Do you remember life without deliveries? They definitely have brought tons of benefits and made life slightly easier and more comfortable. Thanks to the deliveries one can save time on cooking, avoid going to a store or buy a gift for a friend from a different city or even country.
The core element that makes deliveries work as they do is software. According to Statista’s report on food and beverage ordering apps in 2022, the total number of downloads across the world was estimated at over 888 million. The figures are reasonable enough for the food and beverage business to go for deliveries.
Though many businesses would likely join such delivery platforms as Uber Eats, Glovo, DoorDash, etc. We believe that starting your own carrier service app will bring more users to the business. So, in this article, we’ll talk about carrier app development. This article will be useful for:
- Food & beverage business that doesn’t have their own delivery app and want to know more about the courier app development before going for it;
- Food & beverage business that already have a delivery app but feels like it needs to refresh or updated;
- Those who want to questions “what is a courier management system”.
Benefits of Courier Service App Development
Food & beverage business owners may prefer to stick to the well-established 3rd party delivery services as it seems to free them up from the handling management flows. The question is “Is it so?”. Let’s explore the benefits of courier app development and make to a conclusion afterward.
Ability to Set the System According to a Particular Business Needs
The third-party carrier management app can be not enough to fulfill the needs of your business or contrary offer unnecessary tools that you will still have to pay for. When you decide to set off your own courier management software development, you can customize the features and functionalities. Having an app tailored to your business needs is more efficient in terms of business performance and helps wiser budget allocation, that is the next benefit in our list.
Wiser Budget Allocation
The 3rd party platforms charge a cut from the earnings generated on the platform. Additionally, other fees may be charged as well. The same goes for fleet management. If you have your own team of couriers but manage them via a third-party app, you’ll have to pay for using this convenience. Investments in courier delivery app development will pay you off over time. Once your app is developed, you will be able to operate it without extra charges.
Independence
Conducting the food and beverage delivery within a 3rd party platform puts you in dependence of their rules and policies. The owners of such apps remain at their help of them and can modify them in a way that may be fatal for your delivery business. This can be related to pricing, features, and functionalities that give you control over couriers and other operations. Switching the platform means starting the whole delivery venture from the initial point.
When you have your own courier management app, you don’t risk finding yourself in a situation like this. You decide on price formation, features and functionality, rules and etc.
Talking about the features, it’s them that make the app work for your business. If you’ve got thought of courier service app development, here’s the list of go-to features of the courier management system.
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Features of Courier Management System
Celadon has worked on a bunch of delivery apps that included courier apps and admin panels. We comprehended the key features based on our experience and here’s the courier app design we arrived at.
Sign-in and Profiles
Log-in are the gates to the app. If we’re talking about courier service app development, the log-in and profile features serve as identification. Clearly, courier identification is crucial for management. Once you have the details about the courier, you can check on their performance, hours worked, and other information related to the work of a particular courier.
Signing up can be done in a number of methods - via e-mails or phone numbers. It’s up to you which one will work best.
Order Info
Order information is to be displayed on the delivery order screen. This component is of great importance to ensure the flawless delivery of food and beverages. What information the screen should contain:
- Automatically generated order number;
- Information on items included in the order;
- Orderer’s name;
- Call button or orderer’s phone number;
- Delivery time;
- Pick-up point for if products are distributed from various locations;
- Drop-off point that can be supported with a map;
- Payment information specifying payment status, payment method, total sum to be paid;
- GPS tracking to transmit information about courier’s location to clients;
- Notes left by a recipient;
- The list of completed and canceled orders.
If you are developing an application in which several orders can be placed for delivery, there are some more sophisticated features that need to be taken into account to ensure that delivery services run properly:
- An order list and the ability for couriers to book the order they are about to fulfill
- Order sorting and filtering, so that couriers can choose to view orders suitable by time, distance, etc.
A complementary feature that is appreciated by the clients is delivery status. The status is updated in real-time mode after completing each phase of order delivery.
Proof of Delivery
The PoD feature is needed to make sure the orders are delivered and avoid fraud. The completion of delivery can be achieved in several ways:
- Client's e-signature;
- Delivery photo;
- Scanning a QR code that is generated by the customer's app;
- Order receiving button on the customer’s app;
- Code confirmation that is also generated by the customer's app.
Any of the abovementioned options can work well for your couriers and be adapted to build a courier tracking app.
Navigation
Navigation is important to develop courier logistics software. Thanks to this feature, orders will be delivered on time and without delays.
The navigation function is represented as a GPS navigator with a route between the order pickup point and the delivery point. Destinations can be set manually by the courier or automatically by the system. In addition, this function will help you and your customers to track the location of the courier.
The most popular implementation of this feature is Google Maps integration. This helps to save time and money to develop the feature from scratch.
Means of ?ommunication
Courier management applications can use several means of communication: calls and chats. Calls can be built into the application itself and can be made via the call button in the order description.
Couriers need the ability to communicate with both customers and courier delivery administrators. To contact technical support, the technical support section may contain a call button or written technical support number that can be copied.
Notification
The app can send notifications to the courier about new orders, expiring delivery, order status updates, etc. The list of situations about which the app will notify the courier can be customized.
Admin Dashboard
The admin panel may vary from business to business. One courier service app design needs one set of functions, and the other needs a different set of functions. However, there are a number of features that are mandatory for all:
- Current and recent order statuses: pending, in progress, delivered, canceled, etc.
- Revenues and expenses, which can be filtered by such parameters as time (last day/week/month/3 months/year), product, or any other parameters you deem necessary.
- Fleet status, which will display information on the total number of couriers, the number of couriers working at the moment, which ones are busy, and which ones are free.
In addition, this screen often displays information about your most popular and profitable items from the catalog.
Admin dashboard can be developed as a separate software for a delivery business. Why it is a good idea and what features are to be added will be covered in the next article related to food delivery app development.
On-Demand Courier Management App Development
The idea to create a mobile delivery app brings more advantages than using a 3rd party’s platforms for a number of reasons including the ability to build an app tailored to your business, allocate the budget in a wiser way, and conduct the delivery business without being dependant on platform owner’s changes, etc. The number of benefits is not limited by these only and you may have your own reason to opt for on-demand courier delivery app development.
However, once you decide to launch your own delivery app, professional mobile app development is another headache. But the good news is that you’re in the place as Celadon will take the burden of searching for the professional development team off your shoulders.
Our expertise in building delivery software, extensive knowledge of technology, and work approach will take off all the worries and give you the product you expect. Contact us to kick off the development of your delivery app.
Areas of responsibility - brand and growth marketing. Strongly believes that software development is an art and marketing is not just about sales but about sharing your passion. Her educational background in the field of business and marketing allows her to create expert content and help others to grow and expand knowledge.
