The Only Guide You Need To Build Supermarket App Like Ocado

Last Updated on June 4, 2022

As far as uncertainties of life go, we have never experienced a more unprecedented time like right now. With shops and stores forced to shut down and people confined to their homes, it has become difficult to order our favourite meals online. With no surety as to when our favourite restaurants will open up again, people have resorted to cooking their favourite meals on their own. In such an uncertain time, we need to become self-sufficient and that starts with food. Although grocery stores have been popular for years now, they have lost their popularity over the years because of the option of buying online. As much as people love spending their time on menial tasks, nobody likes standing in queues at the grocery store waiting for their turn to pay.

Grocery shopping seemed like a nice way to spend some hours on the weekend, but lately, it has become tiring and less fun. Because of all the problems that physical grocery shopping poses and all the benefits that online delivery comes with, it wasn’t difficult for online grocery shopping to become popular. If you ask us, online grocery delivery is worth all the hype it is getting. Who doesn’t want to just chill on the couch, select a few necessary grocery items and let someone do the work for you; for just some extra bucks? If you can afford it, you should spend that extra cash and utilize your time doing better things like spending it with people you love.

With the evolution of technology, stores can now sell fruits, vegetables, beverages, bottled water, chips, and a lot more. People can even go to the extent of scanning barcodes of the items in their homes and purchase the same stuff again. Research figures clearly support the phenomenon and predict that it will only continue to grow. According to Invesp, 70% of US shoppers will be probably buying groceries online by 2022. Online grocery accumulated about $23.9 billion in sales in the year 2018 alone and the same is expected to reach $59 billion by 2023. Online grocery shopping is also immensely growing in Asia with CAGR expected to be 24.4% in comparison to the expected 6.2% for the overall grocery market. Although these stats present a great picture for the future, the industry is so famous among all parties because it allows sellers to drive up sales volumes, allows customers to have a more interactive and simple experience, and offer a new revenue stream for the delivery personnel. It also allows app makers to gather revenue and lets people manage all their orders and deliveries using one smartphone.

Various Types of Online Grocery Delivery Apps

Online grocery delivery apps are not as easy to understand as some might think. These apps can be categorized into different types on the basis of their business models and other factors, and each of these types of businesses operates a little differently than others. Here understand the types of grocery delivery apps:

Aggregators- Aggregators are grocery delivery apps that simply act as a mediator between customers and stores. These apps list all nearby stores that sell groceries on their platform. The customer can select a store/supermarket, select all the items and place an order. Once the order is made, it is processed by the app and accepted by the store. The responsibility to deliver the grocery lies in the hands of the stores. The customer can track their order directly using the app.

Grocery Chains- Grocery chains are apps owned and maintained by big supermarket or store chains. These stores can be available in a variety of locations; a great example of this is Walmart and Tesco. Any grocery store that has enough money and reputation can open this type of app and service their customers physically as well as online.

Marketplace- Like aggregator apps, marketplace apps are also built by intermediaries. The difference here is that these apps are built by owners who have commercial centres and employ their own delivery staff to supply the groceries from the sellers to the customers. Since these apps appoint their own delivery men, it is necessary for them to have knowledge of the demand patterns and supplies held by various stores. They need to be aware of whether certain products can be delivered within a specified time or not and then make promises accordingly. These apps can be further divided into e-commerce grocery apps, in-store grocery apps, and personalized grocery apps. Grocery delivery apps like Ocado act as a marketplace

Single Store- A single store is an app by a grocery store owner made for the purpose of online selling of groceries from their store. This is a great model for single stores as it allows them to deliver goods directly to their customers and gain a bigger audience. This type of app requires the store owner to update the grocery menu, add/remove any new items, and have their own delivery men.

Benefits of Opening an On-Demand Grocery Delivery App Like Ocado

Top online grocery apps like Ocado have proven to be beneficial to all the parties involved in grocery shopping. They act as a great intermediary that makes the actual task of grocery buying much easier. Here are some of the benefits of grocery delivery app:

• Tracking- With grocery apps, it becomes easier to track orders and keep a check on when the grocery items will actually arrive
• 24×7 Service- Grocery apps let customers browse 24×7, hence making shopping accessible to them according to their convenience
• Better Feedback- These apps let customers give feedback as well as rate their previous experiences. This means the app can keep track of how delivery guys are servicing the customers and know whether a particular store is in demand or not. It also helps the company in servicing the customers better
• Discounts and Offers- You can also provide appealing discounts and offers to your customers with the help of an app. These offers make customers more excited about buying their grocery
• Efficient Way- Online grocery delivery is a more efficient way of procuring groceries than physical shopping. It saves time as well as energy
• Payment Options- Grocery apps also provide customers with various payment options offering them more convenience

Necessary Features for Ocado Like On-Demand Grocery Delivery Apps

Like other on-demand apps, grocery apps also have an ecosystem. These apps generally have multiple panels for the different parties involved. The parties involved in grocery delivery includes:

1. Grocery Stores

2. Shopper/Delivery Person

3. Consumer/Grocery Buyer

These three parties have different needs when it comes to grocery shopping. Where grocery stores provide with the product, consumers provide with the demand and the shopper makes sure that this demand is fulfilled. With such varied needs, it becomes important to understand the features that these parties will need on the panel, let’s understand some of those features:

Consumer Panel

• Register- Before joining the app, every customer needs to register on the app. This step allows the app to gather personal data about the consumer and use the same for orders subsequently. It is necessary to allow customers to register using their social profiles.
• Different Views- A customer should be able to see different sections under the app like categories, stores, favorites, etc. This allows the customer to segregate data on the basis of different parameters.
• Offers- A customer-facing app should showcase coupons and offers available to the customers easily and on the main screen.
• Shopping list- Customers should also be able to make shopping lists with their recurring grocery items. It removes the need to keep adding the same items in the cart all the time.
• Recent orders- Sometimes grocery shopping can be overwhelming, for that purpose these apps should show past orders. Past orders will allow customers to see what they have purchased in the past and similarly make future purchases.
• In-App chat- This feature allows customers to directly converse with the shopper and let them know in case of any changes in the order etc.
• Slot Booking- Most grocery apps also have the feature of slot booking. Here, the customer selects a particular time when they want their groceries to arrive.
• Payment options- It is also necessary to allow customers to have multiple payment options to choose from like PayPal, UPI, card payment, cash on delivery, etc.

Admin Panel

• Time slot management- This feature will allow grocery stores to change the slots according to their preferences. This is important because some stores might now be open early whereas others might close late or they might have stock issues at a particular time
• Manage store and menu- This will allow the admin to add or delete new stores and also make changes to the products available in these stores on the basis of real-time information
• Add offers- The admin needs to be able to add new offers and delete any old ones that are not currently available
• Reports- All grocery apps should also have reports on the admin panel. These reports will help the app as well as the stores in identifying the number of orders they have fulfilled and the revenue they have generated in different months.
• Inventory management- Admin should be able to alter the inventory available at the store

Delivery Panel

• Push notifications- Delivery guys should be able to receive push notifications in real-time in case they have to fulfil any orders
• Work mode on/off- The delivery app should also allow these shoppers to decide whether they want to take any more orders or not. These apps should have an option to turn off the work mode, meaning the delivery person is not available and won’t be accepting any deliveries
• Login- They should also have to register and log in before actually doing the work. This lets the app collect their data.
• Dashboard- This will allow the shoppers to see all the orders they have previously fulfilled and the ones that are still pending
• Customer location- Shoppers should be able to see the exact location of the customer on google maps. This is necessary for easy navigation
• Delivery status- This will let them see the delivery status of the order they are currently fulfilling.
• In-app calling- To talk to the customer in case of any emergency or issues with the order.

Want to know more? Here’s complete list of features you will need for your online grocery application.

