Upscale Your Grocery Business Digitally: Determining the Cost to Develop a Grocery App

Today, almost everything is available at your fingertips. Thanks to the digital transformation that mobile apps have brought in this modern era. One of the front players in this era is the on-demand app category. They have made lives easier, more convenient, and effortless. The success of these apps is dominating the market along with on-demand food delivery and taxi/ride booking apps.

In this blog, we’ll talk about the grocery app development cost. It will take you through some crucial factors that make the process of starting this business easier and more effective.

Stats about the On-demand Grocery Delivery App Category

In the past 5 years, on-demand grocery delivery apps have shown phenomenal progress. These apps have addressed and resolved real-time challenges faced by consumers such as:

1. Waiting in long queues for shopping
2. Out-of-stock problems
3. Conditional pricings
4. Time-consuming processes, and a lot more.

Since the advent of these applications in the market, we have seen:

1. 22+ million consumers have adopted this trend till now.
2. The grocery delivery app market will reach a $135.2 billion business valuation.
3. 63% of online grocery shoppers say this method is more time-saving.
4. 900% growth in mobile searches for grocery apps till now.

This category has seen a boom since 2019 when the pandemic hit the world. Since then, the apps serve consumers with more convenience to buy their groceries simply through their smartphones. The market is expected to reach $188 billion by 2024.

These analytical stats keep growing, and more businesses are targeting hyperlocal markets to get their own apps in the market.

So before we jump to knowing the factors that impact the grocery app development cost, let’s start with its various types and business models.

Categories/Types of Grocery Delivery Apps

Before you start building a grocery delivery app, you should know about its different types. It can help you choose the most suitable option for your venture, and connect you with the factors to be included in the app development process.

Aggregator app

It works as a platform for grocery shoppers that connects them with nearby grocery stores. This grocery delivery app type only acts as a medium, as there is no dependency on the delivery of the items to the consumers. Hence, only the store owners carry out this process, and not the app owners.

Marketplace app

This grocery delivery app category is quite the same as the aggregator model, but here the app owner also facilitates the delivery of the grocery items. In this model, various grocery stores collaborate with the app owner to deliver grocery items efficiently.

Single-store app

This category works as a self-owned app for individual grocery businesses. The owner of the store manages orders from its own app.

Grocery chain app

Likewise, single store app type, grocery chain apps include the partnership of various business owners who facilitate the order management as well as delivery of the items from multiple grocery stores

Personalized grocery app

This category is very effective when it comes to custom app development for grocery delivery. You will have the leverage to implement the crucial elements to improve customer experience and make the app smooth. This model is mostly chosen by entrepreneurs, grocery chain business owners, leading brands, and startup owners.

To get a better understanding of how a grocery delivery app works, have a look at the infographic given below. It will help to choose the right category for your business:

Business Models for Grocery Delivery App Development

Business models are generally app monetization models, categorized into three types – subscription, commission, and advertisement. Their purpose differs for an on-demand grocery app development. Let’s understand them briefly:

Subscription Model

The subscription model is focused on showcasing different pricing plans based on monthly, quarterly, and yearly cost valuations. In this model, grocery delivery apps offer memberships for a known period of time as selected by the users. Under this membership, they can leverage different offers and premium services.

Commission Model

This model is the most chosen as it is very profitable and effective for both business owners as well as grocery vendors. It works by charging a small amount from the seller (for selling the grocery items) and from the buyers for buying goods from their app. The chargeable amount is decided by a certain percentage of sales processed through the grocery delivery app.

Advertisement Model

This model allows various grocery sellers and vendors to run their ads on the platform and monetize their businesses. Integrating this model helps to attain customers more quickly while performing order management and grocery delivery processes.

Selecting the type of grocery delivery app and implementing the relevant business model will help you calculate the right pricing strategy for your project.

Now let’s take a look at the factors that decide the grocery delivery app development cost.

Factors that Impact the Grocery Delivery App Development Cost

The cost to build a grocery app development depends on a number of variables. Before creating a grocery shopping app, one must have a clear concept. Here, we have compiled a list of some of the most typical elements that will help to estimate it better.

Deciding the core features of a grocery app

The grocery app consists of three panels that work together. And hence, the feature set is segmented according to these panels.

