Customers are very clear with their delivery expectations. They want faster and affordable delivery. They want the ability to track their order, from anywhere, anytime. They want their packages to be delivered in great condition.
In the face of elevated consumer expectations, retailers are not fully armed with infrastructure and technology to fulfil these expectations and manage delivery operations smoothly.
So, if you have that incredible idea of resolving the delivery related challenges of online retailers with advanced, intuitive, and easy-to-use mobile app, it’s a great time to materialize the idea.
The online retail industry is progressing and requires solutions that could help them deliver better consumer experience.
Table of Contents
Courier App Development Ideas
By 2023, online retail sales will reach $2.5 trillion. And it’s not just B2C that is growing, Gartner’s analysts predicted that by 2022, 75% of all B2B tail spend goods will be purchased in the online marketplace.
However, you need stringent planning and execution skills to build a workable software that enables online retailers to manage their delivery operations and help them achieve the customers’ expectations while providing the ability to shoppers to track their order and connect with them, whenever required.
For a start, conduct a SWOT analysis to evaluate your courier app development project and based on that create processes and workflows. Here is the breakdown of the SWOT analysis process:
SWOT Analysis | |
Strengths |
Weaknesses |
● Expected industry growth
● Benefits to customers, retailers, and drivers ● Increased customer loyalty ● Things you do well | ● Heavy expenses on transportation and delivery
● The need for balance between demand and supply ● Establish trust takes time ● Things you lack |
Opportunities |
Threats |
● Few competitors in your area
● Emerging needs in a larger metropolitan area ● Expansion of service offers ● Collaboration with retailers | ● Risk of failure
● Changing regulatory environment ● Customers’ perception of your application |
The SWOT analysis will act as a source of information for strategy formulation, planning, and selection. You can identify the core competencies of your app development project and set objectives considering the resources and capabilities.
The next step would be to select a business model that is both profitable and makes life easy for customers, drivers, and retailers.
Selecting an Appropriate Business Model:
As there are multiple types of courier delivery service business model, there’s something has been already in your mind. However, here are the 4 key courier service delivery models commonly followed by the companies.
- Postal and Courier Service Apps: It is commonly used by FedEx and DPD. This type of app has well-designed customer admin panel with the ability to create shipments and print labels for packages.
- Package Tracking Aggregators: Here all the data from different carriers are aggregated and brought onto a single platform to track the packages, regardless of the carrier. This model is commonly used for parcel delivery.
- Branded Delivery Apps: This type of apps are used by online retailers to track the status of the order, whether it has been dispatched, shipped, or out for delivery.
- Uber-like Marketplaces for Delivery: Uber has floated the idea to provide courier delivery services through their network of drivers as a supplementary service.
Based on the business model you have selected, establish the requirements to complete the process of development. To help in your requirement setting, we have created a list of things that you will be needing in your courier app development process.
Plan the Ecosystem:
It covers the entire ecosystem, mobile and web apps for placing delivery orders, a courier mobile app for drivers, and mobile and web management platform for managing both.
Pain Areas
- Lack of platform to view dispatch, order, track, and delivery status
Solution
- A system that aggregates jobs and drivers on a single screen
- A platform for customers to track their order
- A solution to generate process data and generate insight
You can add pain areas based on your research and accordingly deliver a solution that addresses those needs.
Establish Requirements
Establishing requirements right is the crucial part of courier app development project. To develop what you want, you have to first define and document it. A good requirement analysis will help you achieve your objectives and fix problems and misunderstandings when the “finished product” is delivered.
Below is a list of what to find while conducting your business requirement analysis.
- Who are users
- What are the users’ capabilities
- Geography of the delivery service
- Size and weight of the package
- Type of packaging material
- Type of vehicle to be used depending upon the weight of the package
Determine the Feature and Function of Courier Delivery App
For a start, let’s segregate your courier app into three parts, customer panel, admin panel, and courier panel. Each panel will have a set of features and functions connected to different processes of courier delivery.
User Panel |
Admin Panel |
Courier Panel |
Signup/Login | Courier account with individual information
| Login for Manager |
Create profile | Login credential for app | Inventory status |
Place and confirm the order | Filter selection for all orders by location, time, and package size | Schedule delivery and calculate the fare |
Track order | Delivery status management | Management of dispatch and delivery confirmation |
Connect to customer care (In-app messaging) | Delivery authentication option | Connect to customer (In-app Messaging) |
Rating & reviews | Update order records | Complete order history |
Where a user panel can be built on a mobile platform, you will be needing web applications to create courier and admin panels. Moreover, you can add or replace features based on the business model of your courier service app.
Create a Wireframe
Although you cannot create the wireframe of your courier delivery app all by yourself, you must know about managing the priority jobs and drivers initially. As you set the priorities, you can further discuss the objectives of each job with your courier app development company and then finally create a wireframe involving UX designers.
Tips for Creating Wireframe:
Create a hierarchy:
Divide every panel into three parts-based user: what do the user need to know, what is the status, how can a user complete/cancel/reassign the task.
Take interviews
Until you wear the shoes of users—from customers to drivers, you won’t be able to understand their challenges and expectations. A well-planned interview process could help you determine:
- Role and responsibility for dispatchers
- Capabilities of an average dispatcher
- Proactive activities
- Goal of each task
Perform multiple iterations
Avoid all kinds of assumptions and make decisions based on data. Perform multiple iterations to establish a task and the action it instigates.
- Lifecycle of a task
- Active or queued jobs
- Task assigned
- Existing status of the task
- Time consumed
Now that you have a rough wireframe of your courier app, you can begin exploring a courier app development company that could transform your idea into a software product.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Below are FAQs to address common questions about courier app development.
Is it possible to create a courier delivery app like FedEx or DHL?
Yes. Usually, most of the courier app development companies consider FedEx and DHL mobile apps as a standard for courier app. However, it completely depends upon the abilities of your courier app development company in designing and development DHL or FedEx like the app.
How easily a non-technical person can use the app?
Mobile devices and mobile applications, both are carefully designed considering the large and widespread user base. While designing the app, designers must ensure the capabilities of users and put efforts to understand their requirements.
What is the exact cost of building an on-demand courier app?
There are multiple factors that contribute to the cost of courier app development. Some of those factors are a mobile platform, the complexity of the features and functions, number of designers and developers involved plus their years of experience, and technologies used in the backend and frontend development.
In addition, a courier app requires to be integrated with different 3rd party services such as Payment Gateway and Google Maps, which ultimately affects the cost of app development.
What is the timeframe required for courier app development?
Again, it depends upon the urgency of your requirement. A mid-sized courier app development company can build the app within 1 or 2 months. The timescale for building a courier app depends on how many designers and developers are working on the project and how efficiently things have been planned and executed.
Should I go with the cross-platform or native-platform app?
Building cross-platform apps reduce the time and cost of the app development, however, cross-platform app development restricts the capabilities of a mobile app to some extent. However, as the technologies are improving, the scenario would change, but of course gradually.
Native app development allows full use of mobile device capabilities and thus preferred by the business leaders and recommended by the mobile app development companies.
What about maintenance and upgrades?
Partner with an app development company that provides app maintenance services as well. Maintenance and upgrades are essential to keep the app robust, secure, and competitive.
How do I get started?
You can book a consultation with an app development company and take guidance directly from the horse’s mouth.
- How to Pursue Your Courier App Development Ideas? - September 19, 2019
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