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The blossoming of digital technology is reshaping customer behaviour. Now more than ever, consumers are getting into online shopping via mobile, which brings peak comfort level and flexibility. And they expect a comparable solution on the subject of ordering food.
Can you imagine that more than half of US consumers rely on delivery services to buy meals from dining restaurants? It’s no wonder that the food delivery market has seen an influx of new businesses that want to tap into the revenue streams it provides.
And although such giants as UberEats, Deliveroo, Postmates, etc. have already dominated this field, it’s never too late to make waves in the niche by creating a bespoke food delivery platform that will draw on the best features of the pace–setters.
But how much do you need to shell out for food ordering apps? What business model should you choose? What features will make your solution stand out in the ocean of other apps? Read on to find out!
Stop#1: Under the hood of the ubereats
Since we are using the Uber company as a pinnacle in this industry, we’ll use its features and highlights as an inspiration for your future application. Let’s start with the giant’s business model.
The world’s largest rideshare company made a significant tweak in 2014 when it gave birth to UberEats, initially known as Uber Fresh. The solution then made delivering from your favorite local restaurant as easy and hassle–free as ordering a ride.
The platform allows foodies to choose dishes from the menu of partner restaurants, with an average delivery time of 30 minutes. Orders can be delivered by the current Uber drivers, as well as by individual couriers. UberEats proved to be especially successful in countries with no established food delivery services, as well as for restaurants that lack the logistics system.
UberEats is a real goldmine because income is generated in three ways: a fixed fee from the user plus commission from the driver and the eateries themselves.
Among UberEats’s major differentiators that set up this undertaking for success are:
- Lightning–fast delivery
- No minimum order concept
- Existing customer base
- Better utilization of Uber’s assets
- The global presence
Now that we’ve got to grips with the basics of this platform, let’s find out how this giant rakes in money.
How UberEats shovels money
The major revenue streams of this solution include:
- Delivery fee from customers
Uber requires delivery payment that is further divided into three fee types, including a dynamic delivery fee, service fee, and small order fee.
- A cut of the bill from restaurants
The company charges up to 40% commission from the restaurants on the total value of an order. The fee ranges from 15% to 40%, based on the maturity of the market.
- Paid advertising
If restaurant partners want extra exposure on the platform, they can pay an additional fee to come up as top searches whenever a customer looks at the listed restaurants.
Stop#2: Building an ubereats clone: step-by-step
Although you’ll need something better than copy–pasting someone’s brilliant ideas, you can use thriving examples as an inspiration and guide for your future on–demand solutions. Let’s flip through the playbook.
1. Choose a food delivery model
Even before assigning a team of professional developers, you need to pinpoint your business needs and pick the right food marketplace model. Overall, there are two main types. Let’s compare them in a succinct table below:
| Order Only Model | Order&Delivery Model | |
| Concept | These platforms serve as an aggregator of local eateries. They bring together foodies and food venues. This model assists restaurants in growing their market and does not include handling delivery services. | This model provides full logistics support to restaurant partners. In this case, restaurants give over the whole delivery management including staff, vehicles and fare costs to the platform. |
| Advantages |
|
|
| Disadvantages |
|
|
| Profit | Up to 15% commission to restaurants. Promotion fees. | A commission from restaurants, delivery fee, promotion fees. |
| Examples | Grubhub Seamless Zomato | UberEats DoorDash |
2. Explore your intended market
Finding your focus group is an essential step in your overall business strategy because you won’t make progress without understanding your end–user. By ignoring this step, you risk frittering away your whole development budget or even burying a successful app idea. Your end-user may either be as narrow as pescetarians or vegans or as large as sushi lovers.
3. Choose the must-have features for your app
Before you kick off the development process, think about the core functionality to be integrated into your on–demand application. Although there’s no one–size–fits–all set of features, we’ve curated a list of must–haves that every food delivery app should have:
- Sign–up and log in. The sign–up process is the cover of your application. So think about making it as fast and easy as possible. Social login is a nice solution to speed up the registration.
- Search. Integrate an advanced search function into your food delivery app to help users choose by various filters.
- Order placing. If the user is interested in ordering the item, provide instructions on how to place an order and proceed to checkout.
- Checkout. This part should display all chosen items and the final price.
- Payment. Enable customers to pay for the meals via smart in–app and mobile payment flows. Your payment system should include a variety of methods, like credit cards, PayPal, MangoPay, and others.
- Notifications. Mobile app notifications help you to interact with your users in a non–intrusive way and also provide a great way of getting users to engage in new promotions.
- Order tracking. This feature will allow your users to track their orders in real-time. You can use it as your value proposition while marketing the application.
- Feedback. By reacting to reviews, you can fetch some valuable customer insights from the horses’ mouth. Also, potential users might be more likely to install your app, if they see that you value their opinion.
Running the numbers: The costs to build an ubereats clone
Although this question does not have an easy answer, we can make a rough estimate based on our experience. So the total will stem from the following points:
- Number of stakeholders
- Tech stack
- Number of features
- Location of the development team. Average hourly rates vary greatly based on the country. Thus, European–based developers price their services at $20-$60, whereas specialists located in the USA charge around $80 to $150.
Overall, the hired specialists will provide an accurate app estimate after the Discovery phase. The Discovery or Inception stage is the starting point of the whole building process. It presupposes close communication between the client and the agency and initial developments.
For the company, this is an opportunity to get the lay of the land, communicate in detail with all the stakeholders and outline the scope of the work to be done. For clients, it minimizes risk and allows them to participate in the development process. Typically, a team requires around 4 to 6 weeks to finalize the stage.
The bottom line
To wrap up this article, it is worth mentioning that creating an Uber clone alone won’t help you to win the market and customers. A successful solution is made with the end–user in mind and is aimed at fixing a particular weak point.
To uncover the concept of UberEats, we have gone over major aspects of the food delivery app. However, if you find it difficult to grapple with the process, then we suggest contacting professionals to discuss your business idea and get the right solution.
