Survive now, thrive later: Your guide to staying relevant during & post-COVID-19

Posted on January 18, 2021September 4, 2023 by Saad Fazil

Out of the major victims of the COVID-19 pandemic are brick-and-mortar businesses. It may look increasingly grim but there is a silver lining. Once the smoke clears, and retail life begins anew, it’s going to look extremely different. Retailers who balked at the very thought of going ‘digital’ will now have no choice but to acquiesce. They will have to find a way to bridge the gap between their products & services and their consumers. On-demand delivery is the next logical step.

Are you digitally fit?

Most retailers already have a digital presence, usually involving social media pages on Facebook, Instagram, and so on. Pretty basic. Some might even have an online store and an on-demand plan, meaning that they work with FoodPanda, Uber, Careem, Amazon, eBay, and so on. A minute subset of them would have their own in-house delivery and e-commerce channels (website, mobile app, delivery network, etc.).

The lack of an online retail strategy during the COVID-19 pandemic is not an option. Businesses that were growing organically or with little effort focused on social media presence & marketing, before the pandemic, are not going to survive if they continue to follow the same strategy. They must become digitally fit by offering on-demand delivery services if they want to survive and thrive. Take a look at the food industry – pre-pandemic mature markets reported roughly 25% of sales through online food delivery. Michelin star chef, TJ Steele, redesigned his menu to focus on comfort food instead of his trademark complex dishes so that he could stay relevant. Jamie Oliver had to close down his business because of their no-delivery policy. Online delivery has become an essential part of e-commerce, retail, and food businesses, and the need for it has risen dramatically ever since the lockdown began.

The current situation

The world’s economy is taking a serious hit. It’s essential, now more than ever, to make it easy for consumers to access essential products, services, and goods, from the comfort of their homes, via on-demand delivery apps. Some examples include grocery delivery apps, pharmacy delivery services, laundry delivery, etc.

The kind of economic shock we’re talking about can exhibit three different types of trends, according to an article published in the Harvard Business Review:

Harvard Business Review | **What Coronavirus Could Mean for the Global Economy**

The article further depicts Coronavirus to have a ‘V-shaped’ impact, which would be in line with all the prior epidemics, including the 2002 SARS, the 1968 H3N2 ‘Hong Kong’ flu, 1958 H2N2 ‘Asian’ flu, and the 1918 Spanish flu.

If what the evidence suggests is true, businesses should aim to get at least 40% of their sales online through the on-demand delivery of goods and services. While this may not be enough to keep them afloat, it will still pay out massively when the pandemic finally dies down and things settle into the new normal.

The road to digital transformation

If you are just beginning to build your business’s online presence, and automate your delivery services, here are the three most basic, yet important, things you should consider:

Social media and the world wide web
Whether you are aware of it or not, your business is most likely listed on Google and Google Maps. It might even have ratings and reviews. Similarly, your lack of presence on social media does not mean that people are not talking about you online. If you do not have a presence online, then set it up now. Start a page on Facebook and Instagram and you monitor your listings on Google Maps, Yelp, Foursquare, and the like. Building your social presence organically before you look into paid marketing.
Delivery and e-commerce aggregators
Ideally, you should be listed on delivery and e-commerce aggregators. They do charge a hefty commission ranging from 15-30% but because consumers use these channels, you have little choice but to be there. If your goods are more last-mile/on-demand (e.g. groceries, snacks, food), then you also need to work with on-demand aggregators (Uber Eats, Foodpanda, Cheetay, etc). If you are selling items that are not necessarily last-mile or local (electronics, for example) then you need to have a store on e-commerce aggregators (Daraz in Pakistan, for example).
Create your own channel
Look into developing your own mobile app or website & web apps for on-demand delivery, backed by in-house riders. Domino’s and Chipotle Grill in the US have done this exceptionally well. If you choose to create your own channel:
- You can save on the commission to the aggregators
- Build your own brand as opposed to being lost in a flood of other competing brands
- Keep your existing customer relationships
- Be in charge of your own destiny
- Potential to make e-commerce a viable Business Unit on its own

This option is more difficult and costly but ultimately the most rewarding. It requires serious focus and investment and deep expertise in Design/User Experience, Growth hacking, and Operations/Delivery. If this is not something you know about or can manage then you can look into VentureDive’s white-label platform, IMPact Delivery. We understand that a technology platform is only the beginning. We are ready to help you in supporting functions, such as growth hacking and delivery operations. Reach out today so you too can survive and thrive!

A comprehensive guide on last-mile delivery solution: Features, benefits, and future implications

Posted on January 18, 2021September 4, 2023 by Ameer Hamza

The term ‘last mile’ was originally used in telecommunications to describe the difficulty of connecting end users’ homes and businesses to the main telecommunication network. This ‘last mile’ of telecommunication cable was going to be used by only one user, thereby not justifying the cost of installing and maintaining it.

As the world increasingly turns to e-commerce for shopping, the ‘last mile’ issue is one of the biggest and most expensive challenges for businesses.

What is last-mile delivery?

As soon as you check out from your shopping basket on any online shopping website, your product begins its long journey from a warehouse shelf to your doorstep. Here the ‘last mile’ represents the last leg/gap between the fulfillment center and you. Most businesses depend on a third party, like a shipping carrier, to handle their orders in the last mile. This last mile can be just a few meters to 100 kilometers or more. The key objective of last-mile delivery is to deliver your package as soon as possible and as safely as possible.

Challenges of last-mile delivery

Just like in telecommunications, the last mile is the most time-consuming and expensive part of the whole shipping process. If done correctly, it can convert users to loyal customers and save you a lot of time and money. The problem with last-mile deliveries is that not all of them are the same, some of them are pretty straightforward and usually involve a big truck carrying a large number of goods through a major road or highway. The complicated ones are those which require the delivery person to navigate through crowded streets, confusing alleyways, similar-looking buildings, and even large swathes of uninhabited rural areas to make singular deliveries.

Inefficiency is a major problem for last-mile deliveries as most of them require multiple stops with low drop sizes. The issue has been further compounded by the continuous rise of e-commerce, which has dramatically increased the number of parcels delivered each day, as well as raised customer expectations to include not just fast, but also free delivery.

The last mile of the entire supply chain adds up to about 30% of the cost and as free shipping becomes more commonplace, customers are less likely to be willing to pay a delivery fee, leaving retailers to shoulder the cost. Other challenges include:

Allocation & Address Issues

Destination grouping/management is a major issue for last-mile deliveries. Many retailers allocate jobs manually, which leads to human error, allowing shipments to get misallotted or missed out on a particular route. Additionally, bad and incorrect addresses and a lack of proper signage are also major concerns.

Dynamic Routes

If the delivery person is not changing routes based on conditions that prevail on that particular day, then they are further complicating the scope of last-mile delivery and timeline adherence for order fulfillment.

Delivery Density

There is a fine balance between managing the number of deliveries in a day within a particular area. Taking into account the size of shipments, and considering the following use cases, the delivery density problem quadruples in magnitude:

Low-Density Short Distances
Low-Density Long Distances
High-Density Short Distances
High-Density Long Distances

Transit unpredictability and lack of communication

While this is something retailers have no control over, the least they can do is to have a communications plan in place so that the delays are communicated to the respective stakeholders in a proactive manner.

Fulfillment timelines

Missed timelines can prove to be very expensive to retailers. In the case of food deliveries, some companies cannot charge customers for the delivery if the guaranteed timeline is missed. Not just that, it also causes damage in terms to the reputation of the brand.

How is last-mile delivery changing?

App-based delivery and the gig economy

As traditional delivery companies have started becoming inefficient, last-mile startups are on the rise, providing a cheaper, faster option. From food to large item delivery, crowdsourced delivery is becoming a viable and popular option.

Payment

Once the user selects what they require, they make a payment to Postmates. The payment includes the price of the product, the delivery fee, and service fee.

In-house delivery

Another new development is that businesses have started to hire their own drivers and trucks to cut down on costs, although this brings up a host of other issues.

Warehouses in major cities

Businesses are also adopting Amazon’s model of having fulfillment centers in high-ordering areas to improve efficiencies, allowing for rapid order fulfillment in major cities, including same-day delivery. Reducing the distance from the warehouse to the final destination costs less and can shorten delivery time to same-day or next-day delivery.

How can you boost your last-mile delivery?

Investing in a last-mile delivery solution that is feature-rich and can holistically transform your business by making your last-mile delivery more efficient than ever. Your custom mobile app can have features & benefits like:

Route optimization
Delivery route optimization is a crucial feature that can help in minimizing total delivery time by discovering the most efficient routes. It works by taking into account several factors like traffic, location, capacity, and time under consideration to come up with the most efficient routes. It also allows you to make last-minute changes or re-optimize by sending a real-time update to the driver.
Auto-dispatch
This feature helps in efficiently managing your assignments and on-demand orders by assigning the right driver for the right task at the right time and thus minimizing the service time and labor costs.
Bird’s eye view
This feature allows you to get a bird’s eye view of all important aspects with the team, time, and status filtering. You can search using time, text, and status-based queries to quickly find the customers, drivers, and delivery tasks.
Proof of delivery
This allows recipients to sign off on their goods through in-app signatures, photos, notes, and barcodes.
Real-time status update
This is an important feature that provides real-time status updates of the shipment to customers so that they know exactly when their goods would be delivered and by whom. They are also informed in case there’s any delay.
Real-time visibility
This helps you increase your fleet’s visibility by quickly being able to check where your vehicles are and how many of them are idling. It also helps in minimizing theft, spoilage, and pilferage.
Audit key metrics
This feature allows you to visualize success rates, service times, on-time rates, distance traveled, feedback scores, and much more.
Reports & analytics
Gain detailed insight into your business through graphical and date reports.
Delivery Flexibility
A customized last-mile delivery solution will allow your customers to choose the time and location of delivery.
Boost productivity
The last-mile delivery solution can help you boost productivity by eliminating any unnecessary idling or unplanned diversions.

