How to Build a Grocery Shopping and Delivery App?

In this blog, we are going to share the complete process to build a grocery app where we also explain what are the top 5 grocery apps and how a grocery app can help your business to grow, what you need to start to develop a grocery app and what’s the importance of connecting the leading grocery app development company to build a grocery app. If you want to get your own grocery app to digitise your business, call us today at +91-805-003-2994 to speak with a strategist.

Let’s get started!

In the modern world, everybody is looking for good services. Whether an individual wants food, clothes or even grocery at the doorstep mobile apps play an important role.

There is no wrong to say that Grocery is an essential need. Looking at the current situation of COVID-19 and the development of technological advances, running errands has become simpler. With the help of mobile apps, Online food, grocery, finances, and car repair are available at your fingertips.

You name a service and there is an app for it. The on-demand grocery delivery app is one of the most demanded apps presently. Almost every shop today is online, and the rest are willing to have it. The reason is- the customers are online, monetizing the app helps you earn more revenue, easy management of the profit and loss, and the list is long. All this is because of smartphones becoming handy and popular. Smartphones have made life easy and are making things accessible to every single being out there.

Well, to build a grocery app you need to follow the complete process of mobile app development where you need to work on the basic steps, which include…

• Strategy.
• Analysis and Planning.
• UI / UX Design.
• App Development.
• Application Testing.
• Deployment & Support.

However, if you don’t have any knowledge and experience in mobile app development services, then it is recommended to connect to a top-rated grocery app development company.

What is a Grocery app?

Online Shopping applications help individuals to order grocery items online using mobile applications anywhere. The ordered item gets delivered to the doorstep to the desired address. The grocery application also offers various payment options for a user to make the payout. The best thing is the entire process is time-saving, stress-free, and easy to use.

Single Store:

With the help of a grocery app, single store owners can get access to expand their business strategy by building a grocery application Cater to multiple neighborhoods from one place to have a larger customer base.

Multi-Store:

The multi-store Grocery app is a one-stop solution for Grocery entrepreneurs aiming to leave a prominent mark on the marketplace of the Grocery business. Ionicfirebase app developers have crafted the Online Store Grocery app to provide an all-around solution to the grocery supermarket business.

How can a grocery app help your business?

The time covid comes into our life, most businesses shut down but only the grocery business was growing continuously all thanks to grocery apps that helped grocery entrepreneurs deliver goods to their valuable client's doorsteps. Only a respected commission will be taken by the App store and Play Store. As grocery apps help to grow the grocery business, so every single entrepreneur is willing to have a grocery delivery app so that they can constantly grow their business.

However, if you are still thinking of going online, building an app for your grocery store is the best most phenomenal decision you can make considering the scenario and need.

Building an app is easy and free/affordable. Everything is available on the internet. And, this article will tell you how to build a grocery store app with Flutter.

Now we are going to talk about why and how to build a grocery app for your business in detail. So if you are a grocery and/or supermarket business owner let's go step-by-step guide in detail.

GLANCE AT THE BENEFITS OF THE ONLINE GROCERY DELIVERY APP

One of the most important reasons for the growth of online orders is Grocery items. Check out the below stats and some other important points.

• Benefitting both the buyer and seller. One can shop 24*7 from anywhere across the globe.
• Feedback, reviews, ratings, and problems can be discussed and analyzed online. One can track the order details, its process, seller's name, delivery time, and so on making it transparent.
• Regular discounts and offers are never missed because of the push notifications. It attracts customers.
• Flexible selection of choosing from multiple payment options.
• Saves time for buyers.
• Provides exact details of items sold out, profit-made bestselling items.
• Revenue is earned through monetization of the app, shipping charges, sponsorship, and so on.

Top 5 grocery apps

Big Basket

Big Basket is one of the Top online grocery services apps. This app contains around 18,000 products of over a hundred brands. You can find anything related to your groceries in this application. The best thing is you can easily compare different brands of the same category on the application only.

The company relies on its success in 3 pillars.

