5 Best Food Delivery Multi-Vendor Marketplaces In India

How frequently do you order food online? People who live at home order food for a change of cuisine, while people who live alone might order food because they don’t have the time to cook it themselves. Whatever be the reason, food delivery has gained a lot of popularity among different age groups in India, and the reasons are aplenty. Ordering food online is convenient, cheap, and time-saving. As the consumer base has increased, thousands of restaurants and businesses have stepped into online order placement and doorstep delivery of food.

The top 5 of such food delivery apps or marketplaces in India are

1. Swiggy

Swiggy is probably the first name that comes to your mind when you think of ordering food online, no matter which city of India you live in. Swiggy’s Android app has 50 million+ downloads on Google Play Store, which shows the popularity of the app in India. This has been made possible by the attractive discounts offered by it, the huge number of restaurant options available, and much more. Apart from that, Swiggy’s app is also available for the iOS platform. Other than food delivery, Swiggy also offers delivery of groceries and other items from nearby stores.

2. Zomato

Zomato is a leading food marketplace in India and nearly 25 other countries in the world. Did you know that it was originally started as a restaurant search platform? Today, it offers a wonderful platform for 270000+ restaurant owners (source) and customers in 556 cities and towns in India. Zomato’s special service, Zomato Gold, offers lucrative dining out discounts that include 1+1 on many meals and drinks at a big number of restaurants.

3. FreshMenu

FreshMenu is a one-of-its-kind food delivery platform that offers meals from its own kitchens, which are 27 in number as of now. FreshMenu was started in Bengaluru in 2014 and has now extended its business to Mumbai and Delhi NCR. The interesting thing about FreshMenu is that its menu changes every day. Famous for reasonable prices and fresh food, FreshMenu is among the leading food delivery marketplaces in India. FreshMenu is powered by 550 staff members and 700 delivery partners who work hard to handle a high demand of 12,000 orders every day (source).

4. Fasoos

Faasos was established in 2011 under the label of Rebel Foods as a “food on demand” service in India. This multi vendor food marketplace operates in 34 cities in India and has 160+ kitchens serving food to customers in these cities. Currently, it is working on expanding its business to Indonesia, UAE, Thailand, and Vietnam. An interesting thing to know is that brands like Behrouz (biryani), Oven Story (pizza), Mandarin Oak (Chinese), and Firangi Bake all belong to Fasoos.

5. Amazon Food

There is no argument in the fact that Amazon is one the biggest e-commerce players in India. During the times of COVID, it stepped into the food delivery market as well with Amazon Food. Currently, it is operational in parts of Bengaluru.

Online food shopping has brought a significant change in the lifestyle of people. These food marketplaces have made eating more convenient, cheaper, and fun for people belonging to all age groups and taste preferences. The above mentioned marketplaces all understand how the food business functions and have utilized technology to cater to the customer demands. It would not be wrong to say that they have even created new food habits in the masses by making prepared food more accessible to customers.

If you too are amazed by the awesomeness of food delivery apps and plan to start a food ecommerce business, you must look for an efficient and reliable ecommerce solutions provider.

How to choose an eCommerce solutions provider

The ecommerce market today is competitive and, therefore, you must choose your ecommerce platform carefully in order to succeed at it.

So, what are the things to keep in mind while choosing an ecommerce partner? Mentioned below are the 4 major features to consider:

1. Choose a Multi Vendor platform

A good food marketplace is expected to offer a wide variety of cuisines to its customers, and that is only possible when you allow a lot of different restaurants to sell on it. To do so, you must create a multi vendor marketplace where different food store owners can log in and do business. Ecommerce platforms today have a host of features like:

• Seller self-registration for quick onboarding of vendors
• Separate vendor dashboards for independent functioning
• Automatic commission calculation as per different commission rules
• Efficient inventory management system

So, choose a multi vendor ecommerce platform and let your customers choose from a plethora of options, whether they are looking for Chinese, Continental, South Indian, Italian or any other cuisine.

2. Choose a customizable and flexible platform

Customizability is an important feature to consider when choosing an ecommerce platform to build a food delivery marketplace. After all, every brand wants to stand out from the crowd and build a unique brand identity. So, choose a platform that allows you to add custom colours, fonts, add payment methods of choice, offer unique discounts and so on.

Another important feature for any ecommerce platform is flexibility, which is highly required at times of traffic spike and festive/sale seasons. Cloud-based ecommerce platforms are flexible, which means you can scale the platform up or down as per the immediate requirements.

3. Choose a platform that supports integrations

Today, half of the ecommerce functions are carried out using integrations. How so? Well, a few functions for which integrations are commonly used are:

• Shipping- Automatic order sync and shipping has helped a lot of businesses complete orders quickly and win customer loyalty
• Payment- Nothing is more irritating than facing technical glitches during payments. Integrations allow ecommerce owners to add a big number of payment options for seamless transactions
• Communication- From order confirmation to notice about an upcoming sale, communication is essential. Doing this manually can be exhausting, but integrations can make it seem like an effortless task

Use of integrations can significantly change the way your business functions. Therefore, when building a multi vendor marketplace, it is important to choose an ecommerce platform that supports integrations.

4. Choose a made for mobile platform

In today’s time, a majority of the population uses the mobile to place orders. Keeping this in mind, it would be prudent to use an ecommerce platform that builds mobile friendly marketplaces. Moreover, since mobile apps are highly preferred by people for ordering food, choose a platform that allows you to build a mobile app too.

Final Words

Food delivery is one of the most lucrative ecommerce industries and if you are planning to step into this business, there are loads of opportunities for you. All you have to take care of is that you choose the right ecommerce solutions provider to build your marketplace. The above mentioned points are few of the first things to check while choosing an ecommerce platform. Apart from that, make sure that you first take a free trial of the ecommerce platform and explore its features to check whether it meets your requirements or not.