Technology has taken the experience of users to another level. We have dwelled into technological spheres that we had never even thought of in the past 5-10 years. Who knew phones could act like vegetable and fruit venders, allowing users to make purchases with the help of applications. A grocery delivery app is something that is getting the utmost attention in the times of COVID-19, when people refrain from stepping out to buy anything, these apps help all grocery and essential items reach them.
One of the most dominant markets of all time, the grocery industry has paved way for apps that are irreplaceable and have made people dependent on them. Through the help of these apps, users can get familiar about the prices of fruits, vegetables, seasonings, personal care products among others. Not just this, there are separate categories for meats and beverages that fall under the classification of these applications.
History of BigBasket
Founded by five founding members including the likes of Mr. Vipul Parekh, Mr. V S Ramesh, Mr. Hari Menon, Mr. Abhinay Choudhari and Mr. V S Sudhakar, the company was first of its kind named fabmart.com in 1999.
In another two years thy set up another online grocery business which was also a part of the same organisation – Fabmart. Later, they also dwelled in a retail chain of grocery supermarkets in the south of India under the name Fabmall, and ultimately it was in the year 2006 that they sold it to the Aditya Birla Group. However, this was not the end. The founders of the organisation worked harder towards achieving success in the web world and created the groceries selling website BigBasket.com in 2011.
It got immense popularity in no time at all and they soon launched their app making products available under various categories.
Business Model of Apps like BigBasket
Want to make a similar app like BigBasket and wondering how it works? If you are intrigued by the business idea and want to venture into the industry with your own app, read forward to know the business models of such apps.
- Grocery chains: You might have heard of Wal-Mart and know for a fact that it is a platform that offers space to sellers to put up their products on the app to sell them directly to the customers by getting in touch with them. The small scale seller who do not have the required resources to sell their products online can get in touch with these grocery chains.
- Aggregator: Under this model the app locates the users and connect them with the nearby supermarkets selling products they are looking for. This way, the users can choose from amongst the list of products sold by the supermarket, build their cart and get the goods delivered directly to their place. Many supermarkets from various geographical locations are listed under one app under this model. The menus of all the supermarkets are available on the app itself, so that the users can get a better understanding of what the supermarkets are selling.
Also take a look on Online Grocery Delivery App Business – Challenges & Solutions.
- Marketplace: This is like a grocery marketplace, minus the in-person dealing as all transactions are conducted via the application. It also has staff to deliver the retail products to the end customers.
- Single Store: This sort of business is owned and run single-handily. It displays separate categories of products under its product listings and has the delivery staff to deliver the products to the direct consumers. The store owners get their apps made by the mobile developing experts and run their businesses parallelly on apps along with selling grocery at their retail stores.
Why are grocery apps doing better than in-person shopping experience?
Why would people want to commute to the grocery stores, while they are getting everything remotely, with the comfort of placing order for all essential items from home? There are numerous people out there who would not want to waste their time and effort in going out looking for grocery items and come back with heavy loads of packets. The development of grocery delivery apps is a solution to this problem offering more than the consumers even expect from it.
Listed below are three points that make this venture essential:
- Time saving: Grocery delivery apps like BigBasket are made with a thought of helping the buyers save time, allowing them to place order in just seconds. They can avoid the time spent on looking at different grocery racks and then waiting in the queue to get the billing done. The app makes it easy by letting them filter through categories, building their cart and making payment in just few clicks.
- Convenient: It is one of the most convenient ways of ordering grocery as the users do not have to wander around big grocery stores looking for the things they want to purchase. The search bar helps them indefinitely by allowing them to just enter the name of the products which leads them to a list of all products available under the category.
- Money saving: Most of us might have seen the offers and discounts that run on BigBasket endlessly. Details of such promotions are shared with the users of the app timely so that they can buy the goods when they are offered at the best price. Plus, who doesn’t like to get discounts?
Features of a grocery market app
BigBasket is raked the number one grocery selling app because of the innumerable features it offers to enhance the user experience. It is important to engage the users with your app so that they return to purchase products again and again.
Below are the features that you must definitely include in your grocery apps:
- Sign up/Log in: It is essential for the apps to have the feature of signing up so that the returning users can let the app save their details for future transactions. Secondly, the app should be integrated with other social media platforms so that the sign up process is made easy without having the users to put in all their information at the time of creating their accounts.
- Online payments: An integrated online payment method is a fantastic way to engage users and make them get a feeling of reliability. The payment process should be properly encrypted securing all the data of users. Apart from allowing them to make online payments, the users should be able to link their debit and credit cards or make payments from their e-Wallets apps.
- In app chat: This feature enables the users to chat with the delivery boy or the customer care representative with the help of the app itself, without having them to make a normal call. This also helps in masking their numbers if they don’t want to share it with the delivery staff.
Also Read: How Much Does It Cost to Develop Grocery Delivery Mobile App?
- E-wallet option: Since e-wallets are the new IT thing across industries, it is very important to have the payment option integrated in their apps. This feature enables the app users to link their e-wallets to the app and make easy and secure payments.
- Scheduling the delivery: Are you going out and not sure about when the delivery will arrive at your doorstep? There is no need to worry now, as this is not a post or courier that will be returned to the senders’ address. Infact, these apps have the feature through which the users can schedule the delivery time of the products according to their availability at the location.
- Tracking order: The GPS integration in the app allows the users to track the delivery boy’s location helping them navigate to their place. One can also know where their order has reached and how long it will take for them to deliver it at their doorstep.
Other important features to include are as following:
- Filter search
- Product search
- Discounts and offers
- Loyalty programs
- Shopping cart
- Check out
- Customer location
- Address search
- Delivery boy rating
- Feedback
- Product quality and rating
Process of developing a Grocery Delivery App
The app owners need to get in touch with the app development agencies who excel in making such applications and have full-fledged knowledge on each feature. However, there is a procedure to follow in terms of contacting the app developers, discussing the idea with the, giving them your inputs, etc.
Keep reading to get a better understanding of this procedure:
- Submit a query with the app developers.
- Pick a time to meet the sales team and discuss the idea in detail with them.
- Concluding after the meet and looking into the requirements of the app development.
- Getting in touch with the Project Manager and handing him the entire project.
- Continuous coordination with the Project Manager.
- The testers will test each aspect of the app in detail.
- A framework will be made by the developers for the development process.
- After the approval of the app requesters, the development process of the application will begin.
- The app will then be deployed.
- The app development team will regularly help with the maintenance of the app.
Teck Stack Required for Building the App
- Analytics: Google Analytics and Flurry
- Payments: e-Wallets, Braintree, PayPal
- Application platforms: iOS, Android, Web
- Back-end: Python, Java, Node.js
- Cloud: AWS
- Push notification: Twilio, Firebase
- Database: Cassandra, MongoDB
Conclusion
There is a lot that goes into developing a complex app like a grocery market and delivery app. One should be able to get in touch with the best possible experts who have good knowledge of the same and understand the technical know-how of such apps. These apps are target and location based, therefore the app developers should be able to figure out the audience that is going to use the app.
