by Ahmad Tuffaha, COO of eddress
Customers often ask us whether they should develop their website, mobile app, or both for food delivery services.
For us, choosing to use a mobile app and not wasting time on both is the best option. It’s just so much easier. And that’s why users want it. They are much more likely to scroll through apps on their mobile devices than sit and patiently use a desktop browser.
Why are mobile apps the best channel for food delivery?
Most prospective customers of food delivery services use their smartphones to place orders. It’s possible for them to access your website through a mobile browser. But why bother? Browsers are clunky and hard to navigate, and text can be difficult to see, even if it is optimized for mobile screens. It’s just not great for customer experience.
To compound the problem, it is most probable that all your competitors are also using apps. Customers get a curated experience without the browser interface getting in the way. Because of this, apps are a natural choice. Even on desktops, many users access services through embedded mobile apps.
But the advantages of apps go well beyond the failings of websites. There are also significantly more opportunities to engage with customers. The average person spends around 3 hours and 15 minutes on their smartphones every day. Therefore, food delivery services that choose apps can develop a captive audience for push notifications. You don’t get that when you operate through a browser.
Finally, apps make it easier to offer loyal customers hyperlocal incentives. Because you know where your customers are, you can offer them special deals in real time based on geolocation. These features strategically cut costs and maintain demand.
eddress can provide your customers with an app while also providing you with web-based support for your backend operations and fleet management. This way, you get the best of both worlds: a front end that customers love and a backend that’s suitable for business.
Why do some vendors recommend websites for food delivery businesses?
Despite the clear advantages of apps, many vendors still promote websites as the best approach for most commercial enterprises. But why?
One answer is that distributing new apps is challenging. Commentators point out that there are thousands of app submissions to the App Store and Play Store every week, and only a small number of them have any chance of breaking into the top 1,000. Furthermore, Apple’s and Google’s platforms only let developers display a small amount of information about your services, making it harder to convert.
Arguably, though, these problems are worse for websites. Thousands are added every day. And making the top ten search engine page results for competitive searches is challenging. It takes years of concerted SEO.
Furthermore, with services like eddress, businesses don’t have to develop their own apps anyway. Rather, they get a white-label app that is perfectly customized for their brand, customer expectations, and operating model. Off-the-shelf, generic solutions are fast becoming a thing of the past.
Wrapping up
In summary, mobile apps are superior for food delivery companies as well as retail companies in general. Users prefer them, and it enables firms to curate ordering experiences, bypassing clunky browsers. Plus, let's not forget how we always carry our phones everywhere, literally. Firms can pursue both websites and mobile apps, of course, but that approach increases the risk of low returns and wasted resources.
If you’re still unsure of the right way to go for your business. Let me tell you that a one-on-one demo call with our team will definitely be an eye-opener.