• One-day delivery in BigBasket.
• 99.3 percent on-time delivery and 99.5 percent order filling rate.
• No-questions customer return policy.

It also has High customer loyalty & excellent customer reviews.

Moreover, if BigBasket can’t deliver on the promise made to you, they will compensate you. This app has unveiled chopped fruits & vegetables and provides recipe mixes.

Grofers

It allows customers to take a virtual grocery trip to their area and send their ordered products to their doorstep. Customers can buy bakery products, home care items, flowers, and electronics from this app. The products are available from multi-stores and will deliver at the same time. Now you can order from a store within 6 km of your location radius.

Cosmetics, pet care products, baby care products, and fresh vegetables are also available. Grofer delivery agents will deliver these items from local stores within eighty minutes of order time.

Grofer app provides convenience to family members, busy moms, and elderly members. This app is an attractive application categorized into different segments.

They deliver products in cardboard boxes or eco-friendly bags. If your ordered item is not available in the store, you may notice that growers may replace it with well-known other brands.

Grofers offers excellent promotions & coupon discounts. You can download Growers on both Android and iOS.

Grofers got a great response in India during the Coronavirus pandemic. It increased its sales margin and also assisted the customers with seamless delivery during emergencies.

DMart:

India’s one of the favorite grocery brands Dmart is available with the name Dmart Ready on the app stores.

This application offers 2 kinds of delivery options to its potential customers;

Self Pick Up:

In this case, any customers could order from the application and pick up their order from the application’s nearest Pick-Up point with no delivery charges for the collection of every single order.

Home Delivery:

In this case, the customers could get their order product delivered at their home or workplace according to the time and date, but a certain delivery fee would be charged.

Valuable customers could also buy fresh milk from any of the pickup locations. Like its offline store, this DMart Ready app offers rock-bottom prices for a range of goods.

Installs: 5 Million+

Rating: 3.3

JioMart:

More than 50,000 products are available with 5 percent below the MRP rate to the customers at their doorstep via a prompt delivery system.

The features of this app like free home delivery, various payment options, no minimum order, and more, made this app has got popularity within a short period

At the present time, JioMart is processing up to 500,000 orders per day on a daily average and is available on both Android & iOS platforms.

The company made headlines during the covid time by raising record funding for its platform.

Installs: 10 Million+

Rating: 4.3

Amazon Pantry

Amazon Pantry is an updated feature of eCommerce giant Amazon. Amazon Pantry is a delivery service for groceries & other household items. Amazon Pantry offers free shipping to Amazon prime members.

Amazon Pantry assists Amazon to compete with other online grocery stores. In India, Amazon Pantry is available across more than three hundred cities. It first initiated its service in Hyderabad in 2016. Through the Amazon app, users can browse the Pantry section. Orders are delivered within one -n four business days.

Installs: 100M +

Rating: 4.1

Which grocery app is best for your business?

Though all these grocery apps are doing great, still if you are not sure which one is best for your business, then we will recommend you to first understand your business needs then you can choose apps as per your business needs, as all apps are providing grocery products but in different-different ways.

Well, the best way to choose the best grocery app is to check out the feature list of an app, so if you are able to find out the essential features in the list of grocery apps you can opt for that app as the best grocery app. This feature list contains…

Live chat – It helps customers post a query and get solutions from the shop owners quickly. It is the most thoughtful addition to your app. It acts as an assistance 24*7 and connects the buyer and seller more efficiently.

Easy and Secure signup/Sign-in- Your app should be user-friendly so users can sign up easily and later on sign in easily as well as their data should be secure. So you have to keep features like opting verification, social media signup, and other methods that you think will be easier for your customers.

Order History - The highlight of your flutter grocery app is the order history. It lets your customer know their order summary and they can repeat the order if they want. It gives good detail about the order.

Secure and Easy Payment Options – You can include as many payment options as you won't like, Cash on Delivery, Debit Card, Credit Card, Google Pay, PayPal, and much more.

Push Notifications – An essential feature that will help you remind your customers about all the offers, new products, and sales of the day. It allows you to connect with your customers and attract them to shop more.

Real-Time Order Tracking- One of the important features that need to be added is the live tracking of your product after the order confirmation. It helps one get a real-time estimation of the product delivery.

Add to Cart– It allows your customer to add products to the cart and pay when they are done shopping. It helps them continue shopping without any hassle and purchase after a long hour of continuous browsing.

Multiple Payment mode - Like online payment, Cash on delivery, and wallet payment so the user will always have an option to choose from their conventional methods.

Live chat/Support - You should have an end-end encrypted Live chat support system for your users so they can communicate if they face any kind of problem. Because customer support is one the most important factors to winning businesses.

Offer and Coupon code - Your app should have a very clean UI and a place where your current offers will be easily visible to your users without creating any difficulties in the user experience. Sometimes people are full of pages with offers and hide the products that might create negative impact users get back to another business app.

The above points are the basic and major points for your Grocery store app for users apart from that you have to make a list of your Grocery app backend, delivery app, and vendor app requirements too. These are all as important as your user app.

If you have not made a Figma or design for your complete online grocery delivery system and are wondering what the best fit for your requirement is then here you can check out some of our Readymade Grocery delivery templates. These apps are built based on the user's requirement data. We collect max user requirements over the internet, make a common list of features for everyone and build these apps that will fit all kinds of Grocery Store requirements, as well as these grocer apps, which are fully customizable so you can customize them as you would like too. These are all apps built with Flutter.

Flutter with its extraordinary UI design improves your user experience. You can with Flutter programming language build an app that provides the end-user the best shopping experience.

Take Your Grocery Delivery Business Online To Deliver Their Orders At Doorstep. Start Your Project Today!

What do you need to start building your grocery app?

Though there are multiple things you need to do while starting to build a grocery app. As like you need to make a list of your business requirements. The first thing you need to do is to select the type of online grocery app. As there are multiple types of grocery business model apps. And, you need to select which one justifies your purpose.

Selecting the Type of Online Grocery/Grocery Delivery App

Aggregator Business Model

This is a third-party integration grocery delivery app. In the aggregator grocery app, all the local shop owners and customers meet to buy and sell the product. Once the order is confirmed, the live tracking can be done. In the aggregator grocery app, the local shop owners are solely responsible for managing their orders, not you.

One can choose one product from a variety of stores without even stepping out. One can compare the price of the same product and check the ratings, and delivery date as well. One can add products from different shop owners and payout when they wish to.

This is the most common type of supermarket mobile app that flawlessly works.

Virtual Grocery Store of Your Supermarket

The app owners are responsible for everything possible. From managing orders confirmation to adding new products, adding banners of discounts, and sales of the day to solving the query and collecting money. Unlike the aggregator business model grocery app, the app owners need to manage everything.

It is good for shop owners who wish to launch their brand. But an aggregator is ideal if you wish to have your brand enlisting all the local shop owners and being free from the management of the app. The risk level is very low compared to the virtual grocery app.

The cost of developing a grocery app by Flutter mobile App development companies would be $10,00- $ 50,000 and it can go above that depending on various factors. If you are of the view as to how much would it cost to hire a flutter developing company? Then, think again and be ready with the prerequisites as stated in the point above.

The most important thing you need to do is to give your precious time to choosing the leading and trustworthy grocery app development company. As you choose the reliable grocery delivery app development company, you gave a 50 percent surety of getting a successful grocery app.

How to make your grocery app stand out from the rest?

Think of the on-demand grocery delivery app or any other shopping app you have used. What features of it did make you happy and satisfied? Note that down and try to add that to your application.

The other way to know the features that will make your grocery app the best is to know your competitors. Look at what they are doing, how are they doing? If they lack something, can you provide that service? If yes, then go ahead.

And, before you do anything explore the Grofers, Bigbasket, Amazon, and so on. The best way of developing an app with Flutter is that it has solutions to your problems in the simplest manner. Flutter provides you with the flexibility to customize the product browsing. It helps your customers choose a product depending upon several filters and make the final purchase.

