Postmates Clone: A signature app for success in the business world

With people becoming more a technology addict, food delivery apps are buzzing. We all know that food is an integral part of life. So in no way can we assume that the food delivery app is not of much importance.

The food delivery apps no matter what the situation is always lie at the top of the growing industry chart. Especially on-demand delivery apps like Postmates, play a major role in the food industry’s profit. The industry is aspiring many entrepreneurs to kick-start their own business venture.

Let’s have a look at what the Postmates app does and how we can create our own Postmates Clone app.

History of Postmates:

Postmate was founded in 2011 by Bastian Lehman, Sean Plaice, and Sam Street. Initially, it started as a courier service delivery that delivers goods to its customers.

Postmates integrated the technology and a non-standard business model, meaning that everyone can work as a courier delivery personnel. Later Postmates started the on-demand food delivery service.

The app is now partnered with almost 6,00,000 restaurants and covers up to 80% of the food delivery business in the U.S. It has a tie up with food giants like McDonald’s, Walgreens, Starbucks, etc.

Here is the four-step workflow of the app:

Browse restaurants: Users can browse through the restaurants and order the food they would like to have.

Payment: The orders are confirmed only when the payment is successful. The payments are completely handled by the owner.

Match: Once the payment is done and the order is confirmed, the restaurant and the delivery executive who is stationed nearer would receive notification about the order. The process is typically processed within an hour.

Food tracking: The app has an inbuilt GPS navigation system that would let users track the order. If the users haven’t received the food because of delays, they can contact the delivery team via the in-app call/ chat option.

The efficiency and usage of an app depend on the simplicity of the app interface and the convenience it offers. That’s one of the reasons why your Postmates Clone app can become a huge hit.

Things to-do:
Planning is necessary irrespective of the development method you are going to choose. Here are the critical points you need to plan before diving into Postmates like app development process.

Step-1: Keep Up with the trend:
> Build a delivery app that is integrated with advanced and latest technologies like voice recognition, chatbots, etc, to provide convenience to the users.

> Visualizing the food order could bring in some augmented reality in the app but you also have to take the budget to your fit.

> The app package contains different panels for customers, delivery executives, restaurants, and the admin for a seamless operation of your online food delivery business.

Step-2: Market research:
The marketplace consists of both customers and competitors. Having a deep understanding of the customers and your competitors in the industry can be the key tool for your success. Analyze the strategies and who your competitors are. Also, make research about the spending capacity of your customers.

Clarify these points and then go ahead with your food delivery app making.

Step-3: Choose the business model:
An app like Postmates follows the aggregator model. It partners with both restaurants and logistics. Go for restaurants that don’t have any delivery partners. They would be happy to partner with you making it easier to expand the business.

Let the payments be done in your app so that restaurants can take the money for their services.

Step-4: Value proposition:
Developing the app is, on one hand, the purpose of your app should be defined. You should ask yourself why your customer would choose your app among many other apps. This is possible only when you do complete research about what the customer misses and what they would like to have. That’s the only way you could win in the cut-throat competition.

Monetization models to consider:

Here is the root of all your questions. Earning money could be one of the main reasons why you choose to build a food delivery app in the first place. So here are the ways from which you could get clarity.

Delivery charge: This is the main source of income in the app. You could charge a fee for every delivery process. So keep it to a lower range. Maybe the fee can be varied depending upon the distance between the pickup and drop location.

Advertisements: The restaurants will pay money to your app for advertising on the platform. This is also one major source of income.

Partnering fee: The restaurants must pay to get partnered with your app.
Surge pricing: You could charge an extra fee for every order delivered at peak hours and during high demands. This is an optional way of income that is followed by apps like UberEats, Zomato, etc.

Premium models: While the login or sign up can be done for free, you could offer the premium membership and the customers subscribed can have some extra facilities.

As for the features, the main three features to be taken care of are:

# Easy login
# Real-time tracking
# Payment options

Some additional features to make it unique and outstanding are:

# AI Chatbots
# Personalization
# Scheduling order

Conclusion:
While it’s alluring to earn money from the food delivering apps, it is important to make the development process more simple, efficient, and precise. It is difficult to win in such a demanding industry but with the right set of team and planning, it is possible to turn the tide.