Different cultures, multilingual states, and distinctive cuisines define our Indian subcontinent. Each and every part of our country has its food, culture, and topography unmatched by each other. For the last couple of years, there has been a growing demand for ordering food online, be it global cuisines as well as authentic Indian cuisines. Earlier what used to be a placed order and pick up by phone with people placing orders at the nearby restaurants have now emerged as ordering online through various food search engines and delivery apps.
The demand for online food delivery has grown tenfold with the advent of newer technologies coming in and people shifting their preferences more towards easily accessible options like online shopping and ordering food online. Studies suggest that the Indian food online ordering market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25 to 30% to touch $7.5- $8 Billion by 2022.
While fast food has become a norm in the country, online food ordering businesses are expected to grow exponentially. But there are food delivery businesses too that do not want to tie up with food tech startups or maybe just starting out with their own food-tech business. For such online food delivery businesses, one has to follow the following ways:
Find Your Calling:
Before setting up your own online food delivery business, it is of utmost importance to find a niche. To stand out amidst hundreds of eCommerce businesses you need to specialize in what you are offering. For example, the type of cuisine with an array of exclusive introductions with premium quality to provide your customers with, maintaining proper hygiene and safety.
Reach Out To Your Target Audience:
Your reputation will depend on your food for its quality and freshness while it’s delivered. Make sure to define the area in which you would like to deliver and the type of audience to reach out to. By doing such, you can focus on creating good quality dishes and improvise your menu as per the needs of your customers, thereby maintaining a consistent growth rate.
Opting to deliver food far off from your locality can earn a bad reputation for your business on grounds like fresh delivery, quality of food, late deliveries, etc. A hyperlocal delivery model is extremely beneficial to deliver perishable items like food products that are cooked and served hot.
You can reach out to audiences like bachelors living in a nearby paying guest house, newly married couples, cooperative employees, senior citizens, etc.
Creating a Website:
To reach out and deliver better, it is of utmost importance to leverage technology to the maximum. In order to grow your business, you must have your own website where you can list your products in an attractive way to lure users who can place orders by just browsing through the website.
Today, most things are done online and people hardly have the time to make phone calls. Try to incorporate essential features like images, descriptions, search options, location finders, etc to make the ordering process faster for your customers.
You must ensure to include a ‘create account’ option so that the user can save their details like address, previous orders, etc for the next time when they return to your website.
Try To Curate a Mobile App:
Develop a mobile app for your business that can provide direct access to your customer’s mobile phones where you can track their preferences and likings. This helps in better conversations and provides a chance to market your business directly.
Make the app interesting by including features like tracking, creating an account, images, product descriptions, how-to recipes, etc. This will ensure a more profound and convenient user experience. !
Build A Strong Delivery Network:
You cannot provide a deft service without having a strong delivery network. It is extremely important to have a strong and experienced delivery partner that delivers your food safely, maintains hygiene, and is on time.
The experienced providers are well trained for hyperlocal deliveries and you don’t need to invest anything extra for training and managing resources for the same.
You may also keep an option open for services like pick and drop which can be great for people who are shifting homes.
Obtain Necessary Licenses:
The most important step is to obtain all the necessary licenses to start an online food delivery business in your area.
These form the necessary security and permissions needed to run a successful business. Without having them, you can get into serious legal trouble.
All of them can be obtained by simply applying online through the FSSAI website or getting in touch with the Municipal Corporation in your city.
Try To Market Your Website:
Take initiatives to invest in marketing your business well as this can result largely in the success of your business. Apart from providing the best quality products, services, and user-friendly online ordering experience, it is of great importance to be aware of your store that customers can purchase from.
Try investing in hyperlocal marketing techniques for starters and set up a blog on your website to write about various things related to your food business. Invest in a few paid advertisements on social media and run them based on location and geo-tagging.
With the present work status and lifestyle, it’s a really good time to start with the hyperlocal delivery of food in India. Post the Covid-19 outbreak, many people prefer the home-bound life and it is now when these types of businesses are going to take over the market and grow faster.
Do you own an online food delivery business or are you planning to start one? What are the steps you have chalked out for yourselves? Let us know in the comments.