Let's look through a list of food delivery leader apps:

Doordash - the online food delivery leader in the U.S. and a pioneer of the platform-to-consumer model.
Uber Eats - the most widely available service. Six continents!
Just Eat - the UK food delivery leader, it is also a part of Brazilian delivery giant iFood.
Grubhub - the app that controlled over 50% of U.S. online food deliveries in 2018.
Postmates - the app that is under Uber Eats' control since 2019, takes 10% of U.S. online food deliveries.

So what do you need to stand out among such huge food delivery companies, which already occupy a considerable part of the market and have already earned colossal recognition and love from their users?

First of all, you need to concentrate on closing the main pain points of your future users. Think like a hungry shopper who, for whatever reason, can't go out for food - they have a hectic schedule, they're exhausted from work, or they just love home delivery. So what does this person who orders home delivery of food want?

Speedy delivery of their order

So what this person needs, first of all, is delivery speed. When a person decides to order food, they are most likely already hungry, and you need to ensure the fastest delivery possible.

Positive emotions from the delivery

The second point is pleasant couriers. The delivery process should be as easy as possible, without leaving any negative experience. If you can provide contactless delivery or friendly and accurate couriers for your customers, they will be delighted and will love you and your app.

The most comprehensive delivery coverage and food range

Of course, it is crucial to deliver where your customers are. So you want to have a vast number of partner restaurants and cafes to provide the maximum choice of food that your customers want. Here you will have to work with the sales department or the marketing department to capture as many as possible.

If the last two points can be executed by the marketing and delivery departments, then the first point is your specific task as the creator of the app and its business model. So how to create a food delivery app that will differ?
Let's dive a little into the stunning world of delivery automation!

Automation of food delivery

Large international companies like Amazon are starting to use drones to transport small packages actively. There are a few options for you to consider if you want to beat all rivals with the most technologically advanced delivery option:

Courier robots

They are containers on six wheels. Such robots are not able to replace human couriers completely. Humans will complete routes that involve overcoming bridges, stairs, and other natural barriers in the city center faster. There is no need to produce complex and expensive robots. In this kind of delivery, you still have to rely on humans to control robots.

Drones

The future, where crowds of drones buzz around your house, land, pick up food, send packages - all this awaits us shortly. Architects and builders may need to rethink the overall design of a home to accommodate remote delivery. Thus, drone landing pads may appear, installed on mailboxes, roofs, or windowsill. Of course, drone copters have many advantages over human couriers: for example, they do not lose goods or argue with customers. And drones can efficiently deliver food wherever a car cannot reach.

Now there is a lack of a legislative framework regulating the "relationship" between people and drones. And there are numerous limitations in the current technology: short flight range, low battery power, and the weight that the drone can carry. Now the developers are working on solving these issues, and it is only a matter of time. But getting some drones into your new delivery app team is a great idea!

Four steps to make a delivery app

DoorDash began thanks to four enthusiastic entrepreneurs who took on literally everything from creating the application, accepting orders and delivery. To this day, it has been preserved as a tradition of this company that each of DoorDash's creators devotes one day a month to deliver orders with their own hands!

They served 70 restaurants in their first year of operation and received $2.4 million in funding, growing at a rate of 20% every week. They captured 55% of all food delivery orders in the United States for 2020-2021, exceeding the annual revenues of all other popular food delivery companies:

We studied famous representatives from the food delivery category and highlighted four basic steps to creating an app. After reading this part of the article, you will be ready to start a food delivery app from scratch, making it potentially very popular! You can also look through this article to know what to think about before creating your food delivery app.