Introduction
Amid Covid-19, with global lockdown, contactless deliveries of essential products such as groceries have seen a rise. If customers can order and get groceries delivered at their place online, it will be a win-win situation for both customers and online grocery stores.
Why is the Online Grocery Store a Perfect Business Idea Today?
Covid-19 era pushed businesses online with a rise in online customers. As groceries are essential products, it is a perfect business idea to start an online grocery store. Similar to Instacart, you can go for building such an app with the help of grocery delivery app development.
Business Model to Build Grocery Delivery App
Different business models are supported by grocery app development solutions. These will help you to make your online grocery business look like Instacart.
#1. Single Grocery Shop
With a branded grocery delivery app development, it will be easy to open a single grocery shop. You can get the Instacart app for promoting your grocery business online. A single grocery shop can be directly linked with regular customers and loyalty programs.
#2. Grocery Marketplaces
For promoting grocery marketplaces, you can develop a market platform like Instacart. As it is an on-demand app, several shops can be listed on the platform and made accessible to customers. These marketplaces are much like menus to be used by customers or shoppers.
#3. Grocery Store Chains
Grocery store chains are those market players that help businesses grow naturally. For handling grocery store chains, you can go for on-demand online grocery store development. With this app, you can manage all purchases and deliveries from supermarkets and retailers through a single dashboard.
What is Instacart and How the Instacart App works?
Instacart, an online grocery services app, was founded by Apoorva Mehta, Max Mullen, and Brandon Leonard, in 2012. At present, it has 30,000 stores with 2,00,000 shoppers. With 5,00,000 products listed, it is known for its fastest door-step delivery and no-inventory model.
There are some simple ways to use Instacart App:
- The buyer needs to log in to the app through his/her account.
- Choose the products from those listed in the app.
- Make the payment through several payment options available.
- Share the location with the delivery boy.
- After the order is placed, notifications via the app will be received.
- Once the shopper gets notifications, he/she gets the order ready for delivery.
- The buyer can either get the order delivered at home or can take-away from the store as per convenience.
Features of Grocery Delivery App like Instacart
The unique features that a grocery delivery app like Instacart should include are listed below:
#1. Grocery Shopping Customer App Features
- On-Boarding: The grocery delivery app should allow the customers to log in via different accounts such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and via mobile number.
- Payments: The customers should be allowed to make payments online in real-time with a debit card, credit card, or different wallets.
- Real-Time Tracking: A real-time tracking feature enables the customers to track the exact status of the driver or rider in real-time.
- Browse Products: The comprehensive list of all grocery products should be perfectly displayed and easily accessible.
- Offers: Various discounts, offers, and promo facilities should be provided by the grocery store from time to time for the acquisition and retention of customers.
- Order Status: Along with tracking the status of the driver, the customers can check the order status such as shipment time, dispatch time, and expected delivery time.
- Push Notifications: With push notifications, the customers can be reminded of information such as updates, discounts, offers, stock availability, etc.
- Reviews and Ratings: By adding the “reviews and ratings” feature, customers can give their feedback that would help to gain new customers as well as increase customer loyalty.
- Help and Support: Good customer support with 24*7 availability is a must for resolving any customer’s queries.
#2. Riders Grocery Delivery App Features
- Accept/Reject Orders: Using the app’s dashboard, riders can either accept or reject the orders according to the availability of products or accessibility to the delivery location.
- Push Notifications Alert: The app notifies the drivers or riders about an order being placed by the customer.
- Get Delivery Confirmation: It is necessary to get a confirmation alert regarding the customer’s orders.
- Invoice Generation: The drivers or riders can obtain an invoice from the app and get it signed by the customer after the order is delivered.
- Customer Support: It is helpful specifically if there are some issues in reaching the customer’s location.
#3. Grocery Business Management System Admin Panel
- Dashboard: The app’s dashboard can help admins to get updated information in real-time.
- Assign Orders: Admins can view the status of each order and update it accordingly.
- Manage Customers: Any issue of customers can be solved on time.
- Inventory Management: It can help in tracking the stock of products available.
- Analytics and Reports: Admins can analyze the efficiency of drivers and create a report for future use.
Time and Cost of Building An App Like Instacart
The time for building an app like Instacart depends on the number of features that mobile app development company adds to the app. It takes approximately 620 hours to develop such an app. Dividing this time into chunks or phases in which the project will be made: UI/UX design takes around 60 hours while the front-end and back-end development may take around 400 hours to be completed. Further, technical document and MVP testing take 40 hours and 80 hours respectively. The last phase is polishing and bug fixing which takes around 40 hours.
Similarly, the cost of building this app may somewhere be between $30,000 and $90,000. The factors that influence the total cost include app features, the complexity of the app, the size of the development team, the platform on which the app is built, the place of developing the app, and the total time to develop the app.
Conclusion
Viewing the rise in online customers, it is important to start online grocery stores. Though it may seem to be a tedious task to develop an app like Instacart, a mobile app development company can get it done for you easily with their expert team.
