On-Demand Delivery Apps
Getting food delivered straight to your door has never been easier, thanks to advancements in technology.
There are countless ways that mobile technology has improved our daily lives. From the purely trivial, such as games and social media apps, to the convenient and time-saving like banking and smart home apps, it’s hard to imagine life without so much capability right at our fingertips.
However, there is a trend of on-demand apps that seem to grow each and every week, and it’s one that implies something else about the modern smartphone owner: how lazy we are when it comes to ordering food.
Dining In
There are so many ways to get food on demand these days—whether it’s directly from the restaurant or via a third-party delivery service— you’d think the market would be fully saturated by now. But just recently mega pizza chain, Domino’s, announced that they are rolling out a zero click ordering process on its mobile app, because apparently one click was one too many. When you open the app, if you do nothing for ten seconds your previous order will be replicated and placed for you. This may sound ridiculous, but as Mashable reported, it’s just one in a long stream of ways that Domino’s has made it almost comically easy to order their pizzas, including accepting orders via Twitter as well as text messages with pizza emojis.
No Time To Waste
If you think about it, all this on-demand food ordering makes sense, given the fact that in an increasingly busy and time-crunched world, people still have to eat. If their smartphone can make that process easier, why not use it? This business model can also be replicated across the world, with local versions of on-demand apps cropping up virtually anywhere there is a dense enough population to support them. As Juggernaut, a startup that supports on demand platforms, put it: “The on demand food industry has disrupted traditional markets by adopting a full cycle approach to the three basic components of a meal experience at a restaurant: Ordering, Cooking and Delivering…They more than deliver convenience as a simple service attribute, they deliver convenience across every customer touch-point.”
Here is a look at some on-demand food ordering apps that have slowly taken over how urban smartphone owners eat:
Postmates
A leader in the space, Postmates is already estimated to be worth $500 million. It uses a straightforward model of a logistics platform which, in theory, “enables anyone to have anything delivered in under an hour.” Founded in San Francisco, the company is popular in New York and is said to be expanding into London this year.
Deliveroo
Deliveroo is the market leader in London, delivering high quality take away from top restaurants via bike or motorbike. The company is ubiquitous on the city’s streets, though it’s increasingly facing rivals who are trying to enter the market.
UberEATS
The on-demand ride app has expanded into food delivery, and you know they’re going to be a contender. Available in 18 cities around the world, it has just expanded to its second European city, which again is London.
Grubhub
A food delivery, menu and online ordering guide for Boston, Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, and San Franciso, Grubhub had early popularity but is not struggling to stay afloat with major players like Postmates and UberEATS on its tail.
Sprig
Catering to health conscious consumers, Sprig doesn’t just deliver food—it makes it too. With outposts in San Francisco and Chicago, meals from Sprig cost between $11 and $15, plus a $2.75 delivery fee. While their model is somewhat of an outlier in the on-demand economy as it involves preparation and menu creation in addition to delivery, the earnings potential and revenue model is much more robust that a straightforward food delivery service.