The banners that speak about the sales or offers of the day might sound easy but are made easy with flutter. A homepage banner is essential as it attracts customers and highlights the latest products that have been added.

The other features that must be in your app are as follows.

Live chat – It helps customers post a query and get solutions from the shop owners quickly. It is the most thoughtful addition to your app. It acts as an assistance 24*7 and connects the buyer and seller more efficiently.

A small infographic that helps you get short details.

Easy and Secure signup/Sign-in - Your app should be user-friendly so users can sign up easily and later on sign in easily as well as their data should be secure. So you have to keep features like opting verification, social media signup, and other methods that you think will be easier for your customers.

Order History - The highlight of your flutter grocery app is the order history. It lets your customer know their order summary and they can repeat the order if they want. It gives good detail about the order.

Secure and Easy Payment Options – You can include as many payment options as you won't like, Cash on Delivery, Debit Card, Credit Card, Google Pay, PayPal, and much more.

Push Notifications – An essential feature that will help you remind your customers about all the offers, new products, and sales of the day. It allows you to connect with your customers and attract them to shop more.

Real-Time Order Tracking - One of the important features that need to be added is the live tracking of your product after the order confirmation. It helps one get a real-time estimation of the product delivery.

Add to Cart– It allows your customer to add products to the cart and pay when they are done shopping. It helps them continue shopping without any hassle and purchase after a long hour of continuous browsing.

Multiple Payment mode - Like online payment, Cash on delivery, and wallet payment so the user will always have an option to choose from their conventional methods.

Live chat/Support - You should have an end-end encrypted Live chat support system for your users so they can communicate if they face any kind of problem. Because customer support is one the most important factors to winning businesses.

Offer and Coupon code - Your app should have a very clean UI and a place where your current offers will be easily visible to your users without creating any difficulties in the user experience. Sometimes people are full of pages with offers and hide the products that might create negative impact users get back to another business app.

The above points are the basic and major points for your Grocery store app for users apart from that you have to make a list of your Grocery app backend, delivery app, and vendor app requirements too. These are all as important as your user app.

If you have not made a Figma or design for your complete online grocery delivery system and are wondering what the best fit for your requirement is then here you can check out some of our Readymade Grocery delivery templates. These apps are built based on the user's requirement data. We collect max user requirements over the internet, make a common list of features for everyone and build these apps that will fit all kinds of Grocery Store requirements, as well as these grocer apps, which are fully customizable so you can customize them as you would like too. These are all apps built with Flutter.

Flutter with its extraordinary UI design improves your user experience. You can with Flutter programming language build an app that provides the end-user the best shopping experience.

How to pick a grocery app development company?

There are some basic but crucial points that you need to follow while picking a grocery app development company.

Helps you to launch a white-labeled application.

The first and most important thing you’ll have to find out is if the clone company will permit you to white-label the application. Where White labeling the application means you can brand the application in your company name. Your potential customers will think that you have built this application. Furthermore, this application has crucial functionalities that will assist you to get started off the ground within a few days. The cost of the applications will merely be a fraction of what you would pay if you would build the app by yourself.

Let us talk about how you pick the best grocery app company.

- Companies expertise

You’ll have to evaluate the app development from the organization from lots of angles. You’ll have to see how much experience they have in the development business, technology skills, most importantly how many industries the hired company has worked with, and the types of business concerns they have solved. Their development staff’s knowledge in various industries & technology solutions will enable them to add value to your business from a consultant’s point of view.

So, prior to hiring a grocery app development company, you are required to analyze these different aspects. Make sure you also have a look at their experience and expertise in creating clone applications. Try to find out the scalability & strength of the application and the performance of the application for different customers in your niche.

- No grocery app installations in similar companies

You’ll also have to look at their expertise in building clone applications and evaluate them from their existing customer base. You’ll have to assess them on the robustness of the application and how the grocery application is working for multiple customers in your domain

- Fitment to your business requirements

You must check the functionality of the application and ensure that the application is good to go from fitment to functionalities. You would need some fundamental features that will get you off the ground. You have to check these basic features and try the application out if possible. You can then select the application and get started.

