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How many times have we all gone to do grocery shopping, but ended up being lost in the aisles and purchasing absolutely unnecessary things? Haven’t we all been there?
Grocery shopping is fairly boring, but an essential part of our lives and the current high price works like cherry on the cake for us. In times like these if you are planning to build a grocery shopping application, you are at the right place.
The essence of online grocery shopping increased a lot during the pandemic and plenty of people even today are relying on its services. Many companies like Uber, Instacart, Swiggy, Amazon, etc. started grocery shopping delivery worldwide.
Table of Content
- Why People Prefer Online Grocery Shopping
- Competitors in Grocery Shopping App Development
- Business Models
- How Does Online Grocery Store Works
- How to Start Grocery App Development
- Ways to Monetize your Grocery Shopping Application
- Conclusion
In this guide, we will explore step by step guides on how to start with on-demand grocery app development. Let’s begin!
Why People Prefer Online Grocery Shopping
First let’s answer the major question that many people might have i.e. why people do online shopping instead of the old brick and mortar shop?
Plenty of Discounts
Online grocery stores provide a hefty amount of discounts in the application. In fact, these applications also have a subscription model which users can use in case they want to save money on deliveries. It is next to impossible for in-person stores to provide a plethora of discounts to customers on almost every item even without festivals. These discounts help plenty of users to keep purchasing from their application.
Shopping from the Comfort of Home
The ease of ordering their groceries from the comfort of their home makes it easy for people to come back to your application. This is also one of the major reasons why grocery shopping apps work so well in the market. This is again the outcome of the pandemic which helped in technological reforms and allowing people to purchase groceries from the comfort of their home. Thanks to grocery mobile app development companies who helped to bring reform in the digital space.
Saves Time
Less or equal to no traveling helps businesses to retain the users. In turn, users too have started relying on the grocery shopping app to purchase everyday groceries too. Additionally, users are also allowed to have a conversation with the grocery shoppers in case of need. Making a complete transparent process to help communicate both shoppers and users on the platform makes it cohesive and easy to use.
If you are wondering how to start with grocery mobile app development and are interested to learn more, you can reach out to us. Our team of business analysts and developers will help you get started with on-demand grocery app development.
Competitors in Grocery Shopping App Development
Knowing your competitors’ and understanding their strength and weakness which in turn can help define your benefits. Additionally, these benefits can also work as your unique selling point to define your businesses’ needs. Let’s explore some of the pros and cons of your competitors.
This is a brief summary of the pros and cons of your competitors. You can carry out an in-detail competitor’s analysis and define your USP. One of the biggest advantages of knowing your USP before you start with online grocery app development is it helps you to better plan and strategize your marketing plan to retain and attract users.
Business Models
Before you start with grocery app development, defining your company’s business model is an essential part to define the smooth working of your business workflow. In the grocery shopping app model there are multiple models you can have which we will explore in detail:
Marketplace Model
In this model, grocery business owners have their own menus and delivery people. In this type of model, the owners take the business online by developing an application and deliver the items directly to customers’ doorsteps. Many business owners choose this model if they have all the necessary resources and can make necessary investments. However, there is quite a risk in this type of model considering all the investment and resources required for it.
Aggregator Model
This type of model is very common among the companies which companies like Instacart, UberEats, etc. use. In this model, the app and business owners like you will connect with multiple grocery stores in different areas. This model is considered to be the most used model for businesses as it is more profitable for each user compared to other models.
Single Stores
In this type of model, grocery store owners can invest in their own grocery shopping app development and provide their users with grocery shopping. This method helps various single store owners to have loyal customers and their users with better customer service.
Grocery Chains
In current times, many grocery store owners partner up with grocery shopping app development companies like ours for the grocery shopping app development. Customers can order groceries which they require from these grocery stores and deliver it to their customers.
Based on all the models mentioned, now it's time for you to think which type of business model you like to choose for your online grocery app development.
We recommend our customers to choose aggregator models as it helps them earn some profit and not invest heavily. This model provides lots of benefit to customers, delivery personals, grocery store owners, and to you as business owners.
How Does Online Grocery Store Works
Here’s a brief to help you understand and provide a clear idea of how an online grocery store work.
If you are thinking of investing in grocery shopping app development, you are at the right place. You can partner with an IT company like ours and we can help you with tangible solutions for your business idea and also provide you with a complete breakdown of grocery app development cost.
How to Start Grocery App Development
Next up, let’s see step by step guide on how to develop grocery shopping application:
Research and Study Competitors
The first step is to begin with research and analyzing your competitors. Carry out complete research of the market and your users’ needs to have better understanding about product development. This data and information will help you to better analyze your competitors and understand the strengths and weaknesses. As we discussed above, having clarity of your competitors will help you to define your own niche and USP in the market.
Feature Lists
When investing in grocery store app development having a varied set of features is essential. So let’s explore features you would have for each user-base in your application:
Admin Lists
Upon verification, the admin should be able to accept or reject vendors to make sure that the platform has quality content only.
