How To Build An App Like Talabat in 5 Easy Steps

Last Updated on November 17, 2023

There must be a few times when you end up feeling completely confused trying to get your order right at your favourite restaurant but something always gets messed up. This is not how the Gen-Z rolls. The Gen-Z is living a fast-paced life with multiple options for every little aspect of life. Everything needs to be done in a jiffy. It might be even safe to say that the young teenagers are borderline obsessed with everything on-demand whether it is food or anything.

The primary reason for this enthusiastic appreciation for on-demand service is the convenience, comfort and ease of approachability these services offer. Particularly, when it comes to food delivery services, there is a lot of room for improvement and perfection. Along with this opportunity for the business to strive, the food delivery industry has a lot to offer the customers as well.

A plethora of restaurants to choose from, numerous cuisines, and a convenient payment option is good enough to attract customers. Hence, the need for the hour is to come up with an app which offers exceptionally well customization to take care of all of it.

Marketing Perspective on Food Delivery Industry

The delivery industry has drastically changed in the past few years. This has been made possible only because of the introduction of numerous online platforms, applications which have completely changed the outlook of the business of delivering food from the restaurants to the comfort of the home of the consumer. This has led to numerous investment opportunities as the industry has immense potential and has been booming ever since.

As per the experts, the estimated annual growth rate of 3.5% every year. The traditional way of ordering food from a local restaurant seems to be a long-gone story. The shift of consumers to online platforms has turned out to be a significant deciding factor in the fate of online food delivery apps. Whether it is the better deals, transparency, convenience, or all of it together, the online food delivery apps are here for the long haul. It has been expected that the global on-demand food delivery market will observe a growth from $126.91 billion to $192.16 billion from 2021 to 2025. according to reports.

The food delivery industry is not as new as one might have expected it to be. However, the shift towards a digital market to explore the wide horizons is quite recent as it remained untouched until 2013. The key difference between the traditional and new approaches to the food delivery industry is that the latter did not just enable the consumer to compare and contrast the products and services offered by multiple restaurants but also provided them with the logistics associated with different restaurants.

This included high-restaurants in the league of food delivery industry which earlier refrained from the very prospect of home delivery. This eventually provided the consumers with a variety of options to choose from as compared to that of traditional options.

Related Reads:

• Cost To Make A Food Delivery App
• Top Food Delivery App Business Models

Here’s everything you need to know about building an app like Talabat and How to build it in 5 easy steps

Introduction to Talabat

One of the most prominent online food delivery apps in the e-commerce sector is Talabat. It is owned by a Qatar-based company with Abdulaziz Al Loughani being the founder of this publically adored food and grocery delivery app. The application came into existence in around 2004 and became instantly popular. It can be easily proved with the recognition it received over the years as it won the Best E-Business Award consecutively in 2008 and 2009.

Here are some facts

Founders	Founded on	Headquarter	Acquisitions
Abdulaziz Al Loughani	2004	Kuwait	Zomato UAE, Floward

 

Talabat is an online food delivery application that strives to offer its consumers a wide range of options to choose from. The company derives its name from the Arabic language, the literal translation of the word in English is “Orders”. Talabat takes pride in the fact that it has expanded the food and grocery delivery business to 7 countries including Kuwait as well. The online platform strives to present its customers with more than 4,300 different cuisines. All you got to do is get to the app and you will find your favorite restaurant just a click away. The app allows the customers to pay either by credit card or cash. Over the years, the number of people using the app has increased drastically. This has only been possible because of the close contact and thorough consideration and the constant feedback received from reliable customers. While keeping this feedback in mind, the company keeps coming up with different strategies and upgrades in order to serve the customers with nothing but the best. Want to know how it earns money? Here’s the business model of Talabat.

Keynotes to address

Just like any other industry, the food delivery market is not quite far from the Midas touch of digitization. Considering the popularity and recognition Talabat achieved over the years, it can serve as a reference to build an app similar to Talabat. Statistics have revealed that online food delivery is a quick consumer-catchy fad as 63% of consumers would rather opt for delivery rather than a dine-in.

Features of an ideal food delivery app

If you are planning to build an application for an on-demand food delivery business, it is essential that one must understand that a single application must be competent enough to coordinate with Restaurants, Customers, Delivery persons, and the Admin as well. The needs of every factor in this chain immensely vary from one another and if the application can fulfill all of them simultaneously, then the ultimate goal of creating an ideal on-demand food delivery business application that entertains all the stakeholders will be a success.

The following is a list of features that the developer must take into consideration that will end up benefiting the team of professionals managing the application along with the admin to keep it up and running after it has been deployed. Without any further ado, read on to plunge into the details.

• Customization
  The theme of the app should be customizable and it should be made while keeping in mind the theme of the brand in order to offer the customers with better optimization.
• Personalization
  The app should enable menu management so that in the future, the restaurants are able to change the offerings as well as the pricing.
• Interactive UI
  In order to offer the customers better visuals and aesthetics, it is highly significant that the application is not very bland and presents the customers with lively pictures of the menu as well as the location of the restaurant.
• Push Notifications
  Once the aesthetics and the user interface of the application have been managed efficiently after discussing it with the brand, the developer must move on to work on the functionality of the application. In order to manage the ongoing orders, offers, and personalized messages, there must be push notifications so that the user must not miss out on them in any case.
• Chatbot Compatibility
  If you are able to acquire the resources, add a chatbot to the application. It can be either powered by artificial intelligence or handled by dedicated personnel to help the consumers with any query regarding the orders, services, offerings, etc.
• Data Analytics
  The admin must be provided with analytical data so as to come up with different strategies to improve the services and manage stocks and supply.