- Customization

You have now chosen an application that fits your bulk needs. You have made it work for you, & you are in business. However, your requirements will keep changing because of the changes in the app market and the competition. Hence, the application should be customizable to suit your future requirements.

- Retail domain expertise

You should also ensure that the application development organization understands eCommerce & also the requirements of your specific business. This knowledge would have come to them based on their implementation with multiple organizations in your industry. Having only technical knowledge might not be that useful as they will be vendors & not consultants.

- Robustness of the application

You’ll know about the robustness when you analyze the usage of the application by a customer’s diversity. You can see the traffic & comprehend the robustness. You can also speak with valuable customers using the application and find out how stable the application is.

Which is the Best Backend programming language for Grocery App?

#1 Node.js

Instead of a framework or library, Node.js is a development area that is totally based on a JavaScript engine. Node.js technology was first introduced at the annual JSConf in 2009, & soon it became known as “the most thrilling single s/w package in this modern JavaScript environment”.

As per Google Trends, competition in this technology increased in 2017 and it continues to be strong. Its constant popularity is because of its qualities such as fast delivery, scalability, easy-to-manage libraries, and no extra burden. These features lead the application developers to choose Node.js repeatedly.

#2 Python

Python is another popular backend programming language that is rapidly gaining popularity not merely among mobile app developers but also among students. The main cause of its enormous success in its twenty-eight years is its multiple frameworks & libraries that make app development extremely easy. Its high speed & reliability assist the application developer to generate significant achievements.

#3 PHP

PHP is old technology in the application development world. Individuals like things that have some legacy. Another thing that makes PHP super popular with mobile app developers is its CMS, WordPress. in this digital era; we have unlimited apps built in WordPress. WordPress provides versatility & scalability to your app. Its award-winning frameworks also have a substantial impact on its popularity.

Though these are the most popular backend programming languages, if you asked for the best then we will surely recommend you for Node.js, as this backend programming language is leading nowadays, and providing the best results.

How to market your grocery app to get more people to use it?

Choose platforms where your target audience engages the most.

Before posting content, you are required to make sure you are reaching grocery shoppers on the right social media platforms. To see the success of your grocery store apply the social media strategies, where you can reach your target audience on social media.

The first thing you need to do is establish your target market. Who is liking the product of your grocery store? You will want to define attributes such as Age, Gender, Socioeconomic status, Occupation, Location, and more.

As a store of grocery, you’ll have multiple types of audiences that come through your door. You can create purchaser personas, which are fictional representations of actual customers, to assist you to target the diverse group of customers you serve.

Once you clearly know who you are targeting, you can easily find out where to target them.

You can build a presence on multiple social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn

If you are not sure where your potential audience spends their precious time, check out each social media platform’s user demographics. This demographic information can give you a good starting point for figuring out which social media platforms to use.

Remember that you may use different social media platforms for buyer personas. So, you may use Instagram to attract millennials while you rely on Facebook to target your middle-aged shoppers.

Work on your content

Once you establish your social media platforms, you can initiate posting content to garner a following & boost engagement. The kind of content you post will vary b/w social media platforms. You will need to investigate your platform(s) of choice to see what you can post.

Remember that your target audience follows thousands of businesses on social media, so it is easy for your posts to get lost in an ocean of content. If you work on making your content creation, however, you have a better chance of catching your target audience’s eye and getting them to check out your content.

So, to work on making content creative with what you post, just try these ideas!

1. Share recipes for meals your target audience can make with ingredients bought at your grocery store
2. Make a video of your store manager quizzing employees on where items are in different aisles
3. Don’t forget to make a poll asking how many individuals use coupons
4. Share content that other users posted featuring your grocery store or items they purchased from you.
5. And more

Even though it might be easy to post a photo & hope that users engage, you must think outside the box to create posts that users love to see and have never seen before.

