eats, GrubHub, GoPuff, Just Eats, DoorDash, Postmates, and Swiggy are rendering a bunch of cuisine variants for a cozy evening indoors or a lunch break with cheap and healthy snacks.

The advantages are evident, and they sound so tempting, that you may wonder: how to develop an app for food delivery like Doordash? Stay tuned to dig into this tendency and all sorts of these utilities.

Why Mobile Food Delivery Apps are Becoming More Popular

It represents a large field predominant among European and Asian economies.

Statista Market Forecast reports: in 2020, the dividends in the Online Food Delivery sector almost exceed US$ 136,431 mln. Its income is expected to grow up at a pace (CAGR 2020–2024) of 7.5%. Therefore, the anticipated market value is going to rise to US$ 182,327 mln within a few years.

China stays in the head positions of delivery orders count, while America is losing ground with its numbers. Experts in statistics assume: 59% of phone owners will exploit delivery service apps in two years.

Source: emarketer.com

The previous year, DoorDash handed in more than 900 mln orders and received a turnover of $2.9 bln. The company boasts a big number of employees, which is over 1 mln courier drivers. Customers trust this brand because all the processes are clear and structured. It takes 37 minutes on average to get an order, which costs less than $40!

Right now, this organization works in 4 000 towns in America, while residing in San Francisco. That’s not the best extension, but a good reputation and popularity help a lot in PR strategy.

Their achievements sound impressive. If you want to create an app like DoorDash to raise capital, go further to see the possibilities of this field.

What Food Ordering App Models Are On the Market?

A few kinds are presented online, but three of them prevail. The reason for their approval are so-called scenarios, tested and turned out to be profitable and viable. Let’s find out, which ones to try.

  • The Aggregator Model

This model is pretty basic, and it serves both vendors and customers. A bunch of different cafes put their menus on display. Guests are welcome to leave comments, share their opinion, and rate the public catering spot. A freeware, as a third party, connects facilities with potential clients for them to receive orders and receipts. After a user pays the bill, the restaurant provides order processing and transfer.

  • Food Ordering System Interface with Services Provided

As opposed to the previous options, this one requires more responsibility. Your organization takes charge of the staff that transfers your products. This is expensive, so you may need to look for investors to support the idea. Most managers initiate cooperation since it’s profitable for cafeterias. Cases, illustrating a similar approach are Swiggi and UberEats.

  • Full-Stack Food Delivery App

If you ever used Dominos, Pizza Hut, and McDonald's, you’ll get what we’re talking about. These networks are spread around the globe. They’re big and self-sufficient enough to release independent software for themselves. This way requires no third parties, so owners are able to dictate terms and price policies.

After all the theory, it’s time for practical advice. How to make a delivery app like Doordash that is convenient and popular? To begin with, research your target group.

A precise plan defines the course of every project. Build up the concept: how would you close the end-users needs?

Pay attention to the surroundings: are there any areas with a bunch of universities, hotels, office buildings, or places of interest? If so, suggest discounts for purchasers at a certain part of the day. Work with diners nearby to facilitate logistics for couriers. Figure out a deal that is lucrative from all sides.

Main Functional Features of Developing a Mobile Delivery App

For everything to work correctly, focus on 3 sides of a deal. In most cases, apps similar to Doordash combine parts for customers, couriers, and vendors.

We’ve described the major aspects of making an on-demand delivery app in the previous article:

The main features of on-demand food delivery applications

Technological Aspects in Development Cycle of Mobile App Such As DoorDash

Remember to put technical elements before visual artwork. IT companies have a lot of solutions depending on your goal and financial capability.

Pick IOS or Android and build soft from the ground up or apply supporting tools to speed things up.

Creating an MVP for a mobile app specializing in transporting goods is distinct from making social media or messengers. In this way, complete three samples of your soft and one admin panel to operate them all.

An intuitive interface and high functionality are a must for things similar to Doordash. Provide clients with a smart search engine with various terms. Include GPS navigation to calculate the distance, and estimated time for the route. Managers of the eating places should leave you information concerning their regulars for GPS, to handle plenty of commissions simultaneously.

Carry on reading, and you’ll learn how to make an app like Doordash. The next sequence speaks about the price rate.

Cost of Building Mobile Application Like DoorDash

An important bit of your project is your dedicated budget. It defines the quality and the capacity of your final program. To discuss this topic, we analyzed a wide range of freeware, compared them, and evaluated the scope of work to be done.

Before building a delivery app like Doordash, think about the design. IT specialists usually charge a lot of money, that’s why you should draw up an extensive blueprint. It prevents you and the team from rash steps.

Reaching out to a studio, ask for several outlines. Drafts let you see if the color palette and frontend elements harmonize with each other. The process is conventionally divided into 3 units:

  • Layout — 24 h: a prototype of a product’s appearance.
  • Realization — 45 h: writing a code, drawing animations and images, generating content.
  • Tech and hypothetical testing — 22 h: overall UX audit.

If you want to release a high-quality item it’s fine to follow the example of famous analogs. If you bring something new into the well-known notion you may get something efficient and ground-breaking. Behind every tappable button, there are months of IT and digital marketing studies. Ready-made solutions prove to be pleasing to customers and effective to vendors. Don’t copy everything, just take references.

The first page that pops up is the sign-in/sign-up form. This action should seem quick & handy not to keep the visitors away. That indeed is a time-consuming task:

Geoposition & trailing. All companies that collaborate with carriers apply tracking systems. It’s necessary to show the location of the orderer and the rider so that they could find each other. The goal is to plan a route from the restaurant to the designated address.

Internet acquiring. Payments are a must for your final product. Proper acquiring allows buying things online with a bank card. To complete the transaction, the buyer chooses an item, enters card details, and accepts the operation. This scheme is helpful both for tax authorities and taxpayers. If your company is big enough, you may work with banks to participate in cashback programs. To get it done, special gateways should be integrated. The most widespread ones are connected with OS — Apple Pay or Google Pay and some other options as well (e.g., PayPal and bank cards). Here’s the duration of this piece:

Don’t forget about push messages & SMS for communication and feedback.

So in total, you should approximately have about 600 hours to create an app like DoorDash and get ready for a release.

Let’s take $45 as an hourly fee for the specialists. If so, the realization of your idea is worth about $27,000. What we didn’t bring up are consultations with product managers, brainstorming, and regular meetings with the team, which can last roughly 8 days.

To learn more about the price policy, check the other article on this subject.

Consider Celadon Your Trusted Partner in Mobile App Development

If you have any vision of a future application, reach out to us! Celadon has a leading position in Eastern Europe. We specialize in the full-circle development of custom mobile apps for iOS and Android. We have extensive experience in launching a food delivery app like Doordash and many other supplies for different purposes.

One of our tasks was to create an ordering application for restaurants network. In this case, we have added a delivery & tracking system, customer reviews form for proper feedback, reporting statistics to look for the most popular and high-rated places, and customized recommendations.

The objective was to create mobile delivery services like Doordash that consider 3 situations: delivery, preorder, and in-venue order. The system was to be entirely incorporated the POS so that it obtains the sales confirmation, carries and organizes the information on the home screen. Read more in our casework.

Final Thoughts

It’s complicated to release something Doordash-like, but we’ll draw a map to ease your journey. Trust us in transforming your thoughts into reality with modern technology and professionals on our side.

If you are concerned or uncertain regarding the utility, the performance of your soft, look for software production teams and compare their rates, reviews, and approach.

Or else write us a message via our “Contact Us” form. Our tech support replies quickly — no longer than 12 hours, and consultation is free.

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