Arun GoyalYou must have already heard a million times about the convenience and efficiency brought in by the mobile apps. Like, you name and have it. And we really wonder whether there is a single service left behind for which there is no mobile app. I mean, from maid booking to car cleaning to salon booking to car-booking, today there is an app for every basic to every high-end service. Now in our previous blogs, we have talked about so many of different mobile applications and this time we have an app for an altogether different service zone. So, did you really think that there could be a mobile application even for gas or fuel on-demand? Well, let me tell you there is. After all, that is the very purpose of mobile applications, to make your life easier in every way possible, so why not cover this zone as well.
Today, in this blog, we have discussed in-depth about the on-demand fuel delivery mobile apps, which are available out there in the market, adding to the convenience.
Rising On-demand Economy
However, before we get into the fuel-delivery arena, let us first shed some light on the very term of ‘on-demand’. Now many of you all must be already familiar to this concept, that on-demand means “very much now” and “fastest”. This concept at the moment is creating a furor in the app market, as the on-demand services are what everyone wants to every little thing.
A report coming from U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey states that at present the on-demand economy is successful attracting more than 2.4 million of customers on the annual business and $57.6 billion in terms of spending.
Thus, it won’t be wrong to say that the on-demand economy has absolutely transformed the business world. What started from this simple idea of cab-booking to food on-demand, and e-commerce services has now entirely redefined every business niche, and these on-demand app economy statistics vouch for the same:
Image Source – Statista
Going by the numbers and estimation, it is expected that by the year 2025, the on-demand market is going to hit $533.5 billion, with more than 45 million users in the USA alone have offered the on-demand services. Then, there are around 22.4 million users who have spent around $57.6 billion to access on-demand services annually. In the transportation sector, the investment made in the on-demand services has in fact tripled in last one year.
This way, it is clear that the on-demand economy is only going to experience the rise and now it has one new entry in the domain with the On-demand Fuel Delivery Service.
Concept of On-demand Fuel Delivery Service
With this new service at disposal, now the users are heave a sigh of relief. Not anymore, they would have to run towards the gas station in order to get their vehicle tank filled and this certainly would make the daily commute for them immensely hassle-free and convenient. The fuel supply will reach them at their doorstep as and when required by simply using a mobile application. Its advantages are many and that we will be covering in the later part of this blog. But before that let’s understand how on-demand fuel delivery app works for you.
How On-demand Fuel Delivery Mobile App works?
Well, the functioning of an on-demand Fuel Delivery mobile app is same as of Uber. Like Uber comes at the customer’s doorstep upon booking, for pickup and drop. The fuel delivery services work in the same manner, where one can book the fuel for delivery at your location and the fuel is then supplied for the car or maybe generator, by simply using the mobile app. Here, the app will cover all of the information and do the reporting for stocking, procurement, delivery, and accounting of fuel.
Common challenges that the on-demand fuel delivery app comes across
It can be said that the only and one major challenge comes in the form of safety. For the concept of an on-demand fuel delivery mobile app, safety must be ensured at all cost and this concern needs to be addressed honestly, or it can even end up in a fatal accident. Thus, if you are someone who is looking to launch your own on-demand fuel delivery app in the market for your fuel business, then it is imperative that you take the necessary precautions & measures, restricting any kind of unauthorized entry and cutting off the main tanks in case of an external fire. It should be ensured that the regulatory amount is not exceeded for additional security.
Now that you know about the challenges, next it is time to explore the many benefits of On-demand fuel delivery mobile app.
What are the benefits of an On-demand Fuel Delivery mobile app?
There are endless benefits of an On-demand Fuel Delivery Mobile App, but to name a few they are:
Time-Saving: Accept it then none of us really liked making this tiresome effort of going to a fuel station and they waiting for the turn in order to simply get the car’s tank filled. And with the arrival of On-demand fuel delivery mobile app, we can save a lot of our time, energy and efforts by simply booking and ordering the fuel at our doorstep whenever required.