What is the future of last-mile delivery?

As e-commerce increases, time-critical deliveries will become paramount. Here are some ideas on what innovations will be necessary for last-mile delivery in the future:

Multiple Options

Companies must adapt to changing customer demands; home deliveries, same-day deliveries, time windows, delayed deliveries, alternative locations, unmanned pack-station at offices, neighborhood stores, and in public transport stations, customer-centric return processes for products and packaging, and just-in-time deliveries. There will be multiple touchpoints with customers in the future.

Robotisation

Robotisation will soon become an integral part of urban freight solutions. Unmanned deliveries by robots and drones, and unmanned pack-stations for pick-up and delivery at offices, stores, and public transport stations will become commonplace.

Smart planning, IoT, and reliance on ride-sharing

Since urban freight mostly involves finding an unloading zone, walking, and actual delivery, new transport planning, and scheduling systems will be developed using big data to forecast delivery routes and using real-time traffic information and availability of unloading zones for planning and scheduling. The reliance on ride-sharing will become commonplace as these social delivery networks will lead to innovation in urban freight.

Food for thought

Last-mile delivery is a major bottleneck for a lot of retailers. The solution is to shore up on last-mile delivery with a custom-made solution that is tailor-made for your organization, it will surely boost your last-mile delivery tracking and hence increase the profits.

Keep in mind the latest trends though, couple that with a last-mile delivery solution, and you are ready to take your business to new heights.

How to build an on-demand delivery app like Postmates

Posted on January 18, 2021September 4, 2023 by Ameer Hamza

Today’s connected consumer is extremely impatient and the on-demand economy caters to their every whim with a few taps and swipes. They can get whatever they want at exactly the time they want it. It’s not their fault and neither was it always like this but on-demand apps were a revolution in the digital world, transforming the way we avail services. Now, from ordering food to reserving a room to booking a taxi ride, on-demand apps are making spaces for every different customer interaction. The most popular on-demand apps are delivery apps like Postmates.

In this article, we’re going to talk about Postmates and how you too can capitalize on its popularity by making a Postmate alternative for your region.

What is Postmates?

Postmates is a US-based on-demand, 24/7, goods delivery platform. Its distinctive feature is that anybody can work as a courier (it resembles the Uber model, where anyone with a car can become a driver). Let’s say you want to buy something from a local store that does not offer home delivery, so you go on the Postmates app and find someone who can deliver it to your home, it’s that simple.

To become a courier for Postmates, all you have to do is fill out a simple form. Furthermore, it’s not necessary to own a car, since Postmates has multiple delivery options: from pedestrian couriers to van drivers.

One of the reasons an on-demand service like Postmates works is because it has a flexible working sphere, and fulfills all the orders very quickly and efficiently. Another major reason is that since Postmates works on a partnership model, it partners with local merchants by connecting customers with services.

What services does Postmates offer?

Delivery
Customers can order anything within the city and get it delivered for a nominal fee.
Pickup
This service allows customers to place an order and pick it up from the restaurant once their food is ready (they are notified when the food is ready).

Why does the Postmates business model work?

Unlike other on-demand delivery services, Postmates sets itself apart in terms of the scope of services. It allows its users to get anything delivered to their doorstep, including food, grocery, or anything else. They have a massive network of merchant partners which makes it easy for their users to find the most relevant service or product for themselves.

Another major reason, Postmates is popular is because it delivers everything within 1 hour.

The Postmates model

The Postmates model comprises of 5 steps:

Browse – Users browse through a network of local merchants on the Postmates app and place an order.
Payment – Once the user selects what they require, they make a payment to Postmates. The payment includes the price of the product, the delivery fee, and a service fee.
Postmate Matching – Once the order and payment are confirmed, Postmate notifies the nearest Postmate about the order along with the delivery order. The Postmate buys the product and ensures that it is delivered in less than an hour.
Postmates Tracking – The app allows users to track their orders through real-time notifications. They receive notifications when: The Postmate picks up their order and their location when they are on the way to deliver it to the user.
Rate & Tip – Once the order is delivered, the user can rate and tip the Postmate.

Postmates sources of revenue

Delivery Fee:
Postmates charges different fees depending on where the user orders from. If the order is from a partnered merchant then it’s a lower flat fee. If it’s a non-partnered merchant then Postmate charges a higher variable fee. Postmate shares the delivery fee with the merchant on 4:1 ratio.
Service Fee:
The service fee is a variable percentage-based fee applied to the purchase price of the products that a customer orders. It varies between 9%-19.99%.
Small Cart Fee:
If an order does not fulfill the minimum order, then Postmate charges a small cart fee.
Surge Pricing:
Postmates charges a higher delivery fee during peak times.
Postmates Unlimited:
This is a monthly/annual subscription service. Members receive free delivery on orders from all merchants on the Postmates platform when the cart size is over a certain amount.
Commissions:
The commission is charged on the pre-tax amount of the total product sold. The commission rate is decided between Postmates and its partner merchants.
Public API:
Postmates has released its public API, which enables businesses to integrate this on-demand delivery service into their app. This allows Postmates to bring in extra revenue.

How to create your own on-demand delivery app

Creating an on-demand delivery app like Postmates is a complex process that will require a professional team of developers, but before you think about the development aspects of your app, you should consider doing some research and analysis of your regional market. To make your app successful, you’ll need to discover your niche. The more narrow your niche is, the more successful your app will be.

Step 1: Market Research

Your very first step should be to conduct market research and analyze any local competitors that are engaged in the same industry. Find how they started their businesses, the mistakes they made, and how they promoted their app.

Step 2: Find your USP (Unique Selling Point)

If you want your app to be unique and competitive, try listing down features that local competitors are missing. By finding your USP, you can make your app stand out and give users a clear idea of why they should choose your app over your competitors.

Step 3: Identify the technology and expertise you need

To create an on-demand app like Postmates, you need to have a specific team structure and technology. You’ll need Mobile App Developers, QA Engineers, Web Developers & Project Managers. While you can hire freelancers and get it made yourself, it will be cheaper, more efficient, and more reliable if you hire a mobile app development team from VentureDive. We are perfectly qualified and aware of the challenges in building your app.

Once you have identified all of the above, you can finally begin building your app. You should start with the MVP as this would allow you to enter the market as quickly as possible and with a low budget. Ideally, the MVP of a Postmates alternative must consist of a courier app and a customer app.

The customer-facing application should have the following features:

Sign-up Feature – It should only ask for minimal relevant information from the users like their email ID, contact number, and password.
Order Details – The customer should be able to view the complete details of his/her order.
Tracking – This allows customers to track their orders and keep in touch with the delivery person via call or message.
Location Services – After confirming their order, customers can add a delivery location for accurate delivery.
Payment Channels – Multiple channels must be present so customers can choose the option they prefer.
Order History – This feature allows customers to view their previous orders.
Ratings and Feedback – This is a vital feature that will enable users to rate and review the kind of service received by them.
News – Using this feature, customers can stay updated with the latest new offerings, discounts, and products offered by your service.

The courier application should have the following features:

Registration – The process to register for couriers should be as simple as possible.
Order Booking – Once a customer has placed an order, the same should be seen by the courier.
Delivery Status – This allows the courier to check the exact status of the delivery.
Order History – This allows the courier to check a customer’s past orders.

How much does a Postmates alternative cost?

Like any other on-demand app, the cost for building a delivery app like Postmates depends upon several factors. You have to take into account:

While there is not a fixed rate for a Postmates alternative, however, if you want an accurate cost estimation, you can always contact us. Our team will always discuss the project with you and provide all the necessary details related to the project.

One of the benefits of working with VentureDive is that we have 8+ years of experience powering on-demand apps and services for startups and businesses worldwide. Our platform, Movanos Delivery Management Solution, is a robust and scalable technology engine, which can be leveraged to enable end-to-end E-commerce & delivery systems for on-demand businesses across industries. This means that your app need not be made from scratch, saving you cost as well as time to launch.

Launch your delivery business with our pre-built white-label solution

White-label & customizable
Get a fully branded and tailored app solution with custom features, integrations, and enhancements.
Launch quickly
Your business can start selling online in as little as 2 weeks.
Cost-efficient
Since we have already developed the base solution, complete with the Customer app, Delivery agent app, and Admin portal, it will cost you significantly less than building it all from scratch.
User friendly
Intuitive experiences for your customers & delivery agents, & simplified management for your business.
Thought partnership
We work closely with our clients from discovery to post-launch support to ensure maximum ROI.

Conclusion

Is it the right time to launch an on-demand delivery service? Our answer is a resounding yes, as the delivery market is continuing its explosive growth, and there are countless cities across the world without such services.