Essential features from the perspective of the consumer

The better optimization an application offers, there will be more chances that consumers would choose it over other applications. Just like any e-commerce business, the online food delivery market heavily relies on its customers for being successful, hence, it is essential to keep the needs of the customers in mind while building the application.

• Order Tracking
  The wait time is a grave matter of concern for the customers. Hence, the first thing that you need to take care of is providing the customers with the provision of Current order tracking. Other than that you can create a log book with the order history to keep track of what they have ordered previously and present with a possibility to order again.

• Customer Assistance
  In case of any inconvenience, there must be someone to turn to. There must be a help desk to raise any concerns. This one-on-one interaction will help you in improving the services.
• Real Images Support
  Even though the customers are not opting for a dine-in option, they are still very much concerned with the location and hygiene conditions of the restaurant they are ordering from. Hence, it is highly advocated that you should provide pictures of the restaurant along with the location and the menu.
• Instant Billing
  Not all use the same payment gateway, if your application supports only one quintessential payment gateway, it might drive some customers away. Make sure you do not commit the mistake of not offering instant billing.
• Additional Benefits
  In order to attract more consumers, it is suggested that you should present the customers with monetary benefits such as coupons, offers, referral benefits, and loyalty programs.

Essential features from the perspective of the delivery services

For the convenience of all the stakeholders, it is essential to have immense coordination between the delivery agent, restaurant, and customers. The following is a list of delivery-centric features that the developer must strive for. Without any further ado, read on to plunge into the details.

• A provision to determine the order status for better management and fast delivery.
• The location information and the fastest route to reach the destination.
• The delivery agents must be able to communicate with the restaurants and customers directly for quick communication. In case of any inconvenience, the delivery agent should also be able to redirect the customer to the restaurant.
• Frequent reward packages keep up the morale and encourage the delivery agents to thrive.

How to build an app like Talabat in 5 easy steps

So far, we have discussed the ideal features of an online food delivery app. However, having a reference app can work in a very productive way to help you achieve your aspiration and build an application that can be the talk of the town. The following are 5 easy steps which if followed rigorously will help you in building an app like Talabat. Read on to know more.

Step 1: Create A Plan

The foremost step is to come up with a plan that not only focuses on the key resource, value propositions but also the cost structure, revenue streams, channels the business will focus on. Once you have a clear idea about where you wish to take the business proposition, it will get a lot easier for you to implement your ideas. Before you go ahead with the operations, it is suggested that you should start looking for funding in order to ensure no hindrance.

Step 2: Reach Out To Developers

Even though this app might be your baby project, you still need technical hands on deck to implement your ideas and plans. While you are trying to connect with a reliable team of developers, make sure you convey all your concerns and requirements beforehand in order to prevent any miscommunication so that you are satisfied with the end product. Make sure to hire an experienced food delivery app development company to build a food delivery app on par with the market standards.

Step 3: Build a functional user-interface

Before you go on creating a database for the application, work on the user interface. Make sure that the required attention and perspective are provided by the developers, designers, as well as brand strategists so as to come up with an eye-catching user interface as this is what the end-user sees.

Step 4: Work on back-end and database

After you have finalized the user-interface design, you can start working on the back-end and database system. In the initial stage of development, it is advocated that you should work with small sets of data and come up with a minimal viable product or a prototype to give you a clear idea of how the application will work. If you are not satisfied with the product, you can suggest some changes which can be easily implemented as the app has not been deployed yet.

Step 5: Testing

Once the application has been finalized from your end, it can finally go into the testing phase whether the development team can run various tests on the application and eliminate bugs if any. After this stage, your app is ready for deployment and then it can go live as soon as you want it to.

Technology Stack For An App Like Talabat

• Front-End Development: CSS, JavaScript, WebAssembly, HTML
• Android Development: Kotlin, Java, Android Studio, Android SDK
• Backend Development: Languages, frameworks, web servers, database management systems
• Hybrid Development: PhoneGap, Ionic
• iOS Development: Objective-C, Swift, Apple Xcode, iOS SDK
• Payment: Stripe, Braintree, PayPal
• Direction Finding: Google Maps, MapKit
• User Location Finding: Google Places API
• Registrations: Gmail SDK, Facebook SDK
• Storage: AWS, Azure, Google
• Analytics: Google Analytics, FireBase

How much does it cost to build an app like Talabat?

The cost estimation for building an app like Talabat depends upon various factors. This includes the features that you wish to add to the app, the resources you would require to build the app, along with the level of optimization and operability that the application requires. Covering everything from ideation to launching, the amount can be roughly estimated to be ranging from $30,000 to $40,000.

A large portion of the amount would be dedicated to mobile app design for android as well as the iOS version of the app, app testing, and app launch. Further, if you wish to have a dedicated website other than the app, the capital required would raise to the total sum of $50k to $60k. The amount should be enough for covering the app, the website as well as overhead expenses that you might come across.

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