How to Build a Food Delivery Website like Glovo or Domino’s AnyWare

In the age of capitalism, the populations’ priorities have dramatically changed.

The main goals for many people are money, career, and wealth. At the end of the day, we sometimes don’t even have time to prepare food for ourselves, which often leads to health problems and malnutrition.

But many of them decided to digitize this process and create a restaurant delivery website since it’s more time-efficient and convenient.

There are quite a lot of benefits that the website can provide your business with.

# 1: Expand your clientele

By offering delivery services via a website, you extend the area in which you can reach your potential customers.

So, this way it’s not only those who work/live near your place or drive from other areas to specifically eat there, but also everybody whose living areas are included in your delivery range.

# 2: Use it as a marketing tool

Your website is a great place to promote anything you want. There can be various events, discounts, “Catches of the day,” news, new branch openings, staff recruitment сalls, etc.

Besides, it can help you improve brand recognition which is extremely important for restaurants.

# 3: Increase revenue

It may seem kind of obvious — more orders mean more money, right?

However, it’s not the only way a food delivery website increases revenue.

The benefits for revenue increase include:

• The number of seats in your restaurant is no longer the number of customers you can serve at the same time. Delivery services let you have as many customers as you can handle without having to rely on your restaurant’s limited amount of space.
• You cover the needs of those who prefer eating at home.
• You can provide food for events outside of your restaurant like birthdays, company parties, and so on.

Besides, due to the COVID-pandemic, the number of visitors might be limited for in-restaurant meals. Anyway, many people are now concerned about visiting restaurants since the space is closed.

Delivery Set-Up 📦

Before diving deep into details of a food delivery website development, let’s talk about how you can organize delivery.

Form of delivery payment 💲

First things first, to create an online food ordering website, you’ll need to think of how you’ll cover the delivery costs.

There are 2 main types of delivery payment models: “free delivery” and flat rate.

# 1: Free delivery

Practically, free delivery can’t exist — someone always has to pay for it since costs don’t just vanish. But who and how pays for it is the question.

So there are several ways to make the delivery “free”:

• Cover the delivery costs yourself — you pay.
• Increase prices for food delivery orders to cover it — customers pay.
• Slightly increase prices to cover a part of the delivery costs — 50/50.
• Set a minimum price or number of dishes to get free delivery — customers pay, but you get your profit as well.

Be sure to take all costs into account. They can include wages to an employee(-s), petrol costs, packaging, etc.

# 2: Flat rate

A flat rate is a system where the price for delivery doesn’t change. Whether a customer orders a dessert for $10 or a set of 5 full business lunches for $100, the price for delivery remains at the same level.

In fact, many restaurants use such a system since food delivery isn’t something massive or too heavy.

Besides, it’s likely that you won’t have to deliver one order at a time.

Most restaurants wait for a certain number of orders to come in, then, they take the fastest route, give them out along the way and finally come back for a new set of orders.

Packaging & Placement 🎁

We all love ordering food from restaurants that pack it in nice bags that have pleasant colors with the restaurants’ logos. Most importantly though, we want our food to be nice in terms of its appearance.

So, first of all, think about where you’ll put the food.

However, we won’t stop here for too long since most restaurants offer their clients takeout even if they don’t provide delivery or pack dishes to-go in case a guest couldn’t finish something.

Another part of this question is where to put the containers for transportation. Normally, restaurants use specific thermal bags.

A huge part of the user experience from deliveries depends on the food itself. Is the temperature right? Does it taste good? Is it messy or not?

Besides, if something happens to your customers’ food on the road, make sure to let the customers know how they can report it and offer something in return to make it up to them.

That can be a discount coupon, a refund, maybe a free dessert next time they make an order, etc. You can offer various gifts for different levels of food’s “messiness” if such occurs.

Nevertheless, be careful here and ask for proof (the most popular form of such is a photo of the dish), so you don’t get fooled by tricky customers :)

Facilitators of the delivery 👈

Now let’s get to the delivery itself.

There are several ways of how you can organize delivery.