The cost of developing such a service is higher than the others as you need a minimum of two applications (for end-users & couriers). One of the major concerns for such a business is user acquisition and retention. The delivery business is only able to survive due to a large number of orders per day and couriers available to deliver goods quickly and accurately. If you are ready to face these challenges and want to start a very profitable business, then contact the VentureDive team for an accurate quote.

How to develop a grocery app like BigBasket

Posted on January 18, 2021September 4, 2023 by Hassaan Siddiq

In this age of digital globalization, all spheres of life as we know it have changed. The COVID-19 pandemic forever altered our shopping attitudes. The rising demand for on-demand grocery has led to a drastic shift of market retailers and wholesalers from physical spaces to the digital web, where everything is just a click away. Apps like Big Basket are the future of grocery shopping, the next evolutionary step from conventional marketplaces.

If you want to launch an on-demand grocery app but don’t know how don’t fret. Here is all you need to know about developing a grocery app like BigBasket.

Understanding the BigBasket Grocery App

BigBasket is India’s biggest online grocery store and is responsible for pioneering, what many claims is the perfect business model for grocery shopping online. The company sells food products, like fruits, vegetables, beverages, and more than 10,000 other grocery items. Not to mention, they have more than 1,000 brands on their web and mobile shopfronts.

From the very start, they kept hitting the right chords, catering to customer preferences for a convenient and quick online grocery shopping experience. Their innovative app features enabled consumers to get their daily grocery items delivered to their doorsteps, without them having to make time from their hectic daily schedules.

Here are the top 5 features of the BigBasket App:

Wide range of grocery products
Smart basket features and easy checkouts
Intuitive user interface
Embedded secured payment gateways
Immediate confirmation of receipts of orders

How does a grocery app work?

In order for your grocery delivery solution to work seamlessly and provide the best user experience, it must include the following apps:

Customer Ordering App
Frontend app to be used by the users to order grocery items of their liking.

Delivery Agent App
Backend delivery app for delivery agents to successfully pick up ordered items from grocery stores, warehouses, or dark stores, and deliver them to customers.

Admin dashboard and portal
Admin portal to provide a bird’s eye view of the business operations to be used by vendors, grocery store merchants, or admins.

Is there a need for a similar online grocery app in your region?

The first step before you embark on app development, is identifying the need; who is it that you want to target or cater to with your grocery delivery app? People’s lives have gotten busy with shouldering the responsibility that comes with simultaneously playing several roles in life. Working men and women do not have the time to go grocery shopping after long shifts at the office and by the time they get free, the markets are closed.

Grocery delivery apps can help them navigate through their tough and erratic schedules. Not only do people want the flexibility to be able to order at short notice but also receive fresh products. This can be advanced further with the introduction of ‘Schedule Delivery’ whereby one can place their order in advance either by days, week(s), or even the next month.

To put things into perspective, the grocery business is a $1 trillion industry and Nielsen is forecasting that 70 percent of U.S. shoppers could be buying groceries online by as early as 2022.

What’s the rule of the digital jungle?

Quick. On-time. Hassle-free. People want quick turnarounds since they want to save time and money from the hassle of grocery shopping, bargaining, and the irregular pricing of commodities which varies from shop to shop. Grocery delivery apps remove the problems of traditional grocery shopping and provide timely delivery of a diverse range of products, which might not be available at the customer’s nearest store.

Other attractive benefits include:

Multiple payment methods
Real-time delivery tracking
Digital Wallet
Product categorization
Cool UI/UX with easy navigation

Remember to do your market research

Now that you have a general idea of what value your grocery app will be providing to your potential customers, it is always good to conduct market research to ensure that your app stands out. Here are a few questions you, perhaps, need to consider before developing your perfect online grocery app:

Do similar grocery delivery apps already exist in the market?
Who are your competitors and what mistakes (if any) are they making?
Does your app satisfy the customer’s needs?
What is the location of your target audience?
What features are going to make your app stand out?
Have you missed out on any features? Or are you including costly features that the customer will most likely not use?

Having good market research would enable you to choose the right business model complemented by the features that fit your business needs. If you are looking to cut time and effort on the research part, it’s best to conduct remote design sprints for the idea that makes it easier for you to choose the best type of online grocery app you want to build. Now, what could be your options when it comes to the types of online grocery apps?

Types of online grocery apps

Each type of grocery app comes with its own functions catering to unique sets of business needs and target audiences. The most common grocery apps can be categorized into 4 types mentioned below:

AGGREGATORS

These stores integrate nearby grocery stores into one app platform. Customers can choose to order what they want from the listed options. All stores deliver with real-time tracking of delivery agents through the mobile app.

MARKETPLACES

Similar to aggregators in all respects, marketplaces differ in their delivery mechanisms. Here, the vendor is in charge of every online order, picking up groceries and delivering them to customers doorsteps.

SINGLE STORES

This app represents a single grocery store, which is responsible for updating online products, handling orders, delivery, payments, feedback, and app maintenance. This is usually a go-to option for small to medium stores.

GROCERY CHAINS

These largely consist of big wholesalers and retailers who have an online presence as well as mobile apps. They offer diverse product ranges in conjunction with warehouse facilities, managing orders, timely delivery, and feedback.

What is the best grocery business model for you?

Once you have identified your target market, you need to figure out what kind of online grocery business model you want. Each model has different functions and conducts business in different ways. This is a decision that only you can make based on the risks, returns, extent of control, and investment that best suits your needs.

Warehouse model requires a larger space for stocking grocery essentials, moreover, warehouses are usually situated outside of the town. Storing perishable goods like grocery essentials can be challenging and costly. One of the main drawbacks of this model is that quick and flexible deliveries can be challenging to fulfill.

A recent model that grasps a lot of attention from grocery businesses is dark stores. Nearby smaller distribution centers have assigned staff to fulfill the delivery request and handover to the delivery agents, who can deliver the ordered essentials quickly and efficiently. This model enables businesses to offer same-day instant delivery of fresh grocery items while keeping operations streamlined.

Nonetheless, the most on-trend delivery model is the ship-from-the-store model, a convenient, cost-effective, and on-demand model. It enables businesses to onboard multiple grocery chains on their app, and the delivery agents, upon request of a customer, can deliver the product of their liking, from the stories they usually buy from, at their convenience. This model comes with lucrative benefits such as same-day delivery, customer engagement, warehousing grocery marts, and streamlined logistics.

Popular features to add to your grocery app

Same-day delivery service, real-time order tracking, and how quickly the feedback and requests are catered to, are all top features of popular on-demand grocery apps. Having convenient and time-saving features will help you retain customers and attract future ones.

User registration: User sign-up/sign-in, profile management, forgot password, verify email and phone number
Operational features: Product search, filter search, search suggestions, payment methods and gateways, coupons and discount codes, check out, wish list, shopping cart, counter for quantity
Customer data: Location of the customer, address search, pin address
Delivery notifications: Pick-up time slot, delivery agents’ tracking, delivery agents’ contact, express delivery, order cancellation
Ratings and reviews: Feedback of multiple-scale services, delivery agents’ ratings, support and help, product quality rating, review and feedback

The features you choose for your app can become your main USPs, providing you with an edge against the incumbent market competitors. If anyone of these is compromised, the very purpose of a grocery app will be defeated.

The development of a grocery delivery app like BigBasket is not that simple hence in order to develop a highly scalable grocery delivery app, it is necessary to know the tech and the resources that go into its development.

Technologies required to build an app like BigBasket

For any grocery app to be a success, it requires solid front and back-end technologies for it to be effective and scalable. The following are software development requirements that may aid you in deciding which technologies best serve your business needs:

App Platforms: iOS, Android, Web Apps
Backend: Python, .Net, Java, Node.js
Frontend: Angular, ReactJS
3rd Party Apps: Google Maps
Push Notifications: APN, Twilio, Firebase
SMS, Voice, and Phone Verification: Twilio, Nexmo, Sinch
Cloud Environment: AWS
Payments: Braintree and PayPal, E-Wallets, Stripe
Real-Time Analytics: Spark Streaming, Apache Flink
Mandrill: Relevant to emails
Database: Cassandra, MongoDB
Traffic Analytics: Flurry, Google Analytics

Having the tech part figured out for the app is essential to understand the development cost as well as the required tools to enhance the grocery app’s functionality.

How much does it cost to make an app like BigBasket?

There is a multitude of factors involved which contribute to the final cost of the app. The cost of developing a grocery service app depends on what you want your app to be, hence you control the cost. You will have to decide the scale of your grocery app whether you want a website, an application, or both. Costing is also compounded by the time constraints of finalizing the details of the project, developing the app, and testing it, which is time-consuming, depending on the complexities of the app. The longer it takes to develop the app, the costlier it gets, whereas, chances of compromised quality also exist if you want the time reduced. Once the app is launched, there are maintenance and running costs. Thus, time, quality, and cost have to be weighed out. You need to find the right balance between the two.

Another better way to get your grocery app developed with instant deployment, without having to pay for development is the SAAS approach. It involves using an off-the-shelf white label on-demand delivery solution, that would work on a pay-as-you-go model. These solutions require zero deployment costs, as software companies earn a fixed cut on every delivery.

If you want your online grocery app to go live within 2 weeks, we can give you that with our top-of-the-line On-demand delivery management solutions.

What’s next?

Now what you have to do is conduct analysis and research of the opportunities and challenges that exist in this sector and find the right balanced solution between trends, business strategies, and technologies. All of this might be daunting initially, however, you only need to follow the guidelines provided and everything will automatically fall into place. It’s essential to not be intimidated by the adjustments you may have to make to your strategies and app because we do not live in a homogeneous world. As you may have heard, those who do not evolve, get left behind – so buckle up for an exciting journey.

How much does it cost to create an on-demand delivery app

Posted on January 18, 2021September 4, 2023 by Hassaan Siddiq

If you are thinking of launching an on-demand delivery app, one of the most important questions you have must be how much would it cost? The truth is that there is no “one size fits all” budget when it comes to the app development cost. The cost to develop the app depends on a number of factors, all of which I will cover in this blog. The right amount of investment depends on the business demands, model, USPs, and ultimately, the complexity of the app.

Before we dive into the app development cost metrics, let’s take a moment to fully understand the on-demand delivery space – starting with defining what an on-demand delivery business is, its functions, applications and use cases, etc.

What is on-demand delivery?

Unlike the old times, where you had to step out to have the cuisine of your choice or buy a product, an on-demand delivery app brings your preferred items to your home. This model enables businesses to act as a mediator, connecting buyers with sellers. When a customer wants a product or service, he/she can find a related service provider, order what they need through the app, and pay for it instantly or at the time of the delivery. A small service fee is charged on every order made through the app by the service provider.

The on-demand delivery model was pioneered by Uber; ever since its inception the adoption of Uber-esque business model has been vastly taken up and experimented with across different industries. Uber successfully merged convenience with quality. The value proposition it offered was centered around accessibility, urging other businesses to hop on the on-demand delivery bandwagon. Soon, from food delivery and transportation to entertainment, the on-demand economy had its roots pierced into every sector one could imagine.

Why is on-demand delivery so popular?

As we become more accustomed to search engines spawning results within seconds, instant gratification is inevitable. We expect the same when it comes to products and services.

That’s where on-demand delivery apps come in handy. Everything is just a click away! You get cab or beauty services right at your doorstep within minutes, that too with real-time tracking. Recently, on-demand delivery apps have become an essential part of our lives.

How does an on-demand delivery app work?

The on-demand delivery app works as aggregators of products, services and entertainment options. You can select a service you want from the app, be it taxi, grocery, food or medicine; it serves you exactly what you desire. Once you have ordered the product or service, the provider will get it delivered to your doorstep. Upon receiving the order you either prepay through payment integrations such as Apple Pay, online banking, or cash. Moreover, you can provide instant feedback to the service right from the app.

Each of these functions is deployable as an added feature but comes with a cost. In the next section, I will be explaining the importance and cost of on-demand delivery app features set to help on-demand delivery businesses make informed decisions about the key features complementing their business model.

Key features of an on-demand delivery app

Once you finalize the idea for your delivery business, you are in a better position to set realistic KPIs for the development of the app. Ideally, you should monitor these three KPIs which are correlated to the development cost of the app.

User acquisition
User retention
Transportation and delivery cost

Moreover, from the point of view of businesses, developing an on-demand delivery app solution – which includes the customer app, the delivery agent app and the admin and operations portal – will be extremely fruitful. Improved employee satisfaction, business scalability, independent contractors working part-time and instant feedback from customers are just a few examples of the benefits achievable while others are listed in detail below.

The Customer App provides a wide array of features, including real-time tracking along with status updates, the ability for customers to connect with agents, multiple payment gateways, push notifications, ratings, and reviews, and promo codes. Customers usually deem the following as the most important:

Mobile-first user experience
Fast delivery of products or services
Cheaper prices than traditional service providers or sellers
Frictionless payments system
Real-time tracking

The Delivery Agent pp benefits businesses through auto-delivery dispatch, route optimization, and navigation, service details, tracking each agents’ earnings, modifying order statuses, and managing cash flow and receipts.

The Admin and Ops Portal gives a holistic view of the business and allows companies to manage their agents by GPS tracking and performance appraisals via analytics ensuring efficient resource allocation.

Knowing the value addition each feature brings to the app, you will be in a better position to choose the ones that best fit your business model and budget.

Types of on-demand delivery apps

On-demand delivery apps can be categorised under three segments based on vendor – client relations: Customer to Customer (C2C), Business to Customer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B).

As per the US Census Bureau, the benefits of an on-demand app have already started to reflect in the global spending pattern. The on-demand service and product economy are attracting more than 22.4 million consumers annually and $57.6 billion in spending with food, grocery, healthcare and logistics in a prime position to benefit the most.

Source: National Tech Readiness Survey, 2015

Food and Grocery Delivery:

Food and grocery are the most in-demand sectors for on-demand delivery. As food cravings and hunger are human instincts, providing convenience and a wider product mix can help capture major market share and customer loyalty. It is no surprise that the On-demand delivery market is on course to grow at a CAGR of 27.9% and reach $16,605 million by 2023.

The most prominent on-demand apps within this sector are InstaCart, Postmates, UberEats, GrubHub, and DoorDash.

Healthcare:

The ease of on-demand appointments for doctors, lab tests, and prescription orders are gaining traction from on-demand healthcare apps. As we prepare ourselves for the new normal post-COVID-19, one thing is for certain that the surge in demand for telehealth is going to be massive. There are a plethora of business channels you can tap into with digital healthcare.

Transportation and Logistics:

This is the most controversial sector yet but increasingly popular. Contentious due to the difficulties and hardships faced by companies like UberRush and Shyp however quite famous due to the successes of apps like Uber and Careem. It provides an opportunity for incumbent businesses and start-ups to find reliable transportation providers and users through coupons for cheaper and convenient travel.

Having covered all the prerequisites involved in defining the development cost, you can now work towards creating one for yourself. It is time to focus on the real question “The cost of the on-demand delivery app”.

The cost of building an on-demand delivery app

Now down to why you have read this far: how much does it cost? The development cost of an on-demand delivery app depends on multiple factors such as the features, the country of development, team size, deadlines, MVP features, and the chosen platform. To get a better idea, it is important to understand how companies assign a cost to app development. Let’s take a step back, and think from a developer’s perspective.

How do software companies calculate the cost?

Amongst multiple approaches adopted by companies to calculate the cost, the most common one stands to be:

(Fixed hourly cost) * (Hourly effort that goes into the development of the app)

This approach is dependent upon multiple factors such as the country from which the app is being developed, the complexity of the app, features and the number of hours required by the development team. For instance, a company in the USA charges $X per hour, and others in Pakistan charge $Y. A simple app with minimum features requires 340 hours of development, whereas a complex app requires around 1500 hours.

Average hours for developing an on-demand delivery app

Which takes us to the next point i.e. how do these app development companies define hourly rates? Let’s crack the hidden secrets.

Factors impacting the hourly rate

Location
The development of the app is more expensive in the USA than in Pakistan depending on the quality and experience of the company.
Platforms
Android or iOS, each platform requires different skills and development costs which can be further affected by the type of app – native app or hybrid app.
Features
Complex apps require a versatile set of features as compared to simpler apps that could be developed with just a few features. For estimating the cost of the app, it is vital to know the exact features you want in your app – whether you want to add location-based services, integrate a payment gateway, incorporate streaming, support multiple languages, allow ads, enable live chat, etc
Integrations
You need to define if the app requires integration with an ERP or CRM. If it does, then it will add to the development cost.
Design
It is the most integral and expensive component of the development. User experience-driven apps definitely standout but they come with a price tag. The visual intricacy leads to more effort, both from the back-end and front-end, hence leading to the app being costly.
Team & experience
The experience of the development team determines the quality of the app. The more experience the team has in developing great apps, the more they usually tend to charge.

Other factors affecting the cost

Maintenance cost
Make sure you have a maintenance cost agreement post-release so that your on-demand delivery app is future proof against any new updates by the operating systems which could leave your app redundant if not handled properly.
Infrastructure cost
This involves consideration towards the server selections, database selections, or major integrations with ERP or CRM all of these will add up to the cost of the app.

All these factors define the number of hours that go into the development of the app eventually impacting the cost. However, there are ways to bring this cost down.

The most effective ways to cut down cost

MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
Start with a limited set of features by defining your core competencies and build on them. Apps like Amazon, Uber, and Roadies all started as MVP with a limited set of features and gradually augmented.
SAAS Approach
The SAAS subscription-based model is lucrative for businesses looking for instant deployment. In a SAAS environment, the service providers will host the app for you and run the maintenance and updates against a minimum set fee to avail of the service or product. These models enable businesses to use off-the-shelf white-labeled delivery management solutions that work on a pay as you go framework. These solutions require zero deployment cost of the delivery management app, as their monetization model works on charging a fixed percentage per delivery. Therefore, the cost of an on-demand delivery app is dependent on the monthly order quantum.

Summary

Here are some guidelines to give you that extra nudge to build a successful on-demand delivery app:

Do your research
Start local
Market
Prioritize customer loyalty
Incentivize delivery agents
Be careful what you wish for- stay realistic

If you’ve read so far, we can safely assume you agree that this is the year to launch an on-demand delivery startup. Using that business idea of yours, showcase your entrepreneurial skills, and kick start your on-demand delivery business today!

