How to develop a Multi-Vendor Food Delivery System

How to build a Multi-Vendor Food Delivery System? With major advancements, technology has revolutionized the world. In the past few years, food delivery industries have crossed enumerated leaps when it comes to economic growth. According to the report by Statista, the global food technology market size is expected to reach from $220.32 billion in 2019 to $342 billion by 2027, making it the best time to invest in multi-vendor food delivery systems.

To help you in developing one of the best apps in the market, we have this in-depth guide. But keep in mind that with the apps like Ubereats, DoorDash, FoodPanda, GrubHub, etc. there is strong competition out there. Still, these apps help us to understand that with the right strategies and measures you can develop a food delivery system that will succeed.

Before moving to the development of the multi-vendor delivery system, let’s start with the basics.

What is a Multi-Vendor Food Delivery Web App?

Multi-vendor web apps allow admins, sellers, and customers to use a single platform to perform collaborative actions. The sellers can register themselves, create their business profiles, and add products for users to choose from and buy.

Similarly, a multi-vendor food delivery system enables sellers to register and create restaurant or cafe profiles and add food items to the product list. It makes it easier for the customers to search for different dishes from different restaurants on a single platform and place their orders.

The multi-vendor food delivery web app also allows consumers to check the real-time status of their order, from restaurant acceptance to preparation to delivery at their doorstep. The admin controls the functionalities of the web app and with the help of the development team regularly maintains the app and fixes bugs.

How does the Food Delivery System Work?

The multi-vendor food delivery system gives a user full access to choose the food items as per their choices from a variety of restaurants.

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From the user point of view, the food delivery system works as follows:

• Right from the start of food selection, customers remain at the head of the system, they get recommendations from nearby restaurants or special offers for the day.

• Once the items have been added to the cart, consumers can review, apply coupons and pay for the order.

• After the order is placed successfully by the user, the restaurant gets a notification for food preparation.

• Upon preparation of the food items, a delivery person is assigned to pick up the order from the restaurant and deliver it to the customer at the provided address within the given timeframe.

All the processes from placing the order to delivery including accurate geolocation of the customer and the smooth payment transfers should work efficiently without interruptions.

Multi-Vendor Food Delivery Web App Advantages

The benefits that developing a multi-vendor food delivery web application may offer you include:

• No Need to Own or Maintain a Restaurant

If you are planning to build a food delivery system, there’s no need for spending money on the inventory or infrastructure of a restaurant. As different business owners register their restaurants and add food items to the lists for customers. Preparation and packaging of the order are the sole responsibility of the verified restaurant. Pickup and delivery are handled by the delivery partners, so all you need to do is maintain the website.

• Indulge a Variety of Food Businesses

Unlike a single-vendor food delivery system, in a multi-vendor system, there are a variety of registered food businesses including cloud kitchens, burger or pizza parlors, takeaways, and multi-cuisine restaurants. It provides customers with the opportunity to choose whatever they want from a single platform rather than switching between multiple single-vendor web applications.

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• Revenue Generation with Each Transaction

Each time an order is placed through the food delivery marketplace, the platform charges a commission to the restaurants that allow them to list their food menus. Apart from the revenue generated from the restaurant commission, food delivery web apps can also enjoy the revenue benefits from advertising on the platform.

• Automated Operations

To make the multi-vendor food delivery system well-organized, activities like customer management, order processing, and payment transactions are automated using multiple automation tools and technologies.

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• Controlled Transactions

Food delivery marketplaces offer the flexibility to govern all activities on the platform, i.e., you can manage all transactions on the site with ease. You can hold the payments from the customers until the order is delivered successfully, this will increase both credibility and loyalty of your marketplace in the customers’ minds.

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• Attracting Restaurant or Cafe Owners who cannot afford Food Ordering System

The main benefit of having a multi-vendor food delivery system is the ability to register food menus from startups or vendors that aren’t financially capable of developing their web apps.

• Easy Payment Methods

Developers that you hire to develop the web app use authorized online payment processing systems like Stripe to incorporate payment methods into the app so the customers can easily pay for the order either through PayPal, Credit/Debit Card, etc. For customers who aren’t comfortable with the online payment system, you can also ask the developers to add the option for Pay on Delivery as well.

• Great Investment for Passive Income

For the majority of the entrepreneurs who want a source of reliable passive income, a multi-vendor food delivery system is an ideal solution.

