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The online food delivery landscape is outshining like never before. With the convenience of getting food at the doorstep and accessing minimal human interaction, customers are crushing over the food delivery apps.

Such comfortability propels the projected growth of online food delivery applications everywhere. Consequently, more and more entrepreneurs wish to launch their food apps and connect numerous food points on their platform.

Despite such pleasing factors, an online food delivery app can disappoint the customers with an improper strategy and incomplete set of features. Well, you can escape the mishap by strategizing and integrating robust features into your food app.

So, let’s head over to discuss the top factors and features you should consider before building an on-demand food delivery app for your venture. But before that, let’s get familiar with what you mean by an online food delivery app.

Top 5 On-demand Food Delivery Apps Worldwide 2023:


What is a Food Delivery App?

A food delivery app is an online offering, connecting several restaurants and users on a single platform. The food points can sell their items and customers can buy them using their smartphones.

You might be wondering:

What are the criteria of the best food delivery app?

The delivery executives stand between the customers and restaurants. They pick up the order from a particular restaurant and deliver it to the user location. Meanwhile, the users can get the valets' locations using the app and get precise ETA (Expected Time of Arrival) using GPS tracking.

Now that you have a gist of what is a food delivery app, you are all set to proceed towards the must-have features and functionalities to develop an excellent offering. Let’s dive deep!

Top Factors to Consider When Developing a Food Delivery App


A food delivery app performs better if it is laid on concrete strategies from the beginning. There are multiple factors that you should consider when strategizing and align the blueprints with them. Below are the critical parameters, allowing you to lead the race with better services. Let's take a closer look into each of these factors.

1. Know Your Budget

Deciding your budget should be the first parameter when creating a food delivery app. Many aspects like features, interface, and geographical location will contribute towards increasing your budget. You should consider all these facets and estimate your budget roughly.

The more features, the higher your budget will rise. Similarly, building your food delivery app from a location with high developmental charges will hike your estimates accordingly.

2. Choose Technology

You can select the platforms you wish to serve before developing a food delivery application. Your native app can either be compatible with Android and iOS. In contrast, a hybrid app will remain friendly with both platforms equally.

Moreover, you should consider the user interface as well. With premium navigation entities, you will need to spend a little more than the simple ones. Consequently, your budget will rise or fall for the online food delivery app. So, your expenditures depend on you and your preferences to develop a food delivery app.

3. Innovative Ideas are the Key

Remember that you need to integrate unique features to outpace the giants in the food delivery app industry. But how to do that? Well, you can do so with your innovative mindset. You need to incorporate features that the customers love and feel captivating.

Begin with thinking about what your competitors don't have in their platform. After such an analysis, you can jot down your innovations in the requirement specification. For instance, you can serve beverages along with food items. Also, customers will love getting unique gifts and rewards when using your food delivery app.

4. Know the Customers

Before going anywhere further, you need to know your customers well. Realizing what they want and expect from your offering will help you to serve them better. Analyze the current industry trends and look at what your competitors do to please their customers. Once you know these aspects, you can offer additional facilities to woo your app-users and outshine in the industry within no time.

5. Design Custom Website

Having a cutting-edge app only will not suffice your business. To appear more professional, you need to invest in a custom website having next-gen features in it. With a custom website, you can serve your web and mobile customers together, ensuring no one misses out on your offerings.

6. Go for a Local Business

Before going for a multi-regional plan, reach out to a local area initially. Prepare your local plan and launch your business. Collect user feedback about your offering and keep improving the platform consistently. Once you realize that you have streamlined your app, you can proceed to wider geography gradually.

7. Monetizing Plans

To run a better business, you need to choose a monetizing plan at first. You can invite third parties to post advertisements on your platform. Moreover, you can offer subscription plans to your audience. The customers will get more benefits and features when choosing a high subscription plan.

Top Must-Have Features in Your Food Delivery App


The features are the heart of any app, primarily the online food delivery application. There are numerous features that you should consider when creating a revolutionary food delivery application. Let's look at each of them in detail.

1. Real-Time Tracking

Real-time delivery tracking is the essence of a food delivery app. You should invest in GPS location tracking for live updates on the delivery status. The customers depend on the real-time delivery tracking feature to estimate the order arrival time accurately.

Moreover, the live tracking allows the delivery executive to get the exact delivery location and guidance on the route. From the moment your users place an order, they should see a map interface where the restaurant, valet, and user location are visible clearly.

2. Search Filters

A vast library will delight your users but they might get overwhelmed as well. So, you need to integrate a filter to search the inventory effortlessly. They can choose a specific food item or a restaurant from the comprehensive list. Furthermore, they can narrow down their criteria and look for specific additions or toppings using your efficient filters.

3. Notifications

Notifications are the best method to exchange information between the users and the platform. You can send offers, announcements, and promotional codes to your users with the notifications. It will ensure more loyalty with your customer base.

Also, users can get updates on the delivery status through app notifications. Besides, the delivery personnel will get a notification when a new order arrives and the app assigns it to them. So, notifications allow seamless two-way communication between the app and customers/valets.

4. Secure Transactions

A reliable food delivery app boasts secure payments as the essential features. Payments are integral in ordering online food. So, your app should support safe and voluminous payments every day.

Moreover, you need to integrate as many payment gateways as you can within the platform. All in all, your users should not face any issues like insecure payment or lack of suitable payment methods. Also, your platform should have a cash-on-delivery option too for the convenience of your users.

5. Contactless Delivery

While the COVID-19 crisis is still surging, contactless delivery is pleasing everyone. If you wish to overpass the food delivery giants, then contactless delivery can be a beneficial weapon for your venture. Such a promise will build confidence among the users about your offering.

6. No Delivery Charges

Delivery charges are a no-no for everyone and intimidate your users significantly. While you are new to the industry, offering premium services with free shipping popularizes your platform among the users like wildfire. Even after settling in the industry, you can keep offering free delivery to drive more traffic towards your platform.

7. Offers and Codes

Who doesn’t love to avail of discounts! A food delivery application with a host of offers and promo codes will pull the audiences’ attention towards your business. You can offer regular discounts to your customers throughout the year, or provide them with seasonal offers even. In any way, your users will stay happy and satisfied with your offerings.

8. Meals and Combos

Do you know that customers prefer ordering meals and combos to get heavy discounts on their bills? You can utilize such a trait and offer meal combos to your users at a lower price. Such value offers will become your users’ favorite within no time.

Also, beware that users tend to compare the individual prices of each food item before choosing a meal box. So, ensure that you are not bluffing them and mention the exact savings along with each combo pack.

Indeed, the food delivery app is a revolutionary idea among entrepreneurs. However, without a cutting-edge application, your business will not go to the expected heights. Does it feel daunting to you? Don't worry. Get your project to the top food delivery app development companies like Auxano Global Services, and lead the industry with minimal investment.

Well-trained staff knows what it takes to develop a flawless food delivery app with all must-have features embedded into it. Besides, they keep your app highly scalable to accommodate all changes effortlessly.

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Allan L. Bigham

Allan L. Bigham is a content writer, specializing in web design and development services. For over a decade he's been sharing his industry knowledge through blog articles just like this one.