Design at VentureDive

Posted on January 17, 2021September 4, 2023 by Saad Fazil

At VentureDive, we take pride in housing one of the best design teams in the region, and arguably the best in Pakistan. But getting here was not easy.

While I am not a designer by training, I had the good fortune of working with some of the best design teams in the world during my stints in Boston, San Francisco, and Berlin, and thus developed a keen interest in design. When we started VentureDive — with the vision to create a world-class technology organization and an entrepreneurial ecosystem in Pakistan and the MENA region — I knew that great design would need to sit at the center of our customer value proposition.

Design in the Silicon Valley

Back in the United States, it is second nature to most technology companies to have a strong emphasis on design. I was accustomed to seeing designers as some of the most articulate members of the larger team, and they had the first and the last say in most discussions. A few factors that contributed to their active participation are as follows:

They had a holistic sense of the product and the customer
Their thoughts were a lot more structured
They seemed to take the charge in cross-functional brainstorming sessions, often organizing topics on the agenda and corralling people around those topics
They were great at capturing and drawing up notes in a structured and visual fashion

It was with this expectation about the role of designers in a tech organization that I moved to Lahore in October 2014. However, I was in for a rude awakening. I had a steep learning curve with regards to local norms and talent pool.

The rude awakening

The greatest challenge we face is finding the right talent. A few reasons follow.

First, there is often a mismatch between designer titles and corresponding job descriptions. I often received resumes of folks calling themselves Graphics Designers, Front-end Designers, Front-end Developers, UI Developers, Web Designers, Web Developers, etc. Many of the job descriptions and capabilities differed from what I had gotten used to in Boston and Silicon Valley.

I once hired a “Front-end Designer” who turned out to be a “Front-end Developer” — I, of course, should have known better at the time of the interview. That said, it became very clear to me in the first few days and weeks that design was not his forte. When we discussed his performance, then only he opened up saying he doesn’t like designing but loves front-end development.

Second, very few people knew how to design experiences. Local universities rarely teach designing user experiences for a digital world, and the closest exposure students typically get to UX is “Graphic Design”. What further compounds the problem is lack of jobs where designers can take a lead role in designing digital experiences and products: They are often either following a product manager’s lead or designing nice visuals for social media and other forms of communication!

Design at VentureDive

Fast forward a little over four years, we already house one of the most competitive design teams in the region.

A little more context on our business. We develop solutions for our global clients, build in-house products, and invest in product-based start-ups. For designers specifically, we encourage rotation between Products and Services. As such, we don’t have a title called Product Designer. However, when on a product, a designer is generally needed for a longer time frame, and that’s also when they create the most value as they iterate their way through releases and metrics. On the other hand, in our Services org, we have less of a need for a designer to stick to one specific project for a long period (though we do have a few long-running engagements).

We believe that this healthy mix of engagements helps the design team learn different facets of design than what they may have learned if we were building a specific product or delivering services only for example.

With this thought in mind, we traced out three major facets of an organization that help nurture a creative design studio — all-around exposure, performance-driven and collaborative culture, and thought leadership. Let’s dive in.

All-around exposure

Design at VentureDive plays a pivotal role in many aspects of running the organization, growing our business, and defining our culture.

Our designers dabble with varied aspects of business such as analytics, marketing, and growth hacking. Having an in-house products team helps us hone in the science and art of growth that we then apply to help our clients master growth as well.
Much of the office interior and decor was either designed or consulted and in some cases procured by designers. Designers play a central role in the creative aspects of most events we conduct in-house or off-site.
We believe designers should span across several functions within the field of design, and only a few specialties should be called out. Secondly, we tend to distinguish our developers from designers, while at the same time offering a path to those who are good at both.

To this end, we have created a rather simple and flat array of designations where we only have UX Designer, Visual Designer, and Web Designer titles, and no dedicated Interaction Designer, Graphics Designer, UI Designer or User Researcher to name a few. We encourage our designers to cut across domains while at the same time allowing them to specialize in particular fields like Visual Design for instance.

What do I mean when I refer to a UX Designer, a Visual Designer, and a Web Designer?

UX Designer is an all-encompassing role and frequently rotates between Services and Products. Technically speaking, those UX Designers who can code CSS and HTML could be called a different title — however, it is rare: once a UX Designer, they are encouraged to expand their horizon within the design lifecycle: Research, Synthesis & Ideation, Prototyping & Design, and Implementation.

Visual Designer is meant to specialize in graphics and visual design. They also help with branding and identity design with the help of content strategists and marketers (the latter two are part of the marketing team).

Web Designer can do Visual Design as well as code CSS/HTML. In my experience, there are very few folks who have a good design sense and can also do good coding. Consequently, we rarely have people fitting the required profile, but when we find them, we know what to call them.

We encourage Visual Designers to become either a Web Designer or UX Designer. However, they can continue to specialize and grow in the capacity of Visual Designer as well. Moreover, Front-end Developer can also choose to become a Web Designer and thus become part of the design team.

This may sound a bit contrary to our philosophy of cross-functional work, however, in my experience in the local industry, we have plenty to learn within the field of design. Venturing out is welcome, but generally in areas that are outside the software development and higher up the stack— i.e. things like product management, growth hacking, marketing, etc.

Performance-driven and collaborative culture

Here’s the question most organizations ask but only a few get away with the right answer:

“How to drive performance upwards?”

While many things come to mind, our objectives setting and appraisal system plays an important role and is closely modeled after OKRs (Objectives and Key Results).¹

Set stretch objectives. It’s OK if we miss them, as long as we keep aiming for them, and at some point surpass them. This requires a hockey stick function at some point of our organization or product lifecycle.
Level up, keep improving. Every 6 months or so, carry out a self-assessment exercise to keep a track of the design team’s progress. Discuss the results and improve on any point where the team may be lagging.
Reward people on a geometric or a nonlinear curve. This way, people who perform well are rewarded way more than if they were to be awarded proportionally to someone who performs less.

Lastly, through daily stand-ups, regular design review and critique across initiatives, sharing design inspirations and UI refactoring exercises across projects, we foster collaboration and spur innovation.

Thought leadership

Unlike most local software companies, we typically take a lot more proactive approach with our customers. For example, with Careem, we played a pivotal role in the design and product management for at least four years since its inception. We are often helping customers make sense of how users are using the product via funnel analysis. Since we also have a Products org, our designers are often involved in decisions and analysis of growth hacking for example. Last but not least, we often conduct Discovery Workshops for a varied and complex set of customers — ranging from Fortune 500 companies, fledgling startups, and unicorns.

Within Services org, we have started to take on more design-led engagements as opposed to end-to-end technology solutions. This allows us to solve complex and interesting design problems that we may not have had a chance to work on if we were offering an end-to-end technology solution, where design is an important but not the only piece of the puzzle.

Looking ahead

While many challenges remain, the entrepreneurial and design ecosystem has improved in many ways. More universities are incorporating aspects of digital user experience, and there are a lot more product companies than there were 4–5 years ago.

At VentureDive Design, we see the following big things happening in the next year and beyond.

We have incubated quite a few product teams in house. At least two of them are ready for the next growth phase. This will result in the expansion of design function not only within those teams but also the design team at large.

Within our services and consulting business, we have expanded to broader aspects of user and customer experience design. For example, we now offer services for Identity Design & Branding, Service Design, and User Research to name a few.

Last but not least, while we do run hackathons and design mentorships in the industry from time to time, we plan on introducing an initiative focused on building a strong design community. While there are a few welcome design initiatives in the country already, we believe that with the backing of an organization and broader focus, ours will be one of its kind.

¹ Our objectives setting system differs from OKRs in two key ways: i) they are not publicly visible to the rest of the organization, and ii) we link them to performance reviews.

Rebranding VentureDive

Posted on January 17, 2021September 4, 2023 by Sara Afzal

QUOTE

“It was a day just like this, around 8 or so years ago,” a smile of nostalgia spreads across his face as Atif Azim, CEO of VentureDive, takes a sip of cold-pressed mango juice. “The four of us were hanging out after our day jobs in the Silicon Valley, and despite being friends since our days at Stanford, it was that day we realised we shared a common dream.”

**Meet the founding friends** — (L to R) Shehzaad Nakhoda, Atif Azim, Saad Fazil

Lahore’s scorching sun is blazing through the window of the local cafe, as I enjoy the company of three of VentureDive’s co-founders. I had been asking them questions about the company, as part of a brand exploration I was doing with my team.

QUOTE

“The idea was to utilise Pakistan’s untapped technology potential, and innovate to improve lives, globally,” Shehzaad continued. “We started a venture fund. Some of the earliest ideas were weak, but we kept at it,” adds Saad. “Soon we became involved in the brainstorm for Careem. Shortly afterward, IslamicFinder became a part of our adventure too, and there was no looking back.”

As I listened intently in their comfortable presence, watching them share anecdotes, cracking inside jokes, and laughing, I couldn’t help but appreciate how rare it is to come across such emotions and affiliations in the technology and business world. Yet, at VentureDive, this culture, passion, and purpose have trickled from the founders all the way down to the roots of the organization. This, right here, is VentureDive’s identity.

Technology meets care

What happens when technology meets care? Truly inspired solutions spark to life.

