How to Build Food Delivery App Like Zomato

Food ordering industry is the one which has a huge potential. According to the research by Morgan Stanley, online food delivery comprises only less than 5 percent of the total restaurant industry.

This article give you some idea about how to build a food ordering app like Eat24, JustEat, Deliveroo, Doordash, UberEats, Zomato.

The key stakeholders for a food delivery app like Zomato are:

The food delivery app charges a fixed amount of fee from the restaurant owners to list their restaurant on the platform.

The customers can browse the menus and make the order from the mobile app or from the website.

The restaurant receives the notification when new orders come and they have the option to either reject or accept it.

When a customer places an order, the system sends the notification to the delivery person about the order, and they can accept or skip the order.

The customer can track the order in real-time through the mobile app or website.

The food delivery app pays a variable amount to the delivery person for each successful delivery.

The food delivery app can make revenue through 3 channels:

The platform charges a fixed amount from the restaurant owners to list their restaurant on the platform.

The restaurants can buy a banner to have a premium listing on the platform. These premium listings are the sponsored ads shown on the website or mobile app to grab the customer's attention.

The platform takes a cut out of the order total from the restaurant. The commissions typically range from 5-20% of the order value.

Customers can access the restaurants via the website or the mobile app. Both the mobile app and website share the common features.

Let's see what are the features of the web and mobile app for the customers.

​The users should be able to sign up using their email. It would be nice to add social media login - Facebook or Google.

Users can log in using their email and password. It would be nice to add an OTP based login - the user will receive the OTP via email.

​After the user shares the location with the platform, the platform shows restaurants that deliver the food to the user's location. The users can search for restaurants using the name and filter the restaurants by Rating, Cuisines, etc.

The users can browse the restaurant menu. They can search the menu by name and filter the menus by veg/non-veg.

The users can add items to the cart and remove the items. Some menu items might have customization (or modifiers), which allows the users to customize that item.

When a user is ready to order, he/she can do the checkout. The users should be able to make payments using options such as Card, Wallets, Net Banking, UPI or Cash on delivery

After a successful order, the user can track the order progress in the Google map. They can see current order status, driver location, estimated delivery time, etc.

The users should be able to rate the order after successful delivery.

The users can see their previous orders and they should be able to re-order in one click.

Users can manage their addresses in the address book. The users can add the different addresses for Home, Work or Other.

​Notifications

The users receive push notifications at different stages of the orders - Approved, Preparing, On the way, Delivered. The users receive notifications also via SMS or E-mail.

This application helps the restaurants to manage the menus, orders, etc. They get access to the following:

Menu Manager

A web app to manage the menus, categories, items, and modifiers.

Order Receiver

A mobile app to manage the orders, set the menu availability, with minimum features of the Menu Manager.

Let's see what are the features of the restaurant partners web and mobile app.

The restaurant partners sign in using their email and password. The restaurant partner on-boarding process is handled by the Administrator.

The restaurant partners can do the followings:

The restaurant partners can do the followings:

The restaurant partners can do the followings:

The restaurant partners can do the followings:

The restaurant can update their basic details such as name, address, logo, phone, email, etc.

The restaurant can update their working hours to show when the restaurant is open for business on the Platform.

The restaurant can browse the orders and filter it by date ranges. They can see orders total, amounts, commission deducted, etc.

The restaurant can see how their business is doing from the Revenue page.

The restaurant can view deposits made to their account From the Deposits page. They can view the deposit amount, download the deposit history as CSV.

The restaurant can see the reviews about their menus from the diners. They can respond to the reviews but can't remove or update reviews.

Delivery partners pick the orders from the restaurants and deliver them to the customers. They get a delivery request and as soon as they accept the request, they are provided with the information on the order, restaurant, and address of the customer.

Let's see what are the features of the delivery partner mobile app.

The delivery partners can sign in using their mobile number and password. The delivery partners have to receive their account information from the Platform Administrator.

The delivery person can change their mobile number, password, etc.

The delivery partners receive the orders from the platform, they can either accept or reject the orders.

If they accept the order, they are provided with the information on the order, restaurant, and address of the customer.

They can see the route to the customer's location on the Google map and has the option to contact the customer/restaurant.

The delivery person can see their everyday earnings. They receive Delivery Pay + 100% of tips for every order they deliver.

The delivery person can change their availability online or offline. Only partners with status online receive orders for delivery.

Platform Administrators are the owners of the food delivery app and have full privileges to the system. They can view the restaurant partners, delivery partners, customers, orders, etc and make changes.

Let's see what are the features of the platform administrator web app.

The Administrators can create, update, remove the restaurant partners. They can also create or update the menus, categories, items or modifiers of the restaurants.

The Administrators can create, update, remove the delivery partners.

The Administrators can see all the orders received for the restaurants. They can add notes, approve, cancel, refund the orders.

The Administrators can view all the customers registered on the platform. They can block or unblock the customers.

The Administrators can view the reviews and ratings from the customers for each order. They can hide the reviews from the public or mark it as spam.

Analytics and reporting are the most important things for the Administrators to track how the business is doing. They can download different reports from the dashboard and also see analytics about the revenue, orders, customers, etc.

Choosing the right technology stack is very crucial when building a food delivery app. You have to look into future growth and how are you going to maintain the platform.

You can use either Angular or React for the frontend.

You have 2 options here. Build a hybrid mobile app or a native one. For the hybrid mobile app development, you can use Flutter or React Native.

You have many options here. We would prefer PHP or NodeJs. You can use a well-known PHP or NodeJs framework for backend development.

You can use MySQL, MongoDB.

You might need the following 3rd party services for the platform operations.

You can hire a web and mobile app development team that has experienced building an online food ordering app like Zomato or UberEats.

For building a food delivery app like Zomato, you will need the followings: