Gen Z and millennials both are not very fond of delays in any of their work, be it any household task or going somewhere. Hence, they are becoming addicted to the on-demand services as they are instant and fulfilling all their desires. While talking about these on-demand services, how can we forget talking about food ordering and delivery services? The market has been flooded with multiple food delivery apps that have been providing consistent and faster services to customers. Among all the competitors, food delivery apps like Talabat is holding a large number of users very effectively, and even though, businesses are in search of a reliable food delivery app development company in Dubai to have an efficient solution.
Talabat has been a motivation for all the enterprises that want to enter a similar sector to gain profit and an extensive user base. The primary reason for the exciting appreciation for this app is the services it provides. It encompasses a wide range of restaurants offering multiple cuisines, convenient payment options, and interactive features. To know more about the Talabat-like app development process and other involved factors, read out this below write-up that is all about how to create an app like Talabat. Check this out:
A Quick Glance at Talabat Overview
The app was launched in 2004 by Abdulaziz Al Loughani and now it is known as the widely used popular food delivery app. This app enables users to search out all the restaurants in their locality comprising all the small food businesses such as street food shops and can order their favorite cuisines at a cost-effective price. This food delivery app in Dubai facilitates users with multiple payment gateways so that they won’t have any problems while paying for the order. The app also lets you customize the food order, hence among all the food delivery apps like Zomato, Deliveroo, Foodpanda, Otlob, etc., Talabat is preferred by everyone.
Businesses are choosing Talabat-like app development solutions more day by day as it provides better user convenience and customer satisfaction together. This food delivery app can be accessed via major platforms such as iOS, Android, etc. It has its user base in several areas including Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and other middle eastern & Gulf countries.
Reason Behind The Growth of Talabat App: Markets Stats & Growth
Now, let’s navigate to the market condition and growth of food delivery apps in Dubai that will give a boost to your plan to build an app like Talabat. Over time, the food delivery market in Dubai has also progressed very much similar to every other industry. According to reports, the annual growth rate of the food delivery industry is predicted around 3.5% annually. Here, Talabat is managing more than 100,000 food orders on an everyday basis.
Look at the below representation where we can see that Talabat recorded the largest food delivery market share of 74% in the UAE in Q1 2021. With these stats, this food delivery app is considered one of the best online food delivery applications in the Middle East.
The food ordering & delivery app industry is no longer a new sector for businesses as there are multiple applications associated with multiple restaurants with a broad variety of options. These apps provide more choices to customers rather than traditional ways.
Best Features to Include in a Talabat-like Food Delivery Application
A food delivery app works on three levels such as customer panel, restaurant panel, and delivery person panel. It is needed to add essential features & functionalities to make these three panels work efficiently and effectively. These also help in increasing the app’s credibility and trust among users which leads to app store installations.
1. Customer Panel
To provide an amazing experience to users, there must be added below features in while making a food delivery app like Talabat:
Quick Sign-up or Sign-in: An app must have a simple and fast processed sign-up process to help users to get registered with the app. For this, users must enter the mandatory information required by the app. the sign-up process is a one-time process, after that, users can log in to the app via given credentials. They can also save it permanently to save their time by entering the information again and again.
Interactive Landing Page: At the time of the food delivery app development process, there should be included a collaborative landing page including essential details regarding local restaurants, deals & discounts, and famous dishes.
Search Console: This feature facilitates users to search nearby restaurants & special food dishes by entering their name or the restaurant’s name. Talabat-like apps must have this feature to assist users in searching efficiently.
Pin the Current Location: While ordering regularly, this feature helps a lot. With this, users don’t need to enter the delivery location again and again. It is a must-included feature when it comes to online food delivery app solutions. Users can use the in-app map to pin their exact location and they must give the app access to track their location before ordering.
Multiple Payment Gateways: Adding several payment methods makes an app more desirable for users. It can include options like credit or debit card, net banking, UPI, COD, or app wallet.
Special Discount & Offers: Providing regular customers with more discounts and offers will make them feel important & wanted along with saving their money. It will lead to encouraging them to order more.
Personalized Filters: Facilitating users with customized food options while ordering will help them to prefer their choices. While creating a Talabat-like UAE food delivery app, you must add a button on the home page to enrich the users’ experience by letting them go for their interests.
Real-time Notifications: This feature is integrated into the food delivery app to enable users to get important updates about their order, delivery boy arrival, special discounts & offers, order confirmation, and so on.
Cart Option: Here users can add the food items into the cart that they want to order afterward. This way they can take time to evaluate the order specifics before making payment for that.