#1: You hire employees for this purpose. Normally, it should be someone responsible who’s ready to work full time and has a car and a driving’s license.

# 2: You use a third-party delivery service that provides you with everything necessary for container transportation. In most cases, such services assign one of their employees to your restaurant. They’ll have already been trained to provide high-quality delivery.

Let’s take a look at the case!

Case Study: Domino’s 🍕

Domino’s Pizza (or just Domino’s) is a food delivery service and restaurant chain headquartered in Michigan, USA.

They sell 3M pizzas in more than 90 countries every day.

However, you, as well as your users could make good use of it.

From a user's point of view, they might need to create an account to use some extended services if you offer such (like a Bonus System or a Client’s Card).

Furthermore, they could save their addresses and/or favorite dishes so they don’t have to type them out next time.

# 2: Restaurant Menu

That’s where you’ll place the names of your dishes.

Normally, it looks like a set of categories that customers can press and where they can see all the available dishes within that category.

Sometimes, restaurants offer a full list of dishes along with the categories.

The menu should be well-designed, with pretty colors and comply with your restaurant's style.

Remember we talked about a food delivery website as a marketing tool?

Well, the menu is a great place to use such.

Here you can promote your “Catch of the day,” discounts, events like “2 for the price of 1” and other stuff regarding your restaurant and its “life.”

# 3: Filtering & Sorting

Some clients might already know their specific order or the fact that they want dessert, etc. Thus, to make the list shorter, you can add a search bar and different categories (“Soups,” “Salads,” “Main course,” and so on).

A filtering system isn’t something vital for restaurant websites.

However, if you’d like to add one, think about using such filters:

• Price.
• Vegan/Vegetarian.
• Ingredients.
• Cooking time & etc.

# 4: Dish Screen

This is where customers should be able to access all the information about the dishes your restaurant offers.

The Screen can include:

• Price.
• Grams & Calories.
• Cooking time.
• All the ingredients and their proportion in the dish.
• Pictures.
• Recommendations for this dish. For example, if a client orders fish, you can advise them to eat it with a glass of white wine.

Moreover, you can make use of it as well.

Let’s imagine that you have too many tomatoes this time and you need to use them up — otherwise, they’ll just go to waste.

So, you can offer a small discount for dishes with tomatoes in them and mark them on the dish screen. Alternatively, if you have a Bonus System, you can offer extra points for these dishes.

# 5: Order Screen

This screen is intended to show customers their final orders which should include the chosen dishes, the amount of servings of each dish, the price of every dish and the delivery, the total price, the time of delivery, etc.

Besides, some restaurants use it not only as a “source of information” for customers but add cooking instructions and specify recipes for cooks as well.

# 2: Order Screen

From your perspective, this screen should help you manage all online ordering made via the website.

First of all, you might need to transfer orders to the kitchen.

You should also be able to add the list of current orders with a separate tab for new ones. Normally, you should see their current status (in line, in process or ready), to which order each dish belongs, and the time when the order was made to make sure that there are no delays.

From this list, you should go to a more specific screen for each dish.

Here you should find all the specifications regarding ingredients (maybe someone’s allergic to tomatoes and asks not to add them), the dish’s status, the time remaining for preparation, the number of the order and its other details like price, payment option, etc.

You should also be able to access the chat with your customers from this screen.

# 3: Analytics

For businesses in the catering industry, statistics are essential to improve and change the range of dishes according to the customers’ preferences.

For example, analytical data can include:

• The revenue.
• The overall number of dishes sold (per day, week and/or month).
• The number of online orders for each dish.
• The average rating of your service (like 4.8/5).
• A feedback screen.

The data can be presented in the form of infographics instead of regular tables.

Sure thing, there are quite a lot of special things about this business model.

To understand them from the inside, stay with us — we’ll show you.

Market research 📊

There are a lot of players on the food delivery market. That means there are a lot of competitors and players that deliver real experience out there.

Thus, by checking their failures and successes, niches, and market shares, you can prevent mistakes and take advantage of them.

