Table of Content
Marketplace or Technology Solution
Are you planning to start an online business in 2019? It usually requires research to understand the trends, market needs, competition etc. Starting an online store might look like a difficult dream for all. Fortunately, creating an online store is not as difficult as people think it is. There are some online business ideas that are more profitable than others.
The online food business is the one where six-figure revenue can be set up in months. Online food businesses act as a connection between consumers and restaurants. This post will be helpful for those who want to start an online food business. A couple of weeks we invested to research on this business idea to cover all the key points in this post.
In recent time, we are consistently hearing news like:
- Online food ordering startups/apps are getting huge funding
- Food ordering apps are acquired by other big brands of industry
- Local food ordering venture are merging with others etc.
These news or words of mouth influence many startups and SMBs to invest in online food business.
Online food business broke out into around 10 focused areas as mentioned in below graphic.
Industry specific stats and surveys prove that the growth in online food industry is like leapfrog. There has been a huge boon in the online food business arena with many startups mushrooming across multiple verticals. In metropolitan life no one has enough time to cook. There are extensive use of mobile for searching and ordering food from nearest restaurants. As a result, the demand of online food ordering has rapidly increased and thus there is a huge scope in launching online food ordering venture.
Marketing video of Just Eat is quite interesting.
Statistics & Forecasting
During my research I came across some interesting article and stats that I would like to share with you all.
This graphic shows the rise of online food ordering over offline. In 2021 online food ordering will jump-over offline food ordering.
in addition to above stats, 79% of Millennials (ages 18-36) have ordered food via a website or app, which is 29% more than the older U.S. adult population (ages 45+). I hope you love to answer the question asked in the following tweet ☺
https://twitter.com/sandeepsktr/status/1045723352885800966
I believe, you love to know about the top funded online food ordering startups.
Here is the list of world’s top funded food startups:
- Shadowfax Technologies (India) $24.1M
- Frichti: (France) $14.7M
- Petoo: (India) $11.5M
- FoodCheri(France) $7.8M
- Delightful Gourmet:(India) $3.5M
Here is the link of top funded online food startups of U.S.
There are countless food ordering apps globally, below is the list of top food ordering apps:
- Grubhub
- Gopuff
- Eat24
- Deliverydotcom
- Doordash
- Ubereats
- Postmates
Revenue Model
How to make money from online business is the core question of every venture. Let me explain primary goal that is ‘how to make money’ through online food business. What will be most possible revenue options in online food ordering business?
Following are some effective ways to make money through online food ordering website/app:
- Paid subscriptions
- Commission on every order
- By featuring restaurants on the homepage
- Paid Ads
- Paid link
- Banner Ads
- Sponsorship
- Affiliates
- Sponsored Content
- User Data Access for Market Research
Also read: How Coupons & Offers can Increase Revenue
Marketplace or Technology Solution
However, in order to ensure that your online food ordering and delivering business is successful, you need to have certain features added into your website or app. You need to take care of various technical and marketing aspects to make your website stand apart.
Various options & solutions are available to launch online food ordering website/app. As these options and solutions are crucial factor for this business success so choose the right option wisely.
So let’s discuss all the available options and solutions one by one:
Hire Freelancers:
You could hire freelancers to build your food ordering website/app. But before hiring a freelancer you should have enough technological and coding knowledge to evaluate the work quality.
Pros:
- Affordable
- Easy to find
- Dedicated
- Short process
- Direct coordination
Cons:
- Lack of process
- Privacy issue
- Exceed timeline
- Not authorized
- Not responsible
- Quality may be an issue
- No or less technical support
- Security issue
Website Builder:
As a second alternative, you can use website builder platform like WordPress, Wix, Weebly etc. If you just want to taste the water of online food industry, you should use this alternative. Even you can build rich UX, UI food ordering store with this kind of solution but, SaaS based solutions are not the perfect one. Following are pros and cons of website builder software.
Pros:
- Easy to launch
- Time-saving
- Many APIs are available
- Support
- Multiple themes
- Auto upgrade
Cons:
- High on cost
- Customization limitation
- API based
- Not secure
- Hosting
- Not fully owned
- No Source code
Ready-made Solution:
This one is the most trustable option to launch eCommerce marketplace. When you choose ready-made solution to launch your eCommerce marketplace, you can save your valuable time, efforts & research etc. Before choosing in ready-made solution You can take the sneak-peak of the platform by checking the demo, features, design, themes, coding, UX, and more. In all other options that we discussed above, these features to check before investing are not available.
There are countless ready-made solutions in the market that make it easy to pick the best one.
Pros:
- Ready to launch
- Customizable
- Both options are there Hosted, self-hosted
- Affordable
- Secure
- Customer support
- Easy process
- Free demo
- Training
- Fully owned
- Full Source code
Cons:
- Limited option for themes
- Less use of Plug-in
- Migration is little strong
Experts Recommendation:
Most eCommerce experts recommend ready – made solution. Ready-made solutions such as YoYumm offer easy launch of the eCommerce portal with a wide range of advance features. This kind of solutions always helps you with technology and marketing.
