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How to Build an On-demand Delivery App


— September 23, 2020

On-demand apps are the next technology for businesses to win over customers. However, it is necessary to understand the challenges that you face along with the ever-changing market scenario.


Uber has started a booming on-demand economy, which is now going to influence all industrial sectors from grocery to plants. The on-demand delivery apps are all set to avail of the benefits of this mobile era.

As per the statistics, the Internet’s 1/3 traffic is driven by mobile and hand-held devices. With the changing shopping trends, mobile apps are the best way to target such a massive customer base. All you need is a flawlessly working on-demand delivery app solution.

This blog is all about leveraging the tailored benefits of an on-demand delivery app for your business. Let’s start with the bifurcation of these apps.

Types of on-demand delivery app

The on-demand delivery app is a combination of three apps. You need to create three apps that address the different perspectives of the users.

  1. Customer app: This app is for your customers. It helps your customers to find out what they are looking for. The features of this app should be intuitive as it interacts with your customers.
  1. Delivery partner sided app: The delivery partner sided app guides your logistic team to deliver the courier successfully on your customer’s doorsteps. The features of customer sided delivery app are entirely different from driver sided app in on-demand delivery solution.
  1. Admin app: This app allows you to manage all your business aspects. With this app, you can identify the entire tracking system, manage and track all deliveries, address any issues related to operations, and analyse overall operational costs.

Thus, these three interfaces are necessary for developing a fully-functional on-demand delivery app. Next comes the features of these apps to choose the best feature to integrate into your next project.

Features of an on-demand delivery app

Man holding smartphone with Venmo app open; image by Morning Brew, via Unsplash.com.
Man holding smartphone with Venmo app open; image by Morning Brew, via Unsplash.com.

Here are some highlights for driver’s application, customer’s application, and admin’s web application that can be used in on-demand mobile application development in this growing economy of demand.

Customer app features

The on-demand delivery app must have these features to retain customers and boost up sales.

  • Login/Signup: you can provide a simple and secure registration or login access though social media or email accounts. Majority of the businesses prefer phone-based registration to synchronize push notifications and tracking of deliveries. 
  • Payment options: Nowadays, there are many payments options for the customers. It is necessary that you must include majority of them including the Cash on Delivery, Net banking, Credit or Debit card payments, UPI and most popular e-wallet payments. 
  • Push Notification: It enables the users to be notified about your products, services and latest offers. Besides, it is also the best marketing tool in today’s mobile-based economy. 
  • Real-time tracking: This feature is the most important feature of your on-demand software as it makes the customers aware about the arrival of their parcel in real-time. 
  • Review and Rating: The review helps the customers to rate the delivery agent which also helps you to determine the dedicated delivery boys for your business and analyse customer satisfaction. 

Delivery partner app features 

The features of these apps are designed according to the requirements of the delivery agents. Here are some of the features you should consider while developing the app.

  • Accepting Requests: The delivery agents can accept and deny the request for delivering the parcel. 
  • Availability: They can set their availability for providing their delivery services. 
  • Description: This feature provides a detailed information about delivery agents services and their interactions with their customers. 
  • Reward tracker: This helps the delivery agents to analyse their rewards and earnings according to months, weeks and days. 

Admin app features

The admin features are listed below. Remember these features are for you and you can customize it as per your business requirements. 

  • Dashboard: It helps you to control all operation activities right from number of deliveries to the payment. You can flawlessly manage all your administrative tasks along with estimation of operation costs. 
  • Real-time analytics: it helps you to check out the insights of your app-based services. You can check out the fuel cost, pending deliveries, and monthly revenue easily. 
  • Logistic ledger: This feature helps you to manage the payroll, commission, incentives, and penalties of the delivery agents. 

These are some critical features that must be integrated into the on-demand delivery application for practical functionality. But the question is, how much does an on-demand delivery app cost? Next is the answer.

How much does an on-demand delivery app cost? 

The estimated cost of an on-demand delivery app can vary from project to project. Apart from the project, it can depend on the app’s complexity, the number of features, and the type of app that you need for your business to target firms or customers. Here’s how you can get a quick idea of an on-demand delivery app cost.

  • Documentation

The process of the on-demand delivery app starts with documenting your overall requirements. It also includes market research, competitor analysis, and many other factors associated with your industry. The complete documentation can take up to 10 hours.

  • UI and UX Design

UI and UX design are essential for your app. It helps to retain the users by facilitating them to take hassle-free actions on your app. It takes up to 50 hours to design an intuitive on-demand delivery app.

  • Front-end & Back-end Development

The front-end and the back-end development of the app include transforming your UI and UX design into a clickable app prototype. It is the most critical phase of app development and can take up to 250 working hours to develop it.

  • Quality analysis

Checking the quality of the app is extremely important. It is necessary that your app works flawlessly on different hand-held devices and different operating systems. The testing of an app includes identifying and fixing bugs and making it smooth when it comes to user experience. The entire testing phase can be completed in around 50 hours.

Total cost for on-demand delivery app

The hourly cost of an on-demand delivery app ranges from $40 to $150 based on the app developer’s experience and the on-demand app development company. By adding all the hours listed above, it can be said that the overall development hours of an on-demand delivery software can be 360 approximately. Thus, the total development cost can be between $10,000 to $50,000.

Building an on-demand system needs the right blend of expertise and skills. So, you must choose the on-demand app delivery company wisely. Hire the best software development team with a perfect mix of skills and experience and is also cost-efficient to your project.

Final thoughts

On-demand apps are the next technology for businesses to win over customers. However, it is necessary to understand the challenges that you face along with the ever-changing market scenario. In-depth knowledge of the market, robust business strategies and an extended dedicated software development team can help you take your next big business move.

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