Of course, market research isn’t only competitor analysis. You have to find answers to such questions as:

• Who these competitors are?
• Will my product be demanded?
• Is there a market for me to offer my services to?

Client base and feedback 💬

Since there are quite a lot of competitors, you might need to collect some feedback and attract clients before barging into the market.

Long story short, develop an MVP, test it, and get your first clients. This way, you’ll have a pillar by the time you start to fully provide your services.

Maybe you could start by reaching out to small local businesses with not much profit just to build up the foundation of your service.

In the long run though, it’ll be much more profitable than it may seem now.

Delivery Set-Up 👐

For this model of food delivery business, the delivery setup is quite different from the first one.

Let’s review the main aspects you should take into account.

Courier Hiring 🚴

Most food delivery websites with this business model hire their own couriers.

In fact, it’s quite hard to call this process hiring. Normally, people just sign up on the website and choose whether they’re customers or would like to work with you (or directly sign up on the relative website if you have them separated).

Of course, you would have to equip your couriers, educate them on how to deal with delicate situations, etc. Just teach and tell them everything you find important.

To equip them, you might need:

• Thermal bags.
• Branded uniform.
• Means of transport (bicycles, e-scooters, etc.). However, companies often require couriers with their own vehicles or the ones who are ready to use public transport.

Couriers’ convenience 😀

When developing your website, the convenience of it for customers is extremely important.

However, don’t forget that couriers are the ones who make the revenue for you.

You should make sure that their workflow is as user-friendly as the experience of your customers.

To kind of encourage people to work for you, you can offer:

• Fair salaries.
• Flexible working schedules.
• High-quality equipment.
• Bonuses like morning coffee for free or anything that shows your care.

Monetization models 💸

Let’s face it, the main goal of most businesses is to get money. Of course, there are other things that they care about. But the end goal is almost always some kind of profit.

So, before we take a look at some examples and functionality of such a website, why don’t we find out how to make money with it.

# 1: Users pay

There are several ways to monetize your website.

First of all, you can take payments from users. Here you can’t really increase prices for dishes like in the business model for restaurants since you’re not the one who sets them.

Thus, you need to charge a certain fee for delivery. It can either be flat rate or floating rate.

If you choose floating rate, the price can depend on:

• The delivery distance.
• Time of the day. Some companies charge more during lunchtime, for instance.
• The number of items & others.

And if you charge a flat rate, the price will remain the same no matter what.

Sure thing, there are many more ideas on monetizing your business from the clients’ side. Maybe you could offer VIP-delivery, special silverware, and so on.

Such little “luxuries” for a small surcharge can be beneficial for you and provide a more personal approach to customers.

# 2: Restaurants pay

It’s also possible to charge each restaurant. However, the point here is that it’s not possible to pay for each delivery separately.

So, there are two most popular ways to charge restaurants:

• A fixed price that is placed on your website. It’s some kind of a monthly or weekly subscription.
• On commission. Normally, it’s a certain percentage from each order.

For instance, 15% of every order can go to your company for facilitation and delivery costs.

Moreover, you can make extra profit by offering advertising services.

For example, dedicate half of your first page to such advertisements. Then, restaurants pay to have a place in this section.

If you’d like to find out more about delivery-restaurant financial relationships, check out this informative video from the Wall Street Journal:

Case Study: Glovo 🎒

Glovo is a food delivery service that was founded in Barcelona, Spain.

It is an on-demand delivery platform that offers its customers to purchase, pick up, and deliver products and food from local restaurants ordered via their web- and mobile platforms.

They offer their services in 22 countries and work with 53K shops and restaurants. You can make an order via their website or mobile app.

With 7,4M active customers, they make around 216M Euros per year.

If you’d like to visualize their work process, you can watch this short interview with the founders of Glovo:

We recommend being extremely careful here. Don’t ask for any information at all as long as it’s not necessary.

Once again, you can do it at the order completion. You might need:

• Name.
• Phone number.
• Pick-up address.
• Payment option.