Track the Order: While getting details on how to make an app like Talabat, you must know it is a must-added feature. With this, users can view the current status of their orders. It provides them ETA (estimated time of arrival) through the rider’s location along with his/her current temperature.
Order History: With this, users can look at their past orders including details like dishes, restaurant’s name, total cost, etc. They can also repeat the same order from there to make the process faster and smoother.
In-app Calling: You must hire food delivery app developers in Dubai who have rich experience to integrate such features into your app. It permits users to call the delivery boy or restaurant to ask about their order.
2. Restaurant Panel
Get to know about the features that make a restaurant panel easy to use while helping in managing all the orders:
Signup or Register: This feature allows restaurants to register the app by providing significant details about their business. After that, they will get credentials to log in to the app.
Accept/Reject Orders: After getting an order request from a customer, it completely depends upon the restaurant whether they want to accept it or not. If they are over-occupied or don’t have staff, they can reject the order, otherwise can accept it as per their convenience.
Order View: This feature lets the restaurants view their previous delivered orders along with complete details such as food items, customer’s address, and contact information.
Call or Chat: The process of how to develop an app like Talabat includes the integration of advanced features as well. The calling/chatting feature or chatbot integration allows restaurants to get connected with the customers in case of any query.
Push Notifications: Real-time or push notification feature helps in alerting and updating restaurants with useful information. It can include various things like order request & confirmation, out-of-delivery, preparing status, and more.
Transaction History: It will help service providers to maintain the previous and current payment records containing withdraw, received refunds, and others.
Payment Integration: Through this, service providers can go with any mode of payment as per the customers’ convenience. This feature allows them to get the payment via modes like UPI, debit or credit card, cash on delivery, and more.
3. Delivery Person Panel
Similar to the user panel and restaurant panel, there is a delivery person panel that makes the delivery process smoother. When you choose to develop a food delivery app like Talabat, ensure to add these below features in this panel:
App Register and Login: The delivery person can signup the app by entering the required details about him or via the credentials given by the app admin. Details must include their name, contact details, vehicle details, and more.
Track the Location: The delivery person must have access to track the customers’ location to get the exact direction by using the in-built map feature or navigation. It will help them to deliver the order as soon as possible.
In-app Calling/Chatting: The purpose of the chatbot integration is to facilitate the delivery person to call or chat with the respective customer in case of any issue such as location, order, etc. They can communicate with the customers directly with this feature.
Push Notifications: This feature will help them to keep the delivery person notified about the order placement, order cancellation, payment transactions, and other things.
Link the Bank Account: It will let riders link their bank account with the app so that they can easily receive their payment or service charges directly into the account.
4. Advanced Features
If you are thinking of intaking advanced features into your food delivery app, you must hire expert mobile app developers to make this happen flawlessly. It will also vary the overall food delivery app development cost but are worthy to steal the attention of audiences. Get to know the must-included features in this panel:
Data Analytics & Reporting: This feature is helpful for restaurants to check the real-time status of orders via dashboards along with the analytic reports. It will be beneficial while make different strategies to augment the services and manage the stock easily.
CRM Integration: Integrating CRM will assist to ensure that the published website or app content is interactive, user-friendly, original, and accurate to draw the attention of audiences.
Muti-currency and Language Support: To enhance the reach of the application, it must serve the requirements of customers from different regions. Hence, it must provide different options related to language and currencies to the users. Though it can higher up the Talabat-like app development cost, it is a significant feature to have.
Reviews and Feedback: This feature must be added to all three panels to facilitate them providing their opinion. These reviews and feedback will help to improve the services by adding more suitable features to the app as per the customer’s suggestions.
How to Make Money With The Food Delivery App like Talabat?
While obtaining food delivery app development services, every business’s mind hassles with two questions, one is about the development cost and the other is about how to make money with the food delivery app. Thus, here we are going to tell you about the different ways of money-making strategies that you can apply to your online food delivery app solution. Have a look-
Delivery Charges
While getting on-demand food delivery app development solutions, this approach must be followed throughout the process. Talking about Talabat, It follows no minimum order delivery requirement leading to the orders under all restrictions can be accepted frequently. It enhances logistic cost per order and also applies higher delivery charges during rain, storms, special orders, and others. It makes users order above a fixed price to save the extra charges.
Commissions
At the time of providing food delivery mobile app development services in Dubai, firms always consider including this strategy. In this, food delivery apps charge 15% to 20% commission on each bill by users. This commission percentage is based on different elements like order frequency, location of the restaurant, the craze among users, etc.
Advertisements
Talabat considers two ways to get revenue from advertising that are restaurant listings and banner ads. Restaurants must pay higher fees if they want to appear on top of the list. Strategic advertising campaigns can help in this strategy to draw the attention of an extensive customer base.
