API integrations can be the most beneficial alternative in food delivery software development, which helps to speed up the development process and reduce cost.
Research by Business Insider shows that the food delivery service is among the fastest-growing businesses currently.
Its market had been worth more than US$38 billion by the end of 2020. And there are still many rooms for restaurant businesses to jump in on the trend of these on-demand deliveries, particularly in the niche of restaurant-to-customer service.
According to a statistic, a restaurant needs to pay an average of US$25,000 to develop its own food delivery software development from scratch. Unfortunately, not all of them can afford that much in these rough times. By using existing food delivery APIs of third-party providers, restaurants can still come up with a full-functional delivery app for a lower cost.
What is API integrations in software development?
API stands for Application Programming Interface. They are designed for systems and applications to work. Simply put, API is a set of subroutine definitions and protocols that allow performing specific functions of applications.
In other words, they are defined as communicating methods between software components. When users request something from the app via an interface, the application system will send the response data to an API. An API then interprets this returned data into information that users can understand.
In custom software development practice, API development services are to support integration. API integration is the seamless connection and communication between two or more programs, systems, applications to exchange data via their APIs. It allows organizations to automate the data sharing process among current systems without human interruption. The solution helps to enhance the flexibility of services and information delivery and simplify the content embedding from different apps and sites.
The benefits of using API in food delivery systems
Operators need to access data on the levels of customers, products, and inventory to manage orders and process deliveries smoothly and efficiently. Food delivery service API integration helps to achieve ongoing data interchange from the order online website to the cart.
The food delivery API supports the integrated POS system, which consolidates orders from all delivery platforms into one restaurant management app for process and tracking purposes.
Small to medium-sized food businesses are likely to outsource the team to save operational costs regarding the delivery fleet. To meet that need, some food delivery service API also manages the delivery shippers on behalf of restaurants.
Besides, the advantages of using API is to provide a data analytics tool for business owners to monitor and analyze delivery in an attempt to increase profitability.
Top popular food delivery app API providers
Google Maps
Google Maps platform provides food ordering API solutions for answering queries about real-time location information, which are divided into three groups of product:
• Maps API for static and dynamics maps, street view (imagery and 360° views) features
• Routes API for high-quality directions for different transportations, roads with real-time traffic updates, and distance matrix features
• Places API for Current Place, Places Library, Find Places, Autocomplete, Geolocation, Geocoding, and Time Zone features
It requires a billing account of Google Cloud Platform to access the Google Maps API library and get the API keys. Once you set up successfully, you will get a $300 free trial of the Google Cloud Platform and a recurring $200 monthly credit for the Google Maps Platform. Google charges $2 to $30 for every 1,000 queries per day, depending on each feature, and you only have to pay for what you use. It means that it’s almost free for food businesses at small to medium size.
Uber Eats
UberEats API is one of the simplest ways for new restaurants to join the food delivery market. The API can be integrated directly with the POS system for small restaurants to manage menus and orders. Additionally, business owners will also make use of the vast network of delivery partners from Uber Eats.
UberEats API offers a revenue-sharing model for pricing, ranging from 15% to 40% for every successful order. This might pay off for a large-scale business as UberEats can reach much more significance than many other APIs do.
GrubHub
The GrubHub API provides information on over 115,000 all-sized restaurants, exclusively for the United States market, to a limited extent. It gives access to updating information such as menu items, operating times, or restaurant addresses.
GrubHub also implements the revenue-sharing model. Compared to Uber Eats APIs, its commission fees are slightly lower at 10 to 30%, but not coming with logistics. That said, restaurants will have to work with third-party delivery partners.
Foursquare
Foursquare is a social networking application for search and discovery, providing personalized suggestions on activities and places of interest. Its API tool kit is a valuable investment if the major of your target customers are using the app frequently.
Foursquare API offers a pricing package starting at $599, which seems to be a high cost for most small-sized businesses. Developers need to create an account from the Foursquare website to get the necessary Client ID and Secret Key.
Freshchat
The Freshchat API tool kit allows developers to add a live chat box to the application by using Javascript code. The live messaging service on this API for food delivery, designed by Freshworks, helps restaurants to engage more with website visitors, resulting in converting them into customers.
Freshchat offers a 21-day free trial with a free starter account for 10,000 website visitors and ten team members. Upgrading to the premium account for unlimited contacts will cost $15 monthly with annual billing.
Onesignal
This API food ordering API is used to add push notifications for alerting users of updates and news via the application.
The tool kit offers a free version with limited subscribers of 30,000. Beyond, businesses will need to pay $99 per month for the service. This offer is still quite enough for most companies on a small scale.
Final words
The food delivery business is such a fast-growing trend that no restaurants should ignore it. Partnering with dedicated software development company to develop your very first restaurant management system for food delivery service, do not forget to learn and make use of existing API for food delivery to save your valuable cost and time.
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