How the Online Grocery Delivery Process Actually Looks Like?

Apps like Ocado or Instacart have a specific way of functioning. Customers on many of these apps go through the same process in order to procure their groceries. Before anything else, the first step is obviously to download the app. You can find Ocado on Appstore as well as play store. It is necessary to have your app on multiple platforms in order to reach maximum customers. Once the app is installed, a customer goes through the following process:

1. Placing an order- Once the customer has joined the app and browsed through the various stores available, the first step is to place an order. Placing an order requires selecting a store, adding the grocery in the cart, entering the delivery address, making the required payment, and then finally placing the order.

2. Order sent to the store- Once the order has been placed, the same reaches the store that needs to fulfil this. This step can be seen on the admin panel. A customer can place an order from one store or even multiple stores. Once the store receives the order, they make sure that the products are in stock

3. Shoppers- After the order is placed, a personal shopper is assigned to the customer. The role of the shopper is to see the grocery list of the customer and buy the items listed. He goes to the store and picks the necessary items. Personal shoppers can be exclusively working with a single store where they get all the grocery from one place or they can be part-time shoppers who fulfil an order if they are close to the location.

4. Fulfilling the order- Once the grocery has been procured, the personal shopper then takes the products and delivers them to the customer. This step requires GPS tracking to find the exact location of the customer. This delivery is made on the basis of the time slot selected by the customer.

Technology Stack For An App Like Ocado

• Application & Data: Javascript, jQuery, Python, Node.JS, React, NGINX, HTML5, Java, PostgreSQL, Google Drive, Ubuntu, TypeScript, Redis, Amazon EC2, Sass, Django, Redux, Springboot, AWS Lambda, Kafka, Markdown, Flask, Swift, Apache Tomcat, Debian, Handlebars.JS, Spring, 
• Utilities: Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Elasticsearch, Amazon Route 53, Optimizely, TensorFlow, Swagger UI, Amazon SNS, Amazon Kinesis, Google Cloud DataFlow, GitLab Pages
• DevOps: Git, Docker , Visual Studio Code, GitLab, Kubernetes, Intellij IDEA, Webpack, New Relic, Android Studio, Kibana, X Code, Atom, Babel , Selenium, Grafana, Logstash, Prometheus, Apache Maven, Jasmine, Sonarqube, Pagerduty, Karma , Cucumber, PhantomJs
• Business Tools: Slack,Jira, G Suite, Balsamiq, Kanban Tool

Things To Keep In Mind Before Building Your Own Online Grocery App

Starting your own online grocery delivery business looks like a tiring job that requires a lot of time and knowledge. To help you in the same, you obviously have a lot of development companies available and willing to help you. The next thing to think about is which one of these development companies to hire and how much should the process of developing a grocery app would cost. We have prepared a list of various things you need to keep in mind before getting your own grocery app developed:

• Platform- You need to decide whether your app will be available on the iOS or android store or you want an app on both. This will impact your budget and the amount of effort required.
• App size- This means deciding on the features you need in your grocery app. The more complex your app features are, the more development cost will be required.
• Features and functionalities- It is also necessary to mention all the features and functionalities you require in your app. This process requires the app owner to research competitors available in the industry and a closer look into what they have to offer.
• App design preference- There are various types of apps designs to choose from. You can have a clean and white look, or add different illustrations or funky elements. This depends on the segment you are catering to and what their needs are.
• Wallet- This will allow customers to make online payments and also correct credit on the app.

We can’t predict the future, but by just looking at how grocery apps are going we can tell you that they hold great potential. The industry has been growing at a phenomenal pace and hasn’t reached its peak when it comes to competition. So, this is the right time to enter the market, offer what others are not yet offering, and blow away the mind of the customers. For this, it is also important to hire an experienced grocery app development team like Oyelabs to help you successfully launch your app and guide you along the way.

Frequently Asked Questions for building an app like Ocado (FAQs)