Grocery Delivery App Development: Features, Benefits, Cost & More

As the name implies, it is a mobile app that enables users to order grocery supplies (food and related items) from retail stores and local shops delivered at their doorstep.

For online delivery services usually, there are two apps — one for end customers and another for a local delivery partner. The customer places the order in their app and pays for it. While on the other side, the “delivery agent” who’s in the vicinity based on the notification – accepts the order and delivers the goods to the customer.

Let’s take a look at the functioning of a grocery shopping app in more detail,

Aggregators

• Serves as a facilitator, or a mediator to connect the shopper and the grocery store. The delivery is managed by the store owner
• Requires collaboration with nearby stores
• Preferred by business with their owned grocery store, or having a chain of stores, or can tie up with the other grocery stores easily
• The end customer has the option to decide on purchase from which store

Marketplaces

• It is quite similar to the aggregator approach
• The only difference is that the marketplace has its team of delivery personnel to deliver the ordered items to the customer’s doorsteps.

Single Stores

• Owned by the grocery business with a custom app to support their physical store and leverage opportunities online.
• Allows users to place an order in a few taps on the phone
• Manage, maintain and deliver the orders to customers either by self or associating with a delivery partner company like Uber, Instacart

Supermarket Chains

• Large and scalable on-demand mobile app solution for grocery chains
• Manage, maintain and deliver the orders to customers mostly on their own
• Collect consumer data on preferences, buying patterns to send highly personalized offers & discounts

There exist three types of user profiles for this type of platform – buyers (end customer), business owners (retailers, shopkeepers, proprietors and more), and admin. And, each of these user persona use & requires a separate mobile or web app with different functionality.

Let’s discuss the essentials;

• Custom Dashboards: Provide a central location to every entity of business to access, interact, and analyze up-to-date information to make smarter decisions.
• Visual Search: The AI-based visual search helps the user to visualize the items for easing out the purchase process through the app based on real-world imagery (screenshots, internet images, or photographs)
• Voice Assistance: Speech supportive mechanism (search, discovery & command) enables the user with the flexibility to add and purchase items seamlessly.
• GPS Tracking: Enables the delivery staff to locate routes and even users to track their order proceedings and delivery in real-time.
• In-App Chat & Calling: Allows making in-app calls & chat to connect with the delivery person, store owner, or customer with each other for possible queries.
• Real-time Analytics: Provides insights about user likes, dislikes and other behavior patterns via graphs and statistics. It helps suggest user buying behavior, their preferences & more plan future strategies to streamline the growth of the grocery store.

Improves Inventory Management

Enables owners to get insights on order management and plan the overall inventory processes efficiently.

Customer Loyalty

Helps analyze consumer behavior and understand their preferences to personalize shopping experiences via push notifications, reward points and deals.

Reduces Overhead

The automation of billing, order & inventory management and customer assistance helps save effort, time, and cost.

Instacart

A San Francisco-based fairly popular app, it serves 5000+ cities across the United States and Canada.

Features:

• With a team of local shoppers helps acquire grocery items from different stores in the area
• Offers the option to choose the delivery schedule or order on-demand
• Delivery fee depends on the size of the order and delivery time

Peapod

A Chicago-based online grocery app that operates across 24 markets in the U.S. region

Features:

• With owned warehouses, it allows customers with an easy supply of goods
• Analyze user’s frequent purchases and suggest items for the future accordingly
• Bulk-buying offers more savings
• Convenient delivery options

Shipt

An Alabama (Birmingham) based delivery service provider, it serves delivery of products from different grocery chains. It is available in major cities including Texas, Ohio, Michigan and more.

Features:

• Provides users with Costco memberships and rewards
• Provision to leave special instruction(s)
• Offers a team of local buyers to handpick user’s home essentials ensuring the fresh produce
• 24*7 customer support

The development of an on-demand grocery delivery platform like any requires a strategic and full-fledged process. The right planning and execution ensure you outrun your rivals to stay ahead of the game.

Listed are few high-level points for your consideration,

• Market Research
• Selection of Business Model
• Features & Functions
• Design the UI/UX
• Develop, Test & Launch

The total cost of the app development project usually depends on numerous factors like the type and size of the app, platforms, customization, maintenance costs, and other complexities. Let’s look at those key factors:

• Business Model Type
• Type of Application (Native or Cross-platform)
• Modules and features
• Functionality
• Tools, frameworks, and tech stack
• Designing complexity and scalability
• Backend infrastructure and administration
• Third-Party App Integrations

Our expert team can work with you to analyze your project requirements and draw an accurate on-demand online grocery shopping app development cost estimation chart. Rishabh’s custom approach can help you define goals/milestones and phase-wise segregation of how the overall development project would proceed and in the end bring customer experiences to life.

Making user-centric grocery apps necessitates the use of the right technology & tools. Take a look at the most popular and commonly used technologies.

• Languages: Laravel, Flutter, PHP, Swift, Kotlin, JavaScript, JS, CSS3, HTML5
• Frameworks and Libraries: Angular, jQuery, Node.js, Bootstrap, VueJS, React Native
• Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL
• Hosting Platform: AWS
• Analytics: Google Analytics, Amazon EMR
• Web Server: Apache HTTP Server, Nginx
• Payment Gateway: Braintree, PayPal, Stripe