How On-demand Grocery App Development Benefits Your Business During COVID-19

COVID-19 pandemic has made the apocalyptic visions real across the world. Home quarantine, nationwide lockdowns, and travel bans have put most of the cities standstill. The temporary shutdowns and work-from-home situation have crippled the corporate sector and people’s lives have been badly affected.

Staying at home has become a norm for millions of people to combat the spread of coronavirus, and it results in the growth of on-demand app development.

Let’s take an example to understand this situation. Lockdown is the most effective weapon to combat the dreaded coronavirus. But then, the lockdown has its own challenges.

The biggest challenge is to get food items or groceries, and technology can help people overcome this challenge through on-demand grocery apps. This is the reason why grocery apps like Instacart and Wallmart Grocery have witnessed a surge in the number of downloads in recent times.

A grocery delivery app can meet the food delivery requirements effectively and it has become as crucial as restaurant app development these days. It is better to have an on-demand app for your brick-and-mortar Kirana store to grow business even when your customers are in their houses.

You can build a grocery app to reach existing and new customers with ease. You can significantly increase sales while providing comfort and convenience to the customers.

Here are the key reasons why on-demand grocery apps are highly popular these days.

Reasons for Increasing Popularity of On-demand Grocery Apps

In this COVID-19 era, people prefer to get grocery items at their doorstep. On-demand grocery apps can serve this objective in a secure and convenient way. Here are some of the major reasons for the rising popularity of on-demand grocery delivery apps.

Contactless Delivery

As people tend to follow social distancing, they like to stay away from crowds and want to avoid any contact with unknown persons. The online grocery delivery app facilitates them to get rid of any risk of contamination while getting food or grocery at their doorstep. Such on-demand delivery apps also offer a ‘No Contact’ option to minimize the possibilities of coming in direct contact with the delivery agents.

Delivery agents are always at a high risk of infection because they interact with several consumers daily. Apart from providing facial masks and gloves, the grocery suppliers can make their delivery agents and consumers safe by offering the contactless delivery option. This is one of the biggest reasons why people prefer online grocery delivery apps.

Secure Payment, Swift Delivery

Other reasons include secure online payment and quick doorstep delivery. The on-demand grocery delivery apps have payment gateways that enable the users to pay by using multiple options like credit cards, debit cards, and mobile wallets. What’s more, when there is a need, users can get the doorstep delivery of grocery and food items thanks to such apps.

These days, the trend of multi-delivery apps is on the rise. The on-demand app development is designed to provide enhanced user experience while increasing convenience. The mobile app development company can combine two services food delivery and grocery delivery in developing multi-delivery apps. During this COVID-19 pandemic, such multi-delivery apps gain ground because they give flexibility and convenience in a single app.

Multi-delivery apps are highly reliable and efficient in addressing the user’s food and grocery demands. It is easy to give the order for food items through a single tap. Here are some of the key benefits of the multi-delivery app.

Benefits of Multi-delivery App for Users
• Food and groceries in the same app
• Improved ordering and delivery services
• Users can get both food and groceries together at the same time
• More discount coupons and promotional offers

Top Features of Grocery Mobile Apps

As the COVID-19 outbreak spreads rapidly, anxiety prevails across the world. More people get reluctant to visit brick-and-mortar grocery stores. It is because physical contact with persons or products can spread the virus.

Thanks to digitization, grocery delivery apps can help people to maintain social distancing. Here are the key features of grocery delivery mobile apps. We will go through the features of three different panels- user panel, delivery panel, and admin panel.

Major Features in User Panel

Login

Users can register themselves through social media account or email id and phone number. After registration, the user can create a personal profile that includes name, age, and residential address.

Search

This is the most important feature of the on-demand grocery app. It enables users to search or browse various products across different categories.

Shopping Cart– This is another essential feature. Just like an eCommerce app, the grocery app also needs a shopping cart. The grocery app offers the ‘Add to Cart’ option for users to add selected products that they want to buy later.

Payment Gateway

It facilitates the users to pay using different payment options like PayPal, Stripe, credit/debit cards, and the like.

Delivery Schedule and Order Tracing

Users can order groceries or food as per their convenient time through this feature. Scheduled delivery can help users to ensure the delivery of products. With this, the order tracing feature enables the users to track their orders.

Notifications

This must-have feature in the grocery app enables you to send personalized notifications to the users about discount offers and coupons. Users can also get notifications regarding order status and payment.

Other features in the on-demand grocery apps include reviews and help center. Companies can also consider integrating AI-powered chatbots in the grocery delivery app.

Also Read- How Coronavirus Pandemic has Boosted Delivery Business Worldwide

Major Features in Delivery Panel

Geo-location Services

This functionality enables the delivery persons to find the customer’s address and the shortest route to reach there.

In-app Chat

Delivery persons can contact with the customer through this feature. It is particularly helpful when the delivery persons unable to find the customer’s address.

Accept/Reject Delivery

This option enables the delivery persons to either accept or reject the delivery orders. Delivery persons can reject the delivery of grocery items if the location of the users is too far.

Schedule and Profile

Just like users, delivery persons have to make their profiles in the app after a successful registration. They can see completed orders and their remuneration in the profile. Also, they can make a daily schedule to get products delivered on time.

Major Features in Admin Panel

Dashboard

It shows the movement of delivery persons and the status of orders in real-time. The admin can manage the entire delivery process with the help of an interactive dashboard.

User Management

It enables the admin to accept, reject, or ban the users if they find any profile fake or fraudulent. Also, this feature enables the admin to monitor the delivery status and find whether the user gets the order on-time.

Inventory Management

This is an important feature as it assists the admin to manage inventory and the entire supply chain.

Delivery Management

This feature enables the admin to track the movement of delivery persons and drivers. In case of any accident or mishap, this feature can assist the admin to find the location of delivery persons and handle the situation. The admin can also control the store or warehouse management.

Real-time Analytics

It helps the admin keep the entire process in control through obtaining real-time data.

After looking at the key features, let’s go through the cost-determining factors for the on-demand grocery delivery app.

Cost of Grocery Delivery App

Like other on-demand apps, the cost of grocery delivery apps depends on various factors including platforms, number of features, and hourly rate of developers. If you want to develop a grocery app for Android, it is costlier than the same for iOS.

Android apps need to pass through rigorous testing procedures because a large number of Android devices are available in the market. Also, the number of features is a cost-deciding factor.

Considering all these factors, the cost of grocery delivery apps can remain around $14k to $18k. However, if the number of features increases, the development cost increases significantly. The on-demand app development company can give you a quote as per your requirements.

Concluding Lines

Whether you own a brick-and-mortar grocery shop or want to establish an online startup, the on-demand grocery app development can remain helpful to attract people toward your business.

Looking at the trend of ordering grocery and food items online, we can certainly expect that the on-demand grocery app is here to stay. All you need to find the right grocery app development company to build a robust and secure grocery app.