Great Help for Emergency situations: This is even a savior for emergency situations as the fuel delivery service is available 24×7 at the customers’ service. Whether is emergency roadside help, where the fuel is delivered to faraway location or for the early mornings when you have to head out with your car for an urgent visit, but the car tank is empty. Simply book the fuel delivery and it is all done.
High-Quality: Now in case of fuel that is available at the gas stations, it is actually stored for a long period of time, and this affects quality of fuel to a large extent, whereas in case of an on-demand fuel delivery, here the fuel is filtered & delivered much frequently and this way it ensures high-quality.
Low Maintenance Charges: Many of the on-demand fuel delivery mobile apps available in the market does not just enhance the user experience but they also bring convenience for the fuel service providers. Like, they won’t really need to make this big investment while starting a new venture and further to run and maintain it as well. This way, the service providers would be able to earn a lot more revenue with low investment.
Greater Customer Loyalty: No one likes standing in long queues waiting for their turn to fill their vehicle’s fuel tank and often they leave the fuel station in case they are a long queue, and hence the fuel service providers end up losing many of their potential customers. However, the on-demand fuel service allows the service providers to cater to the needs of customers as and when they require and this helps in building higher customer loyalty at the not much-added expense.
Owing to these many advantages on the part of both customers and services providers, many of the fuel business are showing keen interest to come up with their own on-demand fuel delivery mobile app, and in case you are among them and intend to deliver fuel at your customer’s doorstep, then this blog has kept you covered.
Below, we have discussed the essential steps to create an on-demand fuel delivery app for the fuel business.
Required Steps to create an On-demand Fuel Delivery Mobile App
An on-demand fuel delivery app is not solely about the delivery the fuel tor customers, as apart from that the mobile app also does the job of maintaining a record of all information and data related to accounting, delivery, stocking, and a lot more. Thus, a number of processes are needed to be taken care of to create a user-friendly fuel-delivery mobile app.
Develop an Infrastructure: It is vital for a mobile app development firm to create an infrastructure, which mainly consists of creating a base for all of the further work that you’d do. To start with, you require building a fleet of fuel delivery vehicle (mainly trucks and tanks), then you need to get fuel drivers who would be serving as the building blocks, and next and the foremost is to ensure that you are complying with all necessary safety regulations. The approval needs to be sought to provide this service and it consists of a lot of inspection & reviewing. You would require basing the whole structure on standards assigned by the designated authority. Finally, it works best if you cover a range of products, like Diesel, Petrol and Compressed Natural Gas, as that way you would be able to cover a major market.
Develop an IT infrastructure: Next, what is needed is to get technically equipped. Keep in mind that the creation of a fuel delivery mobile app is way different is the other app, as here the complexity is of another level because the fuel delivery app consists of various kind of information and technicalities. Like, here you would require creating a facility which integrates with GPS attached to vehicles of both customers and drivers. This facilitates tracking and allows to enhancing the efficiency to deliver the service. IoT devices can do a great job here as they can perform the reporting task in a lot better manner and even provide statistics and save both time and money.
Reporting & Analytics: In case of a fuel delivery mobile app, here the data management system has to be robust. After all, this concept involves a lot of risks and thus to ensure safety, it is vital that delivery trucks regularly meet some safety standards. It could be checking fuel carrier’ temperature from time to time, quality of fuel that is being delivered, and consistent check of fuel volume before and after fuel delivery. Thus, when the data management system is rock solid, things get easier. Thus, it is wise to deploy some highly-equipped smart devices that calculate the number and send statistics to the cloud manager who is then going to analyze that further. This data assimilation assists to manage stock & supply and is also helpful to build market strategies for the future.
Software Development: Once the above-mentioned aspects have been taken care of, next, it is time to create the app for your on-demand fuel delivery mobile app. Here, the software is created in the form of a mobile app, where you would require working on the front-end, back-end, UX/UI design and a lot more than an app development process involves. To create an app, you first require to know the features and functionalities that your on-demand fuel delivery mobile app must consist of. So, let’s begin with that.
What are the features of an On-demand Fuel Delivery Mobile App?