Admin should be able to briefly see customers' data in order to help manage the data efficiently.
Admin should have access to all vendor information to help resolve customers’ problems if any.
Each transaction made in the application should be accessed by the admin to maintain the platform efficiently and also provide complete transparency to users, drivers, and vendors.
For Customers:
Providing customers with these features helps them to have real-time information of their delivery shopping cart and know when it is arriving.
The application must have these 3 features to provide users an efficient way to browse the groceries and shops. These features in turn also help you to provide more personalized recommendations to users.
Today is the most favorite and most used feature for people who are working. It helps users to plan grocery shopping in advance and provide users complete control of their experience too.
Upon placing an order, users should immediately get order confirmation to stay updated with the order details.
Users should be able to communicate with shoppers in case any item is replaced, changed, or not found. Complete transparency on the platform will help you to retain users, vendors, and shoppers.
For Vendors
Vendors should have access to their profile and be able to add, edit, and delete it when they need.
Vendors should be able to add time slots i.e. their working hours so they are notified about orders only when they are working.
Allocate orders to vendors in the First in First Out (FIFO) manner so orders are reached timely to users.
Inventory management is necessary on the vendor's side, so users are aware of how much stock is there in their store which helps them to make better decisions.
Vendors should be able to run campaigns on your platform for sale or certain discounts. This can be either paid or unpaid depending on your marketing model.
Vendors should be able to view reviews and feedback which helps them to know users’ opinion and take actions accordingly.
For Delivery Driver/Shoppers:
Shoppers should be able to see the geolocation of the store and also of the users’ home to provide them with a clear idea of how much they are likely to travel.
Shoppers should be able to accept or reject deliveries according to their need.
To provide drivers with downtime, they should be able to add their working days and hours according to their availability.
If drivers are getting multiple orders at the same time, they should be clearly bifurcated to help them work efficiently.
Drivers should be able to access their dashboard to have a clear understanding of how much money they are making and how many hours they are working.
Still thinking of starting a grocery shopping app development? We are just a click-away!
Strategizing, Designing, and Content Planning
When investing in grocery store app development the next important step is to focus on strategizing, designing, and planning the content for your product. I know everything together seems very overwhelming to do, so you can start with designing the layout of your product and then focus on the content planning of it. For designing, we usually recommend our clients to have a team of experienced and junior designers who can help you to bring the deep and fresh ideas at the same time. If you think you can not invest in designing currently, don’t worry, we can help you. Our team of expert and experienced designers can help build user-centric designs which ensures successful customer retention.
Next up, is content planning. Start with designing and planning the content for your product. You can focus on the voice and tone you want to have for your product, the type of content you want to push for social media, marketing plans, and your product as well. All these combined will help you to have a strong content planning strategy.
Develop an App
Use the latest technology stack in order to develop a viable and scalable product which can help you to stand out from the crowd. You can also outsource the development work of grocery app development company like ours to help you get started. When scouting out a company to outsource development, here are few things you can focus on:
- Years of experience in the market
- Number of projects completed over time
- Seniority level of developers
- Reviews and feedback from the previous client-base they have
- Their overall work process and company’s culture
These pointers will help you choose the perfect IT company who can help you to stay ahead of your competitors and provide support at each step of product development.
Test and Launch
Testing your product before launching is essential to ensure customers are interacting with the product which is qualitative and makes their lives better. We recommend you to use the latest automation testing method to ensure that customers are getting better products. Once you have thoroughly tested and confirmed that it is functional and bug-free you are ready to launch it.
Ways to Monetize your Grocery Shopping Application
When you have invested quite a lot in grocery mobile app development, there needs to be return on investment. So, let’s discuss some of the ways you can monetize your grocery shopping application and help you earn some return on investment.
Delivery Fees
This is the most common way to charge some money from your users. In addition to this you can also suggest users to tip drivers a certain percent of money which goes to them 100%. Based on the order value you can charge the delivery fees a certain percentage. This amount will ensure that you are having stable revenue streams.
Advertising
You can charge a certain amount of money from the vendors on your platform if they want to rank. Running ad campaigns on your platform will ensure healthy competition among people which in turn can help them to provide better service and competitive costs for users.
Premium Membership
You can also provide users with premium memberships with added benefits to generate recurring income for your business. Many grocery shopping companies provide users with subscription packages and in turn give me more discounted rates and free delivery services. This method will also help you to retain your user base and have loyal customers.
Conclusion
When starting to invest in grocery shopping app development, we know it can be difficult and at times even expensive, but you have our back. We are here to help you get started and stay ahead of your game. Using our industry experience and knowledge you can build a product which is scalable and helps your users to order groceries at their fingertips.
Partner with a grocery app development company like ours to who can help you with grocery mobile app development and we will help you stay ahead of your competitors.