It is simple, really. Yet, despite the IT industry being saturated with technology solution providers, businesses are still yearning to connect with an innovation partner that actually and truly cares about solving their problems.

VentureDive combines cutting-edge technology, design, and strategy with everything that is human — empathy, care, and friendship. We are continuously and relentlessly ‘innovating to improve lives’.

Why Rebrand?

Simply speaking, our existing brand identity did not sing our story anymore. There are three important aspects of our brand that have evolved.

Firstly, VentureDive’s portfolio of services has expanded. While we began as a tech startup with expertise primarily in Platforms and Mobility, we are now a full-service technology, data, design, and consulting organization. In addition to being a one-stop Mobility shop, we are actively working in the FinTech, HealthTech, and Cross-Reality (AR, VR, MR) space. Our Discovery Workshops, including Product Design Sprints, Prototype Development, and Business Case discovery, have helped numerous MNCs reduce the risks inherent in successfully bringing products to market.

Secondly, for over 300 innovation experts that make up this company, VentureDive has become much more than a workplace: it has become an institution for inspiration, learning, growth, and well-being. With the launch of VenD Labs, VenD Learn, and many more upskilling initiatives, VentureDive is fast emerging as one of the best workplaces in Pakistan.

Thirdly, as VentureDive grew, our design elements, personalities, and narratives started to grow also — but in different directions. Whether it was font usage, color palette, graphic styles or tone of voice, our identity started to become incohesive, inconsistent, and indistinct:

Speaking more specifically about design elements, the most evident problem was with our logo:

It was not scalable: Construction using fine lines posed serious challenges in terms of visibility, a problem further aggravated due to the usage of colors that lacked depth and contrast.

It had incorrect capitalization: VentureDive was incorrectly written in the logo, with a lowercase V & D.

It was easy to fix line weights and colors and try to make it work, however, the vision was to highlight our story (The VenD Way) through our branding. Hence, we embarked on a journey to rebrand.

Staying True to Ourselves

The honest to goodness heart and soul of a company are always found in its origin story. We started uncovering our story by talking to various roles of people at VentureDive and asking them key questions: How does VentureDive improve lives? Why should the world care about our brand? Who should care about our brand? What is our brand promise?

As our story revealed itself to us through answers collected from interviews, we identified 4 key aspects of VentureDive’s personality to bring to life in our new identity:

The Result

We translated these findings into a gamut of logo iterations, that converged into a logo we instantly fell in love with.

Naturally, we were drawn to the hexagon. A shape that has the unity and extensiveness of a circle, as well as the definitive angles of a polygon, the hexagon is arguably one of the most sacred symbols of geometry. It symbolizes harmony, balance, and empathy. For us, the message to be conveyed was clear. VentureDive brings a balance between the two extremes: technology and empathy. Our “onwards & upwards” mindset is perfectly embodied by an upwards tilted arrow. Thus, the Vengon was born.

Our color palette mirrors our balance, with a combination of dark and bright colors. The dark shade of blue we call VenD Promise, exudes trust and stands for the excellence of our craft, while the bold red called VenD Passion stands for our energy and the human connection with our customers and our people.

For the secondary palette, we continued with a set of vibrant colors that can communicate our brand message clearly.

The end result is a scalable brand identity that is a true reflection of our vision, mission, craft, and values.

The Future

VentureDive’s rebrand took almost 10 months, with cross-site teams working across design, marketing, and communications. It was a labor of love — but, quite understandably, no easy feat.

We are grateful to the entire VentureDive family, including our customers and partners, for your feedback, critiques, words of encouragement (and bear hugs, when we needed them the most)!

This is just the first step for us. As a living, growing, ever-evolving brand, VentureDive will continue to iterate, innovate, and improve. In the coming months, we are expanding our brand guidelines further and you will see all our collateral aligning around our fresh new look. Please stay tuned, and thank you for being with us on this journey.

How quality assurance can save money for your business

Posted on January 17, 2021September 4, 2023 by Khansa Idrees

Businesses around the world succeed based on the quality of services they provide. The easier it is for customers to navigate and use the developed products & solutions, the happier they are with you as a service provider. Quality assurance plays a major role in making your products bug-free and intuitive. This means, once you deliver a pristine product to your customers, there would be a lesser number of do-overs or revisions, hence, saving time and resources for your business.

Let me share an example of how a bad-quality product affects business, as well as, human lives:

NASA’s shuttle, Challenger, exploded just after minutes of taking off, resulting in the death of seven astronauts who were on board that space shuttle. The mechanical cause of this failure was the Solid Rocket Boosters ’O’ rings. An extensive report by Jeff Forest, from Metropolitan State College, points to a flawed Group Decision Support System which misinterpreted the risks and failed to communicate concerns surrounding Quality Assurance. The whole project was shut down at the time.

In light of this incident, we can say that Quality Assurance of hardware, software, or any product of any kind, plays a very important role in business growth. Lack of it causes a waste of effort, time, and money. Before knowing how Quality Assurance is profitable for any business, let’s first have a little background of the term ‘Quality Assurance Testing’, and explore the whats, whys, and hows of it.

What is quality assurance testing?

Quality Assurance is about making sure that your software conforms to the requirements set by the client, and it works without any defects and failures. QAs/testers should run the program by keeping in mind every possible scenario to detect any defects, ensuring a successful run of the program. Now, what do I mean when I say defect-free software? For that, we have to define the term “defect”.

Defect/Bug: A defect is an anomaly in the product, something that deviates from the expected behavior. For example, you want to log in to the website on your browser. The login button is supposed to direct you to the login page but instead, it takes you to the help page. This unexpected behavior is called a defect or a bug as it is not conforming to the requirement.

What does a tester do and why do you need them?

A tester is someone who assures the quality of the product by running the program for every possible scenario while testing.

Basically, this is what a QA tester does:

To ensure the quality of software under development, there is a series of processes followed to deliver a product — It’s called Software Testing Life Cycle (STLC).

STLC includes the following stages:

Gathering requirements
Requirement gathering is the first and foremost step in the STLC. In large-scale projects, it is vital for the project team, i.e., project managers, developers, designers, and QAs, to know exactly what the client is expecting from them. The bigger the project, the more extensive the requirements. Requirements are gathered from the clients and their stakeholders in the form of a written document or prototype, generally.

Time is money. With poor quality requirements, projects either fail, are completed late, or go over-budget. This is a reason enough for any business to pull off their projects from a software company, hence costing you money.
Test planning
Test plans are written to define the testing strategy. Test planning is done by the Test Manager or the Test Lead. It tells us how and when the testing activities will be carried out. It is done to plan the time, effort, and cost consumption of testing for the entire project.

Test planning not only gives us a strategy for testing activities but also helps us estimate the budget of the project. Poor test planning leads to failure in reaching the milestones. In a fixed-cost project, it can cost you your time, effort, and money.
Test case development
After test planning, test case development is the next step. In this phase, the testers create test cases that cover every possible scenario in a very detailed manner. Test cases are developed to ensure even the edge cases won’t cause problems in the workings of the software.

Test case development, if done right, can save you money, because, in this particular step, you are making sure the software does not break at any step. Hence, this assures that no further effort of the developers is required and the product is credible. A credible delivery brings in business, which brings in money.
Test environment setup
Setting up the test environment is a vital part of the STLC. Basically, the test environment decides the conditions on which the software is tested. This is an independent activity and can be started parallel to the test case development. In the process of setting up the testing environment, the test team is not involved in it. Based on the company’s policy, it could be that a developer or customer creates the testing environment.
Test execution
In this phase, the testing team starts executing all the test cases in a particular test environment that was set up by the development team or the customers. Each test case is marked ‘passed’ or ‘failed’, depending on its failure or success. Some test cases can be blocked for execution due to some system constraints, and hence, marked ‘blocked’. If the test case is blocked, the relevant bug is reported.
Bug reporting
When a test case fails, the reason is that it is not working as expected. Thus, a bug/defect/issue is logged using a preferred tool and planned in the test plan.

After going through all the phases of the STLC, the final test execution summary report with exit criteria is prepared to show the stakeholders whether the software is ready to be launched or not. So, testing the software by following the STLC will save you money as it takes care of your estimates of the effort, time and money you are putting into it.

When to start testing?

It is always preferred to start testing alongside development. An early start to testing reduces the cost and time to rework and produce error-free software that is delivered to the client. However, in the SDLC, testing can be started from the requirements gathering phase and continued until the deployment of the software.

SDLC and STLC go side by side in a project. The diagram below can better explain how they are being done simultaneously while the software is being developed.

What impact does SQA have on your business?

In Software Quality Assurance, a defect is the stitch which resolved on time saves you time, money and effort. Allocating some of your resources to QA Testing can actually reduce your total development costs while also stimulating more growth.