Mainly, the basic features of a fuel delivery app consist of three panels:
- Customer Panel
- Driver Panel
- Admin Panel
Features of the Customer panel:
- Easy Onboarding: It’s very easy to get on board with the app via phone & email login options.
- Quick ordering: Customers have the option of setting their vehicle location along with selecting the fuel type & quantity in the quest of getting a delivery.
- Scheduled Delivery: If you want to alter the date and timing of your order then you can easily adjust it according to your convenience.
- Upfront Pricing: Customers will be provided with the luxury of the approximate cost before they confirm their order.
- Real-time Tracking: Customers will be able to track their fuel order in real-time, to stay aware of the processing.
- Seamless payments: Users have a variety of options to pay from like cards, wallet or even in cash.
- Order history: Customers has the option of viewing & managing their past & current orders from a particular section in the app.
- Ratings & Reviews: Customers can share their personal experience related to their orders and provide their reviews.
- Digital receipts: Detailed delivery details for the fuel cost, taxes, delivery charges are provided to the customers.
- Manage profile: It is very easy for users to manage their profiles with some beautiful features to make it special.
- Referrals: Each & every user get a referral code that he can share with his friends to get various rewards.
Features of the Driver panel:
- Easy on-boarding: Drivers get a different version of the app with its native UI & effortless onboarding process.
- Mobile login: Fuel truck driving partners are provided with a simple option of logging in via their contact number.
- Availability Toggle: Drivers have the option of switching between their online & offline modes depending on their convenience.
- Help & Support: Customers with any kind of query can easily get access to customer support without any problem.
- Real-time requests: Drivers, in real-time, receive many fuel refill requests from their customers and other manual dispatchers.
- Manage requests: Scheduled & current bookings can be viewed by the drivers on a single screen.
- Request details: All the relevant details are provided to the drivers in order to complete a successful refill request.
- Built-in Navigation: Navigation becomes very easy when the app gets integrated with Google maps.
- Accept signatures: Customers can provide digital signatures to the drivers when they want to authenticate a refill or delivery.
- Accept payments: After the job has been successfully compiled, drivers can easily generate an invoice to accept the payment.
- Rate customer: It’s only that customers get to rate the driver but drivers can also rate & review the customers.
- Driver dashboard: Drivers can look through their completed jobs & then associate earnings through a dedicated screen.
- Manage Profile: Customers are allowed to create their own profile, bank account & document details and look after it.
- Manage bookings: This keeps you updated with all the current & upcoming delivery requests.
- Manage Drivers: You can easily manage all of your drivers with the help of driver management tab.
- Help & Support: A totally different section is created in which users can call to discuss their queries & problems.
Features of the Admin Panel:
- Secure login: Both the admin & sub-users can securely log-in to the web-based panel.
- Admin dashboard: This section provides a top-quality view of all the paramount data in a very detailed & easy way.
- Manage Fuel trucks: It is an absolute gem of a management system that allows you to add & track all of your fuel delivery vehicles.
- Manage Customers: Managing all of the registered customers becomes very easy with the fuel delivery platform.
- Manage Categories: This category helps you offer delivery services on demand for various multiple fuel types & grades.
- Manage Prices: Admin can easily add & update all the prices of various offered fuel types from the section of price managing.
- Track Deliveries: Through a real-time area map you can constantly have a look at your delivery trucks.
- Manage Notifications: Admin can configure notification settings for channels like SMS, email & push alerts.
- Manage Payments: You can add & manage your payment account details & also the payments to the drivers.
- Reporting & Analytics: Get all the key metrics plus insights on the performance of your gas on-demand service.
Additional features:
Allowing users to choose the location where the ‘ Vehicle is parked’: One of the most attractive features that you can provide to your users is the freedom of choosing the location of your vehicle parking. To make it even more precise, you can allow your users to directly “move the pin to vehicle location”.
Let user schedule the time, select the quantity & types of fuel: As soon as the user selects the exact location of the vehicle parked, the app should allow them to fill the necessary information up next. Keep in mind, all these steps should be fairly smooth, fast & convenient.
Payment gateway integration: It is one of the most important features that bring flexibility to the users. Apps like WeFuel & Booster is a payment gateway integration that provides users various options of paying the money, be it via credit or debit cards, e-wallets like Google Pay & Apple Pay.