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Some additional advantages that a multi-vendor food delivery system can offer are:

• Fast food ordering

• Unlimited restaurants listing

• Secured and Smart Checkout process

• Customizable delivery area

• Merchant/Admin dashboard

• Push notifications

• GPS integration and real-time tracking

• Multilingual script

• Calling integration

Multi-vendor Food Delivery Web App Features

Now that you know what a food delivery system is, its work and its benefits, it’s time to understand the basic features of the food delivery web app that you must consider to add in your web app.

• Easy registration and profile management

The registration process for restaurants, customers, and delivery agents must be easy and convenient. For the restaurant, registration should require a food license, tax registration number, food quality assurance certificate, etc. Similarly, a valid driving license and identification are requirements to become a delivery partner. On the other hand, customers should be able to register within a few minutes with minimum details using either their email address or contact number. After the registration, users should also be able to update their preferences, address, and payment details.

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• Dashboard / Admin Panel

The food delivery web app should have a different view for the restaurants, delivery team, and the customer. While the vendor should get a summarized view of the successful/canceled orders, total sales, menu list, etc on the dashboard; delivery partners should get the geolocations of the restaurants’ and customers’ addresses access with ease along with the ability to mark the order status complete once it is delivered. On the other hand, customers should get a dashboard with nearby restaurants, food menus, restaurant reviews, track orders and make payments.

• Restaurant Listing

The restaurants that a customer can order from should be based on their geolocation to offer prompt and quality services. It will also give consumers more time to select the food items getting better satisfaction from the food delivery platform.

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• Ordering Options

The food delivery system must provide different delivery options for the customer to choose from. It allows customers to opt for self-pickup, select delivery time, or contact-less delivery.

• Order Management

With the order management feature, restaurants can easily go through different orders, their completion status and manage order processing. Decipher Zone can help you to launch a food delivery platform that has streamlined order management for the vendors.

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• Menu Management

Having the menu management system in the web app will help the restaurants to easily categorise food items into different listings according to the demands that will improve the ordering experience for the customers on the food delivery marketplace.

• Real-time Notifications

Customers should be notified about their order status like when it is being prepared, picked up, and delivered. Even if there is a sudden delay in the order they should be a real-time update sent to the customer via notifications. Apart from the customers, restaurant vendors, as well as food delivery partners, should receive notifications related to order placement, payments, pick-up, delivery, etc.

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• Tracking

With the tracking feature, restaurants and customers will be able to view the real-time status of the delivery partner, while the tracking for the restaurants will end once the order is successfully picked-up, customers will be able to track the package till it gets delivered at their doorstep. Tracking of the delivery partner helps in-transit improvements as well.

• Advanced Search

Another important feature that you should add to your food delivery system is advanced search. It will help customers to find the dish they want to order with ease. It should also provide a list of different vendors to the customers including the pricing and rating of that food item and restaurant for ease of selection.

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• Security & Online Payment Integration

The payment method you are integrating into the web app should be secured and seamless so that the users don’t have to face fraud and irrelevant payment deductions. Some of the best online payment integrations that you can use are Stripe,

• Rating & Reviews

When the food is delivered to the customer, it is important to have the rating and reviewing feature in the web application. This feature should be quick and easy to use with ready-to-tap buttons like rating out of 5 stars for delivery, food quality, and experience. Besides improving user trust, it also assists restaurants and delivery partners in improving the quality of services they provide.

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• Support & Assistance

There should be a chatbot in the food delivery web application that will help customers to resolve common issues related to orders they have placed or if they are unable to perform certain tasks.

Apart from customer support, a web app should have admin support for regular troubleshooting, technical backup and operation streamlining to ensure that the system is working as expected.

• Cancellations & Refunds

Another essential feature to add to the web app is the cancellations and refunds option. If for some reason the customer wants to cancel the order, there should be an easy way to do so. However, you can also add a field that asks for the reason for cancellation from the user, this will help in verifying if the problem was genuine or not. And if the order is prepaid, the web app should also be able to refund the amount to the original payment method for the customer.

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• Daily Sales Updates

For the restaurant’s owners, the web app should have an additional feature that summarizes the daily sales update by the end of the day. By the end of the month, this should also offer descriptive analytics that will help restaurants to make informative decisions for future planning and strategy for success.

Cost of Multi-Vendor Food Delivery Web App

Although the cost of developing a web application for multi-vendor food delivery depends entirely on the requirements you have, goals you want to achieve, and the total time invested in the web app. Roughly it can take around 6 months to a year to develop the multi-vendor food delivery system. To give you an average range, development can cost you around $40,000 to $60,000.

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So that was it for this blog and we hope many concepts and considerations for the web app are clearer in your mind. If you have any queries, suggestions, or want to create a multiple vendor food marketplace delivery system for your business, then hire developers with vast experience in the same area from a company like Decipher Zone.