Customer panel

1. Sign up & Sign in: This basic feature is crucial for customers to create their profile and then start using grocery app services. They can have different options to signup or register, for example – email account, social media, or Apple ID. Moreover, they use their mobile number and OTP (one-time password) to login into the app.
2. Search Bar: This feature enhances the user experience, making it easier to search for their favorable grocery item in the app. By adding multiple filters, they can widen their search to get the best options. The search will also provide the sorting options to list their items according to ‘Most bought’, ‘Low to high/high to low price’, ‘Most relevant’, etc.
3. Delivery/Order Tracking: The on-demand grocery delivery app will help customers to track their orders with real-time updates. With the integration of location tracking of delivery executives, users can get a clear idea about the actual delivery time.
4. Order Management: From ordering grocery items to canceling and raising queries, this feature can help users manage everything as per their requirements.
5. Multiple Payment Methods: For the ease of purchasing items from grocery delivery apps, digital payment options are specially integrated. They provide many options such as credit/debit cards, net banking, cash on delivery, digital wallet, and more.
6. Feedback & Review Section: This feature is very important to rate the quality of service and delivery from the executive. Additionally, the apps can provide an option to raise a query for a particular order in the feedback section.

Admin Panel

1. Customized Dashboard: A digitally-equipped dashboard will help admins track, manage, and analyze different processes of grocery delivery. It includes tracking orders, streamlining deliveries, verifying details of customers and vendors, and a lot more.
2. Order/Delivery Queue Management: This feature becomes very handy when the orders come in bulk from the customers. Since some customers might use premium subscriptions to get their orders first, this feature will align those orders more frequently with more priority. Conclusively, it helps to smoothen the operations throughout the order placement and delivery of groceries.
3. Manage Payments: The grocery delivery app is integrated with secure payment models and admins can check the details of all the transactions. This feature is very useful to handle delayed or fumbled payments, or any other trouble with the transaction. In that case, they can process refunds or re-pay the customers for the order cancellation.
4. Inventory Management: This feature helps admins to manage the stock of grocery items from vendors and grocery stores. They can reflect ‘Out of stock’ and ‘In stock items on the customer panel.
5. Secure Data Management: To securely manage all the data from customers, vendors, delivery executives, and grocery stores, this feature becomes very useful. It is integrated with mobile-based cloud platform security that keeps sensitive information protected.
6. Offer/Discount Promotions: Admins have the leverage to promote the latest offers for consumers on multiple occasions. These activities can be done quite easily by displaying ads on the app.

Delivery Panel

1. Geo-Location Services: This feature is integrated with location tracking and route navigation APIs. It helps delivery executives to reach the exact location of the customers on time.
2. Accept/Reject Delivery Request: This feature allows delivery executives to accept or reject orders on the basis of their idleness.
3. Delivery Request Notification: Thai feature will help store managers connect with the delivery executive through real-time notifications. They can easily reach the stores to pick up the groceries and get them delivered to their respective buyers.
4. In-app Calling/In-app Chat: To call or chat with customers and grocery store owners, this feature is apt and convenient. This is another crucial feature that helps delivery personnel to communicate easily for order/delivery-related queries.

Technical aspects & additional integrations

Determining the grocery app development cost includes the calculation of all the technical aspects – from building the UI/UX designs to maintaining the app. Let’s cover each aspect and understand their significance:

App Complexity

The complexity of your grocery delivery app will depend on the set of features, its architecture, and core functionalities. To make your understanding better, a simple app is a mixture of unsophisticated UI/UX features and flexible backend compatibility. While a complex app has all the necessary components and 3rd party integrations.

Choice of Platform

Choosing from native, hybrid, and cross-platform app development is one of the core factors to calculate grocery app development costs. It totally depends on your target market – if you’re targeting only Android or iOS smartphone users then you need to choose native app development.

Hybrid apps are generally web apps that can be installed through search engines. They are similar to native but also have a web presence along with app marketplaces.

Cross-platform apps are the most beneficial in this. If you want to cover a huge potential audience for your grocery delivery app then this platform is best suited for your business. It covers both iOS and Android platforms.

Technical Documentation

This is one of the most crucial steps in the mobile app development process. It includes the outlining of complete app architecture, process flow, design sprint strategies, coding standards, tools, user personas, timeframes, functionalities, and budget.

Prototyping & UI/UX Design

Building a prototype of your grocery delivery app will help to measure the progress of the development process. It helps in creating an app architecture and showcases necessary features that can embrace quality user experience.