Sign Up: An easy registration process should be on the top of the priority list while designing an app. The options provided to the users here are, either sign up with one of your social media accounts or create a new account altogether.
Profile Management: Profile management includes uploading your personal information, details of your vehicle plus also your location. This portfolio is necessary for the service providers to provide you with excellent services.
Location Sharing: This feature provide users an escape from calling the driver and direct them straight to your location. This facility allows the users to pinpoint their location on the map that will help the driver to reach exactly on time & then deliver the fuel.
Request Fuel Delivery: This is the most important feature of the app that allows the customers to pick quantity & type of fuel that needs to be delivered, apart from the time & day of availability.
Real-time Tracking: This feature allows the customers to keep a real-time tab on their gas delivery request. They have the luxury of checking the details of the driver & also his route which will give them an estimate of fuel delivery time.
Delivery schedule: This feature also leaves a lasting impact when it comes to the delivery schedule. Users can request to refuel their cars for a specific time and this allows users to do their other tasks while their fuel tank is being filled.
Payment Integration: Another feature that will boost the popularity of an app is that of Payment Integration. As discussed earlier also, this function allows the user to pay via different platforms like debit & credit cards, e-wallets like Google pay, mobile payment, net banking, cash, etc.
Push Notification: This feature keeps the users updated with the service they have asked for. Not only that, but it will also allow them the users to be in touch with all the latest offers & discounts.
Transaction History: This is deemed as optional but can play a major part in making an app a hit. Customers can check their previous fuel delivery requests & bills and this, in turn, will increase customer loyalty.
Cost comparison: As can be judged by its name, this feature enables the customers to compare fuel prices at other spots and this comparison will benefit the customers. This, in turn, increases sales, & upgrades the customer experience.
Geolocation: The main focus of demand fuel delivery app is on detecting the user’s location. The customer can be left stranded on any type of place, be it highway or some other isolated place, therefore the app must have both facilities of manual location &auto-detection of the location.
Request forms: Forms provided to the users should not be complicated as customers want simple solutions. These forms should include details like Fuel type, quantity, additional add-ons and many more.
Once, the key features have been covered, next let’s find out the additional features that can be integrated into the app to give it a competitive edge.
Required Team Structure for On-demand Fuel Delivery Mobile App
The creation of a mobile app involves a required set of team, and the same goes with the Fuel delivery mobile app as well, where you would need the following experts:
- Project Manager: This person is responsible for the development of the app at all stages and communicates with the clients as well as app development experts to convey the requirements and discuss the app proceedings.
- Android/iOS Developers: This set of experts are responsible for developing the front-end of a mobile app. Now, it depends on the client that s/he is keen to create the app for Android or iOS, or for both the platforms and according to the client requirement, the app is developed.
- Back-end Developers: These experts are responsible for designing the back-end of an app.
- UX/UI Designers: For an app to be a success, it is vital that it has the right look and gives the right feel to the app users and this is the job of UX/UI designers to ensure the same.
- QA Testers: To ensure that your on-demand fuel delivery app works smooth and is entirely free of bugs, you need a set of Quality Analysis experts who ensure the same.
- Delivery Manager: This person is responsible to deliver the app to the client once it is ready.
Next, it is time to find the cost of the mobile app.
How much does it cost to create an On-demand Fuel Delivery Mobile App?
Well, the cost of creating a Fuel Delivery Mobile app depends majorly on three crucial factors that is:
- Number of Platforms for which the app is to be developed
- Size and complexity of a mobile app
- App Development Region
For those who don’t know, the hourly rates of app development differ from country to country, like the rates for:
- US Based Developers is $50-$250/hour
- Eastern-Europe Based Developers is $30-$150/hour
- India Based Developer is $10-$80/hour
Upon calculating it all, it is found that create a basic on-demand fuel delivery app in India, will cost around $10000-$25000 for a single platform, be it iOS or Android, while creating a feature-rich On-demand fuel delivery app for both the platform may cost somewhere around $35000.