Encouraging engagement with your ideal audience

Social media is one of the few places where you can create one-on-one connections with your ideal audience. You can simply interact with them on a personal level by interacting with them in the comments section or replying to their messages in your platform’s messaging platform.

Also, you can encourage engagement by simply creating open-ended posts on your social media.

Another effective option is to simply ask a question!

You can get leads to interact with your post and answer your question, by simply asking a question.

Encouraging engagement is vital to building brand awareness for your grocery store on social media. The leads that interact with you on social media will become more familiar with your brand & can ultimately become a customer as a result.

Utilize your platform(s) for customer service

Additionally, to encourage engagement, you will also want to use your social platform as a means of customer service.

While some of your social media posts may be encouraging engagement by answering a question, you’ll have so many people that comment on your posts to ask questions, complain, or report a concern with your store. You will want to use this as an opportunity to answer & address queries and concerns.

Answering questions or addressing people’s concerns assists show other followers how you treat unsatisfied customers. It will affect your follower list as viewers will get to know that you’re paying attention and caring about customer reviews.

In addition, you can use social media messaging as customer service, as well. You will want to stay on top of your social media messages to reply to any customer questions or concerns before customers shop in your store. Taking time to respond to personal messages can assist you to get more valuable customers in your store.

Run ads

A vital component of your grocery store's social media strategy is running social media ads. Social media ads are not unpaid advertisements, they are totally paid advertisements that appear in users’ social feeds. These social media ads look like regular social posts, except they were tagged with the word “sponsored.”

Your social media ads can assist you to achieve many goals, including Increasing followers, Increasing leads, Increasing brand exposure, Increasing conversions, and more.

Aside from objectives, you will also be able to use multiple social media ad formats. The ad format availability will vary depending upon the platform.

Social media ads are actually great for assisting you to reach shoppers that haven’t discovered your grocery store yet. With precise targeting, you can create tailored advertisements that appeal to your ideal audience. It is surely an excellent method to add to your supermarket's social media strategy if you want to get more customers in your store.

Build brand consistency across every platform

When you use multiple social platforms to advertise your grocery store, you must ensure your brand is consistent across each social media platform. You want an individual to recognize your grocery store, regardless of the social media platform they use.

First, you will want to ensure that your display photo (in profile) is the same across all social media platforms. If the social sites you use have a cover photo, you will want that to be consistent, too.

If you want your posted content to have the same look as well as the same feel on every platform. So, if your style of the grocery store is clean & modern, you will want to convey that in all content you post on platforms. Or if you use a specific filter on your Instagram posts, you will want to carry that through to Facebook.

This brand consistency assists you to build better brand recognition & makes it easier for customers to keep in their mind your business brand in the long run.

Conclusion:

Grocery apps are growing constantly especially in terms of popularity due to the coronavirus pandemic. From the pandemic, most grocery shoppers have shaken their hands with development companies and many companies are considering doing so. Now it’s a great time for starting a grocery service business. Furthermore, you can give users additional value in your grocery store by permitting them to keep their loyalty cards on their smartphones.

To build your own grocery app, you need to know your business needs and pay close attention to the user experience. Ionicfirebae also advises you to invest in marketing. To save money for promoting your application after the release, you can outsource your grocery app development to offshore professionals.

If you are also running a grocery business and planning to start your own grocery delivery service and want to figure out how much it costs to build a grocery application or what features you will need to maximize customer satisfaction and revenue, do not hesitate to contact us. Ionicfirebase has vast experience developing eCommerce apps and websites for both small shops and large retailers.

Ionicfirebase:

Being a leading grocery app development company, Ionicfirebaseapp has earned its name in the list of trusted and reliable mobile app development companies. As they are not merely known for providing the on-demand grocery app on time, but their readymade mobile apps are also catching the eyes of the ideal audience. They have a well-trained and dedicated mobile app development team who have developed hundreds of mobile apps and are desperate to build more apps. So, either you are running a grocery app or willing to start a grocery business, a grocery app built by the Ionicfirebase development team increases the chances of getting success in your grocery business, as our development team goes through every single step of the mobile app development so that you get what you are looking for.