Get all the information and insights on the present food delivery app services and their types along with their business models and how they work.

2. Meaning Of Food Delivery Apps
Food delivery is a home delivery service in which a store, restaurant, or third-party
app delivers food to consumers, whenever they ask for it. These days, the offers are
generally placed through a mobile app, website, or phone.
Delivery includes cooked meals and groceries from supermarkets. Other ways to
deliver food include catering or wholesale.
Fun Fact — did you know that the first case of food delivery was recorded in Italy in
1889. King Umberto and his wife Margherita called Rafaele Esposito, the creator of
the Margherita Pizza, and requested that the pizza be delivered to the palace in
Naples.
The emergence of modern food delivery systems was driven by economic necessity.
In the 1950s, middle-class Americans sat at home and watched television all day.
This almost brought the US restaurant industry to a standstill and eventually forced it
to adapt, giving rise to the modern delivery service we all know.

3. Types Of Food Delivery Apps
Primarily, there are 3 main types of on-demand food delivery applications or models
which are super popular nowadays. They can be classified as:
•The Platform To Consumer Apps (Order Only Business Model)
This is a good business model, especially for novice players. At the same time, with
this, the application owners can connect multiple restaurants and eateries to end-
users. In other words, app owners are able to provide a platform for multiple
restaurants to sign up and provide food delivery services to their customers.
However, this is an order-only business model
Here, it is the responsibility of the restaurant’s delivery service or a hired third-party
courier service provider to deliver meals to customers. You as the Food Delivery App
owner are not responsible for logistics.

4. •The Delivery Service Aggregators Apps (Order With Delivery
Business)
This model is very much similar to the business model above, except that it is also
responsible for logistics. Therefore, the owner of the application takes the order of
the end-user and provides food delivery.
The best thing about this model is that it is a very feasible business model as the
restaurant does not have to manage its own fleet. Moreover, it also allows you to
leverage your application’s existing customer base.
And in this model, app owners typically work with several individual courier
providers to deliver food to the customer’s doorstep. Most Famous food delivery
apps like UberEats, Swiggy, Grubhub, and others have adopted this model.

5. •The Full-Stack Food Delivery Apps
As the name suggests, in this business model, one service provider serves the
entire food chain. This means one party does everything from food preparation to
delivery to the customer’s doorstep.
This business model is very different from the previous two and requires
significant capital investment. Typically, this business model is chosen by popular
restaurants that create takeaway and delivery apps to offer additional amenities to
regular customers. This allows customers to order food from the comfort of their
own homes, which further boosts sales. The most famous example would be
Dominos Pizza.
Then some entrepreneurs even hire ghosts or cloud kitchens to prepare food.
Then you choose the cloud kitchen business model and deliver food to your
customers under your own banner. However, in this case, the restaurant does not
offer a meal opportunity. All you need to do is take the order on the platform and
deliver the food to your customers.

6. Factors That Determine The Success Of
Your Platform
Food delivery is a multifaceted process involving multiple parties simultaneously. To
measure the natural growth and success of your food delivery business, it’s
important to pay attention to specific KPIs or key performance indicators.
Let’s take a look at the most popular application KPIs here.
• Number of food deliveries
One of the most important metrics in a food delivery business is the number of
deliveries completed. Typically, a number is expressed as the sum of deliveries
made during that month or quarter.
Knowing how many orders you are taking is important to estimate the growth rate
of your food delivery business. In the world of venture capital, stakeholders are
looking for significant increases in the number of deliveries. Growing businesses
are typically expected to double their monthly deliveries.

7. • Profit Per Shipment
The ultimate goal of any business is to make a profit. Therefore, it is very important
to know how much profit you get from each shipment. This information will help
you identify the most profitable restaurants and reroute delivery of inefficient
restaurants.
This metric also takes into account costs such as salaries, advertising, and
transaction costs.
•Average Order Duration
The average order time is a measure of how quickly your company can fulfill
customers’ orders. An order is flagged the moment a customer purchases food in
the app and marked as completed when an order confirmation is sent.
The Average Order Duration KPI is calculated as the sum of the time spent on all
deliveries divided by the total number of orders completed. KPIs are important
because they help get rid of slow-running restaurants and couriers and further
improve application performance.

8. •Distance Transition Time
This KPI measures the time it takes for a carrier to complete a shipment. This
includes the time it takes for your order to be picked up and delivered to your
doorstep.
This metric measures the speed of the delivery agent and the effectiveness of the
delivery route. Therefore, the information obtained can be used to shorten delivery
times and increase customer satisfaction.
•Driver On Order/Idle
This KPI measures the percentage of drivers in delivery or waiting for delivery at
any given moment. This helps the application evaluate the effectiveness of the
driver network.
This metric also makes it easy to determine the time to reach the maximum
number of orders. This will help determine how many drivers should be active
during each period of the day.

9. •Customer lifetime value
The Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) measures the average amount of revenue a
user earns over the duration of their membership. The longer the client uses the
application, the higher the CLV.
With all these metrics, you can easily track the performance and efficiency of your
food delivery system and discover new ways to improve the user experience.

10. Wrapping Up
When you wish to launch your own food delivery app, it is important to understand
all these business models and choose the one that is most suitable for your plan.
It is always advisable to start by creating an MVP with basic features that
successfully depict the use of your app and with time introduce new updates on the
basis of the feedback received from users.