Once the prototype is finalized, it will be integrated with the UI and UX designs. This is where your app will get functionalities like usability, interactive elements, page navigation, and many more.

Deploying App Architecture With Backend

Your on-demand grocery delivery app will require to sync the data with a secure data storage, preferably a cloud platform. And this process will include backend development technologies that are available in two categories – custom-based services and Backend-as-a-Service (BaaS).

Customized services will include your own architecture, built with only limited functions. BaaS includes 3rd party integrations like AWS, Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and Firebase.

Third-Party Integrations

These integrations are optional but there are some important APIs that should be available in an on-demand grocery delivery app. It includes payment gateways, GPS-based integrations, social logins, cloud APIs, and mobile access functions.

These integrations vary according to their costs and some of the APIs are also based on monthly, quarterly or yearly plans. So, you have the leverage to make choices according to the business requirements.

QA & Testing

Assuring the quality of your app functions is a crucial step in the app development process. The technical aspects of testing the quality of your app require certain tools to perform different activities.

The process includes the analysis of mobile app usability, performance, security, and functionality. Until every aspect of the app’s working is cross-checked by the QA and testing team, your grocery delivery app won’t be launched on the marketplaces.

Update, Maintenance & Support

Even after the deployment of your grocery delivery app, your app needs to be updated with trending features while maintaining its functions for a smooth user experience. It includes technical support and monthly maintenance. And for this, you will require a team that can progressively look after your app and keeps it updated for use.

Required Team Size

You will require a complete app development team to build a grocery delivery app. This factor will help you determine the budget required to hire the mobile app development team and other professionals that can help to make your vision successful. The team should include:

• UI/UX designers
• Front-end developers
• Back-end developers
• Project manager
• QA & app testers

You can customize the number of team members for each expertise according to your budget. But, to ensure that every stage in grocery app development is measured with quality outcomes, you will need their expertise.

Location Of The App Development Team

The cost of hiring an app development team varies from region to region. The designers, developers, and QA experts set hourly rates for a project. You can compare the prices of the team from different locations such as South-East Asia, Europe, America, Australia, and the Middle East.

To get you a rough idea, let’s have a look at the average rates of the app development experts:

Choosing the right tech stack

Mobile app development technologies are evolving every year. You can also leverage this transformation by choosing the best tech stack for your grocery delivery app. And once you have a complete base of trending technologies and tools, you can evaluate the cost required to utilize them for your app. Have a look:

• Push Notifications: Push.io, Twilio
• Frameworks: Ruby on Rails, React Native, Xamarin, Ionic, Flutter.
• Payment Methods:  Stripe, EWallets, Braintree & PayPal
• Database: Hbase, Firebase, MailChimp Integration, Cassandra, MongoDB, Postgres.
• Real-time Analytics: Cisco, IBM, Hadoop, Apache Flink, Spark, BigData
• Cloud Environment: Azure, AWS, Google Cloud
• Location: Google Maps, Map Box, Geocoding API.
• Time Tracking: Google Matrix API

Evaluating the Grocery App Development Cost

Now that you know all the factors that can help to determine the grocery app development cost, let’s evaluate the figures to give a clear idea about your project.

The prices may fluctuate or vary according to your requirements. Still, you can use these stats to take an idea for a particular budget to build your grocery delivery app. Here are the top players in the on-demand grocery delivery category that currently ruling the industry:

Why Should You Choose a Grocery App Development Company?

Today, digital transformation through innovative technologies is essential. With the help of a mobile application that is both scalable and feature-rich, the retail sector is going digital. These days, grocery stores are expanding consistently, while meeting consumers’ demands successfully with complete convenience.

People may save time by using these tiny market applications instead of stepping outdoors to buy food. 

Don’t you want to take advantage of this digitalization opportunity by moving your retail operation online and continuing to experience rapid growth? This is the right time to partner with a reliable grocery app development company.

How Appventurez can Help you Build a Grocery Delivery App?

Grocery has obtained a firm reputation in its niche and consumers are benefitting from its grocery delivery solutions. In order to build a grocery delivery app, you can utilize this guide effectively and get the best idea for the overall development.

Here at Appventurez, a mobile app development company we follow the agile methodology to build refined end products. Our experts can help your business with the most advanced mobile app technologies. You just need to share your vision and we will implement the right solutions for it.