SQA brings the following benefits to the business:

Quality product
Quality is everything for a customer. It is achieved through proper testing of a product. If you want your product to survive in the industry, that will be possible when it has gone through testing.
Reduce developmental cost
Finding defects in the earlier stages of development can save you a lot of effort. In that way, you do not continue building upon faulty code. A faulty piece of code can be longer than the one written upon fixing a defect. Reducing lines of code reduces the developmental cost.
Save time & cost in fixed budget projects
In a fixed cost project, finding bugs and fixing them in the early stage of the project proves to be beneficial because when the deadline is here, there is no room for defects and efforts to be made. There will be a spill-over.
Customer satisfaction
A happy customer is not a myth when a quality product is delivered. It helps you gain a larger number of customers. If you are a product-based company, when you deliver the software and customers use it, it will bring more customers and more customers to bring more money and business. When clients receive defect-free software, there will be positive feedback and positive feedback will bring a large number of projects to the business.
Less promotion, more recommendations
A customer would love to use a good quality product. A product won’t need much promotion if a happy customer starts recommending it. So, the cost of marketing is saved as word of mouth will be the source of it.
Profitable
Surely, the idea of hiring QAs does not seem profitable. It makes you think that you are spending more money. However, testing a product before selling it in the market will only increase the number of buyers. Nothing throws a software company out of business than an unsatisfied customer who regrets buying a product that does not work. It’s a long-term gain.
Client confidence
Retaining your client-base so they bring in more projects is only achieved if the very first software you deliver is defect-free. The quality of the product leaves your client satisfied and they will always confide in your ability to deliver a quality product every time.
Saves corporate-level data hazards
If you are deploying your software in an enterprise-level company that involves high-level security of data, without proper QA of the software, it may result in a defect that results in leakage of sensitive data. It is a hazard that’s difficult to overcome on this level of deployment. All of this could be avoided by testing the software beforehand.

All in all, the benefits of quality assurance are significant. Your software and your services gain customers, recognition and market value.

Debunking the myths

Over time you might have heard some myths about Quality Assurance and how it is not necessary or how it adds to the cost and time of the project. However, as of now, these myths have no meaning because almost every software development company hires not only developers but QAs for the projects too. QA reduces costs instead of adding to them. It is surveyed that a product delivered without testing costs a business more than hiring a team for it. A non-tested product is usually buggy, and may not cover the initially set requirements or direction.

Another myth is that QA is only done by the Testers. This is a big no. It is not only the responsibility of the QA but the developer as well. Developers have to give a working code to QA for testing and it cannot happen unless the developer tests it first.

Quality assurance is vital throughout a project’s life cycle. It always adds value to your business and saves you money by making sure that after a product is delivered, it is defect-free and doesn’t cause any problems to the client. Quality assurance and quality control, both fall under quality management and are essential to the STLC process. Testing and development should be done in parallel to avoid the defects found there. Quality delivery builds consumer-client trust, enhances customer satisfaction, and reduces developmental costs, which, in turn, adds money to your business.

Simple tips for impactful content

Posted on January 17, 2021September 4, 2023 by Ureeda Asim

There is a lot of content out there. The web is swarming with millions of blogs, articles, social media posts, videos, images, and whatnot. It is highly possible for any content that you put out there to get lost in the crowd.

Amidst all that, you have to make sure your content is visible and accessible to people. Does that mean you start writing more content? Well, maybe, if it were 2004. That’s when the idea of content creation online was fresh. Now, everybody is doing it.

To get your content noticed today, you have to make sure it’s high in quality. If the content piece aims to truly help people, is written in an easy-to-ingest format, and keeps the reader engaged, then it is considered high-quality.

Here are a few rules that we, the magic makers at VentureDive, stick to, for producing content that our audience loves.

1. Storytelling is vital

There’s a whole science behind it. Research shows that our brains become more active when we’re being told a story — the parts of our brain responsible for processing the visual input are also active, in addition to the language processing parts, when we’re reading a story.

When your content sparks the audience’s imagination and allows them to actually experience what you’re saying because of your words that are rich in imagery, more often than not, they stay with you till the end.

Boring, textbook-style content doesn’t sit well with most people. The page exit rates are quite high for posts with tedious and factual content. That’s where we, the content marketers, come in. To turn any piece into a story, here are a few things we like to do:

Make it conversational — add a monologue or a dialogue
Metaphors make the business talk relatable — for example, everybody has heard, “Time is money.” This doesn’t really mean that time is a currency, rather, it just denotes the value of time — it’s so valuable that it may as well be money.
Leverage the jargon — create vivid imagery through words — e.g. change “The market dip put the investors at loss.” to “The 10-million dollars’ crash in the United States stock market incurred a 75% loss to the investors.” The second sentence is descriptive and portrays a clearer sense of the story.
Tap into the subconscious — insert common examples that most people are familiar with, so they follow along with minimal effort.

2. Focus on the ethos

Content that appeals to the emotions of the audience generally tends to do much better than that which doesn’t. If people can relate to your content, and it evokes positive feelings, the content is successful. It doesn’t matter what you’re talking about — it could be the most run of the mill thing ever — like artificial intelligence or machine learning.

Cocacola ad — *Coca-Cola Advertisement (2019, left & 1890’s, right)* | Left — targets **Ethos** (feelings), Right — targets **Logos** (facts).

However, if the content is written in a witty, friendly, unbiased and fun tone, it is likely that people will scroll through to the end of the article or blog. It is always good to create content that is in line with your brand personality. At VentureDive, we aim for all pieces to exude the bold, passionate, fun and fresh personality that we have.

Remember, your audience will always remember how your content made them feel, even though they may forget what it said. If the feeling lasts, they are likely to revisit your content, too.

3. Harness the power of visuals

Visuals last longer in our brains than any other form of content. It is a tool that should always be used when storytelling. People can relate to the stuff they can easily imagine and keep up with.

The right visuals, when used in tandem with the storyline, can make your content go from good to awesome. Stats suggest that 90% of the information that our brain processes is visual and the processing speed is much, much faster, as well.

Furthermore, it has been proven that 40% of people respond better to visual information as compared to plain text.

Therefore, telling your take through imagery can help elevate your content’s quality, resulting in a lowered exit rate, and increased time spent on-page. It’s all about capturing the reader’s attention.

4. Ensure your content is useful

If your content isn’t providing any actionable takeaways to your readership, then the content quality needs to go up. The key is to keep the content from losing meaning.

In an attempt to make the content fun and interesting, it is quite easy to lose track of why you intended to write it in the first place. If it’s losing the meat, it’s time to take a step back and reevaluate.

Here’s how we stay relevant when creating an awesome content piece:

Build an outline — define the headings and subheadings before you start writing
Write a solid conclusion — the whole story summed up in a short paragraph
Chunk it down — smaller text blocks, dotted with relevant images and videos

Furthermore, another important thing is to back your content with adequate research and facts. If what you’re saying fits with the story, but there are no references to back them up, then the authority of your content is greatly reduced.

Useful content is something that actually helps your audience. You can include lists, graphs, and any other diagrams that effectively summarise what you talk about throughout the blog. What I mean is, if the title of your blog post is “7 marketing tools that can make your life easy”, then you better be talking about those 7 tools, with a list in the conclusion. That makes it easy to skim through.

5. Be seen with celebrities (not kidding!)

When you’ve been creating content for a while, it’s always better to get in touch with renowned names in the market. Doing collabs, working together, getting into a partnership or contract with famous names in your niche can offer you a boost in legitimacy.

It’s natural. If you’re trying to establish yourself as a food blogger, for example, then be seen with Mark Weins, and your authenticity in the capacity of someone who knows food well will improve. People will say, “Oh, Mark Weins knows this guy, it must mean that this guy is a food expert too, and it’s worth our while to check out his content, too.” It’s just our brain’s way of making connections and establishing authenticity.

So if the content marketing department at VentureDive needs to increase its legitimacy, maybe we would collaborate with Gary Vaynerchuk or Neil Patel, for that matter! 🙂

6. Get reviews and feedback

If people endorse your content, and refer you through reviews, it boosts your genuinity. Here are a few ways that can help you get good reviews for your business:

Make sure your content is high-quality and optimized.
Offer lucrative incentives, e.g. $10 Amazon Gift Card for a review.
Ask customers for a review in-person — the personal touch, matters.
Choose the right moment to ask for a review
Respond to every review — even negative ones.
Be the first to review your customers — best to keep it positive.
Share and re-share any good reviews you receive.
Allow people to leave reviews on multiple platforms.
Host events (meetups, conferences, and exhibitions) to get quotes and on-spot reviews from your customers.

Moreover, reviews are a means of receiving honest feedback from industry experts. There is always room for improvement. Reaching out to experts and receiving feedback can offer advice for improving your content — and if they are words of praise, it’s always a plus. Trust the gurus. They know better. Improve your content and fly high.

Long story short

The sea of content out there can intimidate anyone who is just venturing into the content marketing field, but don’t be discouraged. As long as you create content following these 6 rules, you cannot go wrong.

While you may be a brilliant writer, these tips can help you market your skills better. We’ve tested these techniques and the results have been phenomenal. Since these are quite generic in nature, you can apply them to any kind of content you’re producing.

However, the type of audience may require you to adjust your strategy a bit. For example, it is not advised to go for the witty or fun tone of voice when writing an instruction manual that is to be used by technicians to operate certain equipment.

All in all, you can create remarkable content, it’s definitely not an impossible feat. The first step is to get started and not be overwhelmed. The rest will follow. Plus, spend double the time on its promotion. Remember, the wider the reach, the better your content performs.