Peak Hour Prices
It is one of the most applied ways by businesses to get the extra benefit. Food delivery apps can charge extra fees to deliver during the time of midnight, rain, storm, etc. Businesses must include this technique while obtaining food delivery app development services.
App Subscription
Food delivery app like Talabat offers monthly, quarterly, and yearly subscription plans to customers. It is beneficial for those who order from the app frequently as they get benefits like exclusive offers, free and fast delivery, etc.
How to Build an App like Talabat?
Now, when you know most of the details about how to develop an app like Talabat, we can proceed to the main food delivery app development process. Your chosen firm will play a vital role in this phase, hence if you have no idea about this, it will be better to get tips to hire a mobile app development company in Dubai and then, hire a top firm. Let’s navigate to the step-by-step development process:
Step 1: Create an Appropriate Plan
To generate an appropriate plan, market research and analysis is a must-taken step. It will help to provide you with details about competitors, current market trends, target customers’ requirements, etc. It is a foremost step, hence requires full focus on the value propositions, key resources, revenue and cost structures, channels, and many more to have a flawless development process further. You must decide here whether you want to go for iOS or Android app development services as this conclusion will decide the overall team structure.
Step 2: Design a Functional App User Interface
The next step involves working on the UI/UX design of the food ordering & delivery application. Your chosen app designers and brand strategists must ensure to acquire a responsive, interactive, and user-friendly design to make the user experience better. There should be eye-catching UI design and smooth app navigation to steal the attention of audiences.
Step 3: App Development Phase
Whether it is about Android or iOS app development services, the development part includes various aspects simultaneously. Firstly, mobile app developers will start with the back end and database systems. The app will be well-developed by including the required features and functionalities. Initially, developers should go with the small datasets and then, shift to MVP (minimum viable product) to provide a clear idea about the app working. After the MVP release, the app can be modified as per the feedback.
Step 4: Test the Developed Application
If you have got approval from the developers’ end, then the app is ready to examine at different levels such as performance, speed, etc. It will go through various testing phases to make sure there is no error, and the app is working swiftly. If there is found any bugs or issues, they will be sorted first, and then, the app will go for deployment.
Step 5: App Deployment
Whatever app platform you have chosen, be it Android or iOS, or both, the app will be ready to deploy accordingly. Some guidelines must be followed by the app before releasing it on a particular platform. Mobile apps also need continuous maintenance and support even after the release to work properly. Alongside, it should get updated time-to-time whenever required.
Technology Stack to Choose for Online Food Delivery App Development
Check out below the most suitable technology stack to use in the Talabat-like app development process. Let’s get details:
- Android Development: Java, Kotlin, Android SDK, Android Studio
- iOS Development: Swift, Objective-C, iOS SDK, Apple Xcode
- Front-end Development: JavaScript, CSS, HTML, WebAssembly
- Hybrid Development: Ionic, PhoneGap
- Payment Gateways: Braintree, PayPal, Stripe
- User Location Searching: Google Places API
- Direction Finding: Google Maps, MapKit
- Storage: Azure, AWS, Google
- Registrations: Facebook SDK, Gmail SDK
- Analytics: Firebase, Google Analytics
Read Also: Top iOS App Development Trends For 2023
How Much Does it Cost to Create an App Like Talabat?
The cost to develop an app like Talabat is an important aspect to discuss and get an estimation about. The complete cost of the Talabat-like app depends on various factors that businesses wish to include in the app. It contains different resources, levels of optimization, and app operability. Combined with these below-mentioned factors, check out here:
- Experience Of Mobile App Development Company
- Different Charges Applied by Developers
- Advanced Features
- The complexity of The Application
- Chosen App Platform
Covering all these points and everything from conceptualization to deployment, the cost to build an app like Talabat will be around $15,000 to $40,000. If businesses want to add more features and functionalities apart from the core ones, then it will definitely go higher than estimated.
Final Verdict
Nowadays, expanding into a new business has become essential and nothing can be a better option than the food delivery app domain as it is a progressive one. As we have already experienced and seen, there are multiple food delivery competitors with extensive customer bases such as Zomato, Swiggy, UberEats, etc. in the market that are catering to the users’ requirements for years. Hence, it is a little bit hard but not impossible to make space for your business. You just need assistance from a reliable and well-experienced mobile app development company in Dubai to create a feature-rich and scalable food delivery app.
In this matter, no other firm can stand better than SemiDot Infotech as we are a leading name in the field of mobile app development. With a set of adroit developers and designers, we will be happy to assist you while turning your unique app idea into reality. Get in touch for further queries!