Here’s A Beginners Guide To On-Demand App Development

Introduction

Success of On-Demand services like Uber have opened markets for delivery sectors of almost all the services one can imagine. The advent of On-Demand services have changed the way supply chains work and bridged the technological gap that existed.

Customers have accepted how On-Demand business models deliver efficient services and products in real-time. The grocery, food, and logistics industries are examples of how exploiting current technology and leveraging new ones can ease people’s lives while saving time.

Success of On-Demand services like Uber have opened markets for delivery sectors of almost all the services one can imagine. #ondemand #app Share on X

Statistical Analogy

It’s always wise to take a look at what the numbers are trying to say. According to ‘Statista’, 

• In 2019, about 21.3 billion apps were downloaded by users from Google Play. 
• However, Apple dominates the consumer market earning 64 % of consumer spending on apps.
• The global app revenue in 2018, amounted to 365 billion USD.
• In 2023, paid app transactions and in-app advertising apps are projected to generate more than 935 billion USD in revenue.

The numbers do say a good story. The prominent question that still lies is why do people prefer using on-demand apps. Let’s try and understand this in brief.

Why Do People Prefer Using On-Demand Apps? 

From easy payments to convenience, here are some reasons people prefer to use on-demand apps. #ondemand #mobileapp #app Share on X

Convenience: 

On-demand apps serve luxury in disguise. For example, imagine yourself coming home late and not having time to cook. You can always seek some help from Uber Eats or Zomato. It will deliver food at your home even before you reach there. Hence, the psychology of convenience is responsible for the success of on-demand apps.

Minimum Efforts:

Do you want to order from 5 different places? Don’t worry! Everything you order will be made available to you at your doorstep. This facility decreases the hustle one does while buying things physically.

It also saves a lot of energy and fuel. And most importantly it saves time. People who always run on a tight schedule consider this as a blessing.

Exchange and Return Facilities:

Well, shopping doesn’t always end at buying things. If one gets a faulty product or doesn’t fit their size then one always has to return or exchange the product. That would mean that one would have to ‘hustle’ again.

Using on-demand services takes care of such errands. You can exchange or return your product at your convenience.

Various Payment Methods:

Since the advent of digital payment options, paying in cash has gone a bit old-school. The on-demand applications allow paying through your debit or credit cards, e-wallets, or in plain old cash as well. If one option doesn’t work for you, one can always go for the other one.

Product Tracking:

Customers always get a sense of satisfaction when they can track their orders. They feel they have control over the situation. knowing their order whereabouts helps build trust and assurance.

How Does One Validate their On-Demand App Idea?

As we learned above, billions of apps make the way to the play store. But not all become successful and generate revenue. If you want your on-demand app to do well you must research the following points before building one.

Finding your Niche:

With so many apps already ruling the market, it’s fundamental to find your niche that would be using your app. You must be clear on what services you can provide initially and what possible upgrades will you be able to share in the future. 

If a user goes out of their way to use your app instead of some other they mustn’t get disappointed. One must study what your user expects and deliver that with engaging user experience.

Studying Your Competition:

Your competitors can in a way be your best teachers. If there is already an on-demand app like the one you want to build you must study them closely. You can review the customer feedback, learn about the mistakes they made, or the problems they faced while launching, how consistent they were with their delivery, etc.

If one studies their competitors well they’d learn a lot without going through the adverse experiences and losses.

Minimal Viable Product (MVP):

An MVP is a version of your product that allows the development team and product owners to gather working knowledge about their products and/or services from their customers. 

The key premise behind an MVP is to observe customer behavior with the product or service. The customer data will prove to be a blessing in improving the current short-comings as well as in making future additions to the app.

MVP also proves to be cost-effective while giving the users a trailer of what kind of services they can expect. 

We at Technource, recommend our clients to go for an MVP. This helps them create a basic product. An MVP can be used to check how engaging your product is. Using your app will invariably lead to word-of-mouth publicity. 

How to go about building an On-Demand App?

The process of online application building and management is a cumbersome one. As one is unaware of how different areas of technological developments constitute to bring life to a functional app.

An On-Demand app would only function well only if these 3 applications are backed with effective technology. Let’s find out which 3 apps would work for us. 

• The 1st one being the client-facing app that would list all the products/services available on your app and the options to buy/avail them.
• The 2nd one would be an app for the individuals who would be responsible to deliver this product/service to the potential client.
• The 3rd app would be for the Admin who acts as an intermediary between the two (Client & Service Provider).

It would be the Admin’s responsibility to ensure that all the products/services are effectively delivered to the clients. If not delivered, appropriate remittance/measures are provided/taken.   

With technology what looks good in theory can be puzzling to execute. So, an experienced team having expertise in design and development is paramount. 

The preceding applications when mapped in the form of features serve the following functions.

Features of On-Demand Apps

• User/ Service provider Sign in / Sign up
• User profile
• Dashboard
• Communication panel
• Secure Payment Gateway
• Live tracking
• Push notifications

Product Roadmap

To inculcate the above-mentioned features on a webpage or mobile app one would need a path. A road that would lead them to their desired goal. This is called a product roadmap. 

We at Technource follow the Agile-Scrum methodology to build our web and mobile applications. 

Why? You asked!

Among the many reasons a few worth noticing are:

• ‘The Sprint’ – A representation of how the development team will make the ends meet. 

Helps showcase transparency while emphasizing the simplicity of the process. 

• Gives the Stakeholders and Development team an imagination of how their final product would look and work like.
• ‘The Daily Stand-up’ allows ‘The Scrum Master’ to keep track of their development team’s progress and suggest corrections.  
• ‘The Retrospective’ allows the stakeholders to examine their product. They get a chance to suggest corrections and provide feedback. 
• The development team follows-up on the improvements needed in their product

The current world scenario has created a market for the growth of potential On-Demand applications. If you are onto a transforming On-Demand App idea we would be thrilled to be a part of your venture. Fueling your business with effective technologies.

Author bio

Mr. Sanjay Rajpurohit has always been a venturer. An engineer who became an early aged entrepreneur. He shares his time between his On Demand App Development and other ventures named Technource, Eminent Academy, and Tuitment and is still exploring the world of software technologies.