How to manage your outsourced QA teams

Posted on January 15, 2021September 4, 2023 by Ghufran Haque

Intuitive user journeys are at the core of aesthetic, functional, and impactful products. It’s simple: if users find it easy to use & navigate, and get to experience bug-free, secure software, they will be your happy customers. The way to achieve that is by ensuring that as your software goes through different development phases, all the quality standards are maintained. The easiest way to do that is to hire an outsourced QA partner.

Quality assurance (QA) testing guarantees the best user experience under secure conditions that protect users from hackers attempting to access their private information. While the developers make changes on the back-end of the software, QA testers ensure that the front-end experience is unaltered and functions properly. Now there are two ways to have a team for QA onboard: hire an in-house team, or outsource QA testing to an external team. It is deemed best in many scenarios to outsource QA if you do not have the best resources in-house. In this blog, I’m going to discuss the best ways you can manage your outsourced QA team, and how can it benefit your business.

Quality assurance is a practical solution for catching the major and minor errors before the product is released to the client, and hence, the people who are actually going to be using that product. Most of the time, the in-house staff does not have the time or resources necessary for comprehensive and complete QA testing, which leads to small errors leaking into the end product and becoming major issues. This leads many companies to outsource QA activities.

There are many benefits of outsourcing QA testing, including lower costs, highly skilled workers, and improved products. The outsourced QA vendor may have many industry-leading tools that can help release a good quality product. However, you should outsource your quality assurance testing strategically to ensure maximum output.

If I list down some of the pros and cons of outsourcing a QA team, they could be as follows:

Pros:

Lowered costs of dedicated resources
Focused & expert resources for QA testing
Save team management time

Cons:

Miscommunication occurs as teams aren’t co-located
Disturbance of delivery deadline(s) due to broken workflow coordination
Risk of privacy & confidentiality breach

What’s the best way to tackle these issues? One word: Outsourcing QA. There are a number of companies around the world that outsource their QA teams to businesses that are in need of a short-term QA engagement. It is becoming popular with global businesses, obtaining more marketability as it evolves into a complete, standalone industry. QA outsourcing has been in practice for a long time, and its prevalence depends on the value it offers to the customers, as well as the practicality of the business model. It is still very early to comment on how far QA outsourcing can build its foundation, as a whole separate service in the industry, but it will not be wrong to say that the stats are showing a promising future.

Choose the right outsourced QA partner

The success of your product is determined by how smoothly it runs, and quality assurance process plays a major role in it. So, it makes sense that you choose a QA vendor that agrees with your company’s vision, mission, and goals. When it comes to onboarding a vendor for your project or business, you need to go for the one that works in line with your business model, work practices and one that owns their work. In addition, there are a number of factors that you have to keep in mind when conducting market research for potential candidates for outsourcing. I’ve compiled a few of these below:

Cost-effective
The most common factor that urges businesses to outsource resources is the reduction in cost. However, don’t let this factor let you choose a firm based solely on the lowest price. Here’s where you need to be objective, go out into the market, do your research extensively and then decide. Always keep in mind: you don’t want to compromise on quality.

Reliability & expertise
When choosing a vendor, it’s good to pay attention to the vendor’s references and success stories. A good vendor respects processes and documentation (test planning, test strategy, testing scenarios, cases & reports), provides access to test artifacts & templates. You can always judge a vendor’s competence by analyzing the skill set of the resources provided to you, their experiences with different companies and the number of successful project deliveries.

Availability of resources & services
Before finalizing a vendor, make sure that your outsourcing partner has around double the testers on their bench than your requirement, and that bench is managed effectively. Your partner should be an expert in performing all types of testing (manual, automated, web, mobile desktop, functional, performance, usability & compatibility, security, and API, etc.), so they may cater to your needs as your projects scale up.

Self-management
The motivation behind outsourcing, for businesses, is to contract out the time consuming & conscientious testing processes to a qualified external team, so they can focus on high-level quality management, code creation, and software design. From assistance with developing specified requirements to continuous testing during the whole application life cycle, a vendor should be self-managed to cover everything that comes under an efficient QA process. In addition, you need to ensure that there is an assigned QA manager on the vendor’s side so all related questions are addressed to the responsible person.

Understand who you’re working with

Like any business partnership, it is essential to understand who you’re engaging with. You need to know the other party before letting them in on the inside workings of your organization, and your trade secrets. The core of vendor management lies in understanding what drives your vendors. A QA vendor experiences constant pressure, operational costs, talent acquisition challenges, problems with other projects. Thus, you should keep in mind that excessive demands for price discounts may result in insufficient resource allocation to your project – the vendor may try to reduce the price by cutting their actual expenses (e.g. assigning insufficient or inexperienced staff, etc.).

Another thing to remember is, never dread to share information with your testing vendor (as much as the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) allows for). To deliver high-quality testing services, an outsourced team needs to understand your software, business, specific technical requirements, and user experience.

Choose a vendor that provides you a demonstration of their services followed by a report of presenting its methodology and the demonstration of test results. It’s the best way to understand the vendor and create a relationship based on trust and confidence.

Check-in with your vendor regularly
Assessing an outsourced QA vendor systematically helps ensure that your company gets exactly what you have aimed for. Thus, if the quality of service provided by your vendor doesn’t live up to the mark, you can promptly take necessary actions to mitigate them and ensure your targets are achieved.

QA performance management
In order to keep track of the team’s progress, it is essential to monitor how far and how well has the assigned project or software been developed. The smooth working of the deliverable will show if QA is performing well or needs to be redirected. Essentially, an outsourced QA team’s performance is evaluated based on the following criteria:

Number of missed bugs or bugs slipped into production
Quality of defect description (bug reporting)
Correlation between testing efforts and outcomes
Efficient use of testing tools
Quality of testing documents

Is working with multiple vendors a good idea?

Hiring multiple vendors for multiple tasks can become hard to manage, and it’s seldom beneficial. It’s not cost-effective and there could be regular conflicts of interest. It’s better to hire a single skilled vendor rather than hiring multiple vendors and work closely with them. Regular performance assessments of the vendor can help in determining if your target is achieved or not, and if the vendor performance is not up to the mark, you can start searching for a better vendor.

For a situation like this, it’s better to have a list of vendors always ready with you. If at any point, you see that the team may not be performing up to the mark, you can always take a supplementary team onboard to pick up the lags.

Keep your outsourced QA partners happy

The quality of a team’s output is directly proportional to the satisfaction they have in fulfilling the demands of your business. It’s basic human nature; once you feel appreciated and valued at work, you put in more effort and hard work into your work, and never hesitate to go that extra mile to make brilliance happen. So, as a business, it depends on how you make your teammates feel; it is important that they know the importance of their role and the value they’re adding to your business. When your team works hard and is recognized as an integral part of your success, it develops a work-family culture and removes any alienation stemming from them being an outsourced contractor. I’ll conclude with a few pointers on how you can keep your outsourced team happy.

Give them a clear idea of your objectives and business
Respect them and their knowledge and skills set
Provide them training and constant coaching
Make ample room for the learning curve
Provide required infrastructure
Respect their values, culture, and time
Provide a budget for rewards and benefits for overtime hours
Recognize their achievements
Pay them well

Stepping towards success

We all know that technology is advancing across industries. Why not go ahead and apply it to your team management as well? You can leverage technology like video chats for regular sync-ups with your outsourced team. In order to make sure that everyone is following the same playbook rules, you need to help your outsourced team understand your business goals and workings. Once that’s clear, a well-established vendor would work with you according to your ways. Lastly, respect is an essential factor when two teams are from different cultures or are not located in the same place. Be it respect for their time zones, or using a certain project management software, both teams need to show mutual respect to ensure successful project delivery.

Are you digitally fit?

The current situation

The road to digital transformation

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Data and AI Series Part 3

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What is last-mile delivery?

Challenges of last-mile delivery

Allocation & Address Issues

Dynamic Routes

Delivery Density

Transit unpredictability and lack of communication

Fulfillment timelines

How is last-mile delivery changing?

App-based delivery and the gig economy

Payment

In-house delivery

Warehouses in major cities

How can you boost your last-mile delivery?

What is the future of last-mile delivery?

Multiple Options

Robotisation

Smart planning, IoT, and reliance on ride-sharing

Food for thought

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What is Postmates?

What services does Postmates offer?

Why does the Postmates business model work?

The Postmates model

Postmates sources of revenue

How to create your own on-demand delivery app

Step 1: Market Research

Step 2: Find your USP (Unique Selling Point)

Step 3: Identify the technology and expertise you need

How much does a Postmates alternative cost?

Launch your delivery business with our pre-built white-label solution

Conclusion

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Understanding the BigBasket Grocery App

How does a grocery app work?

Is there a need for a similar online grocery app in your region?

What’s the rule of the digital jungle?

Remember to do your market research

Types of online grocery apps

What is the best grocery business model for you?

Popular features to add to your grocery app

Technologies required to build an app like BigBasket

How much does it cost to make an app like BigBasket?

What’s next?

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What is on-demand delivery?

Why is on-demand delivery so popular?

How does an on-demand delivery app work?

Key features of an on-demand delivery app

Types of on-demand delivery apps

The cost of building an on-demand delivery app

Other factors affecting the cost

The most effective ways to cut down cost

Summary

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Design in the Silicon Valley

The rude awakening

Design at VentureDive

All-around exposure

Performance-driven and collaborative culture

Thought leadership

Looking ahead