Doordash, Uber Eats, Grubhub
What’s wrong with them?
At the start of the delivery business, these services are a great help: you don’t need to puzzle over the organization of the logistics scheme. But the cost of delivery turns out to be space: about $3 per order + 30% of the order price.
That’s why restaurants usually work with aggregators at low revolutions, but as soon as they can, they start their own application. This dramatically reduces the cost of delivery and increases its quality. All these services have a lot of units in their reviews, because the selection of couriers is not controlled, nobody watches them, and restaurants suffer from this.
The application builders
There’s an option, but he’s got a downside, too:
- The app builder won’t make integration with your business process and with any automation system at all, as each such integration is unique, and the service can earn only on some very mass functions. This is the secret of their low price;
- Applications based on app builders usually look worse than custom applications and it is difficult to change their appearance somehow;
- The application on the constructor you will not be able to change and remake to meet the specific requirements of your business;
- Apple plans to remove applications made on the designers in the near future, as they are not satisfied with the quality of such applications.
The result: at low speed designers can make sense, and if you seriously decide to do business on the delivery of finished food, the designer will not be enough for you.
Next we will consider the variant of development of own application and the basic nuances connected with this process.
Marketing campaigns
If you have a large database of users, it is quite expensive to notify them by SMS about discounts and offers. At base in 100 thousand persons, one sms-mailing will manage approximately in 170 000 roubles. The appendix in this sense gives considerable economy and higher conversion:
- Distribution of fur-notifications is free of charge at any size of the base;
- You can make a link to the detailed terms and conditions of the promotion or directly to the order;
- Push notifications can be flexibly targeted to the user’s preferences: you have a lot of information about previous orders, the user’s behavior in the application, his age and gender. This personalized mailing also increases the conversion rate.
Back-end and API
It would seem to have nothing to do with the server if it’s an application. A novice application developer will think about it:
You don’t have to worry about the back-end if you’re not developing it!
Not really, no. If the server is unavailable or the API gives out an error, the application gets an error in response and shows it to the user. The user sees the error, goes to the App Store and writes a bad review. As a result, everyone is fed up 💩.
Why do you even need a server?
For people far from development, it will be necessary to clarify: what kind of server it is, why it is needed and what is stored there. The server stores all data, mobile application and web browser only display this data in a beautiful and clear form. The user clicks on the buttons, the application turns the clicks into certain requests to the API, makes a request to the server. The server processes the request in accordance with the logic inherent in its work, turns this request into a query to the database and receives from it some useful information. For example, the list of dishes in a category, the prices etc. It is important that in the absence of communication with the server, all this work is stopped.
How to increase the stability of API responses
In fact, for the correct operation of the application it is important not only to have a stable server, but also to get the correct answers from the API. What is api? In simple words, it is a protocol of request-response between the application and the server. Problems can occur when the server developer made changes in the logic of the work, accidentally changed and did not test the API.
We recommend using automated API testing services such as runscope.com. They make test queries to all key API functions, check for correctness (e.g., the answer must be a number) and write statistics on availability / correctness. If you are a developer and want to run free tests on your api sometimes, we recommend the Postman service and its plugins: getpostman.com
The overall process
Deliver as soon as possible
Market leaders have set the bar for the time that elapses between ordering and receiving ready meals. This time should be no more than an hour, better less. Spoon road by lunch!
Work with the negativity
Sometimes the delivery is a couple of hours late or the food is not very fresh. Users are not silent about it, but write angry posts in reviews and social networks. We recommend to process all these messages and look for some compromise solutions. Yandex. Food tries to fix it with promotional codes with discounts. For quick feedback we recommend to embed the chat directly into the application. This will reduce the cost of customer support, but at the same time respond to as many people as possible.
If you are planning to order the development of such an application, we have an interesting offer for you:
Food delivery application — our eCommerce platform.
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