# 2: Home Screen

Home Screen is a kind of a lounge for food delivery website users.

While on some websites the Home Screen appears after signing in, for food ordering websites it should be the first page after clicking on the link.

And from this point, users can choose whether they want to sign in or proceed with ordering without it.

A Home Screen on food delivery website should allow access to all information about the company and the sign-in screen

On the Home Screen, users should be able to access:

• Menu.
• Services.
• Contacts.
• Search bar.
• Restaurant categories.
• Any info about the company (About Us, Blog, Social Media — whatever you have and want to share) & others.

Besides, this is where you place an advertisement that we talked about in the monetization models subsection.

# 3: Filtering & Sorting

For this business model, the range of dishes is deeper and wider since it’s not just one restaurant but many of them. And each one has its own menu.

Thus, the filtering system should start with restaurant selection here.

This part of the filtering system can be structured by:

• Cuisine.
• Pricing policy. For example, Google marks restaurants $, $$, or $$$ depending on how expensive they are.
• Ratings.
• “Near me”. For this purpose, users would have to either share their geolocation or type in the address for the search.

And after that, you can add filters within every restaurant’s menu.

There can be filters by:

• Price.
• Dish category (like “Main course”, “Dessert”, etc.).
• Vegan/Vegetarian.
• Ingredients. This is kind of an extended filter but still useful.

For example, someone is allergic to carrots. With this option, they could exclude all dishes that contain carrots.

However, this may not be completely up to you since some restaurants provide the menu by themselves.

# 4: Dish Screen

This is also something you can split the “responsibility” for with restaurants that want to be on your website.

You provide the platform, structure, and design ⇋ Restaurant provide you with information.

The Screen can include:

• Pictures.
• Prices.
• Grams & Calories.
• Cooking time.
• All the ingredients along with their proportion in a dish.
• Recommendations for a dish. For example, if a client orders fish, you can advise them to eat it with a glass of white wine.

It can help you provide customers with a more personalized experience.

# 5: Order Screen

In other words, you could call it Checkout.

Here you’ll show customers their final order including:

• The restaurant’s name.
• The ordered dishes & their quantity.
• The overall price & the price for each dish + delivery.
• The delivery time.
• A bar to type in the delivery address.
• A chat with the courier to allow communication and the possibility of leaving comments & others.

# 1: Sign Up & Profiles

For couriers, the signup process shouldn’t be time-consuming as well.

Sure thing, they will have to give you their personal info, but try not to ask too much at least in the beginning — let them check everything they need to on your website and then offer to start the applying process.

Normally, websites for couriers ask for full name, phone number, and email (during the signup process).

After that, the information about couriers you’ll need to ask for might include:

• Name, phone number, and email (if you didn’t do it earlier).
• ID card.
• Driver's license (if they’re going to use a car).
• Privacy Policy Agreement signing.
• Medical handbook & others.

For instance, Glovo’s application process looks like this. You:

1. Sign up.
2. Watch an introduction video.
3. Send in the documents.
4. Get the thermal bag & start working.

# 2: Map & Navigator

To assist couriers in delivering, you could implement a map with a navigator into your digital product.

It’s in your interest that orders are delivered as fast as possible. But some maps and navigators may not be precise enough or work intermittently.

So make sure that your in-built navigator works precisely and shows the fastest routes.

Moreover, you might need different routes for different vehicles since the one for a car may not be convenient or safe for a bicycle.

Additionally, you can use this feature as a sort of a dispenser.

For instance, there are already enough couriers to deliver orders to customers in certain parts of the city.

So, what you can do is show couriers that now they have to go to another area where there are not enough workers yet.

# 3: Order Screen

The main intention of this feature is to transfer orders to couriers. They should be able to either accept them or refuse to deliver.

The functionality can include:

• Add/delete restaurants from the options.
• Menu management (like special offers and dishes' disposal).
• Restaurant details updating (name, pictures, working hours, delivery price, cooking time for each dish, etc.) and others.

# 2: Courier Management

Apart from restaurants, you also need to manage your couriers throughout their working hours.