July 14, 2023

Peculiarities and Costs of the Parcel Delivery App Development 2023

Nowadays, people value their time the most. We live in the days when e-commerce and online shopping is booming. To meet the needs of the customers and save their time even more, delivery services should also be up-to-date. According to Statista, in less than 5 years, the volume of global parcel shipping is projected to reach 256 billion parcels. The market is going to grow at a CAGR of 8.5%.

Several years ago, a PwC survey revealed that 62% of consumers consider same-day delivery a key factor when making a purchase, and 88% are willing to pay extra for it. However, less than 70% of vendors offer same-day delivery.

Don’t you think the right time to become an intermediate between vendors and customers, enter the market, and gain profit is now? Develop an on-demand delivery app, provide vigorous delivery service to the customers, and give an effective answer to the challenge, seizing a great business opportunity for you.

Let’s deal with the specifics of parcel delivery app development and speak a bit about the business models of courier delivery.

Let’s get started.

What Is a Parcel App

Well-known parcel and courier services have already realized the importance of mobile applications and implemented them.

A delivery app allows businesses to track parcels, mail, or other deliverables and send shipment notifications, while the users can follow their packages in real time. Both businesses and consumers can rest assured their delivery will come safe and on time.

If you start considering parcel delivery app development, you should decide upon its type and choose a proper business model for it.

Let’s review some most popular types of delivery applications.

Types of Delivery Apps

B2B - Business to Business

Such solutions are intended to connect one business to another. The main purpose in this case is restocking goods from some large-scale business to a retail company.

Retail shops can book a service with B2B delivery to restock products whenever they need this.

B2C - Business to Customer

This software connects businesses to customers. When a customer places an order offline or online, the B2C courier service delivers selected goods from the business place to a buyer.

C2C Customer to Customer

These solutions connect customers at different locations, who are eager to transit their packages and want them safe.

C2C courier application lets customers book a package right from it. Then the package is picked up and delivered to the customer on the receiver end by the delivery service.

Now, we proceed to the most popular business models:

Which Business Model to Choose

The most popular business models are as follows:

Postal and courier service mobile app

Such an application connects the users at all 3 levels B2B, B2C, and C2C. Businesses that have realized how effective a mobile app can be to leverage their business have already developed and launched such a product to benefit from it. FedEx, Blue Dart, and DPD can be mentioned as just a few of the well-known ones.

A user can book a package in the app, a sender is provided with an ID for it and the receiver gets the details to track the delivery.

FedEx, by the way, has a separate mobile solution for same-day delivery, because this model needs more than one application for handling all the operations between the client, the company, and the delivery agent.

Package tracking applications

In this type of app, the data from all the carriers is gathered in one single place. A company then requires only this single aggregator for tracking all the parcels, regardless of the carrier. A unique ID allows adding packages and push notifications, then keeping the recipient updated as to the delivery status. As a rule, such apps notify both senders and receivers about the status of their packages.

Branded delivery and integrated services

Many online retailers provide their customers with the possibility to track orders in the app or on their website. One can check there the standard status of the package: whether it is dispatched or shipped, what’s its live status and when the estimated delivery time and date are.

Such transparency and convenience add to the competitiveness of the retailers. However, developing parcels app tracking for small local stores is a costly thing, so they often rely on third-party software, the apps that are known as branded delivery and integrated services.

Uber-like marketplace for parcel delivery

Uber has revolutionized the taxi industry but not only, it has introduced a successful business model for many spheres, and courier delivery is among them.

So, clients can request services from a vendor on Uber-like on-demand application. A customer makes an order and a company fulfills it through a delivery agent.

Now, as you know about the major business models, we are eager to share our experience. Stfalcon is lucky to cooperate with a market leader in Ukrainian delivery, Nova Poshta, so a few words about it.

Interested? Go on reading.

The Best Parcel Delivery App in Ukraine and Not Only -Nova Poshta

In 16 years, Nova Poshta has become a market leader in the Ukrainian market of delivery services and a driver of its development. Today, the company offers international delivery and shopping already. The company continuously improves its user-friendly online services to enhance customer experience. Cooperation with Stfalcon.com is always intended to substantially enhance functionality and bring the user experience to the next level.

Though we dealt primarily with a web version of the app, the basic features found their reflection in a mobile solution as well.

The tasks Stfalcon needed to implement were the following:

• A new design of a Personal Dashboard
• A custom web app creation
• A front-end integration with Nova Poshta API

Research

As with any new project, we started this one with the research of a subject area and the analysis of the current issues. We were given the user stories and the test results for a Dashboard. It helped us greatly with interface design.

Material design and angular

We used the Google Material Design library based on the Angular framework to speed up UI development. It allowed us to focus on business logic, consider the interaction design to the smallest detail, and avoid writing from scratch all the UI and input controls.

Such a flexible approach is fast enough to create and support new features for end users.

User's sign-in

A small interface animation indicates switching between the sign-in and registration tabs. While signing in, the user can see the list of Dashboard's new features.

List of invoices

The main page of the Personal Dashboard contains a list of the user's invoices divided into categories:

• Those created, but not yet accepted in the office or by a courier,
• Inbound packages,
• Outbound packages,
• Blank templates,
• Archived invoices,
• Recycle bin with the option of invoice recovery.

Shortcut button

Float Action Button is perhaps the most recognizable element of Material Design. We used it for quick access to the most important functions. It is always in the same place on the page and allows making a needed action from any screen.

New invoice creation

Much attention was paid to the "create invoice" window. We did our best to simplify the data entry and remember the fields' locations, certain data is filled in by default.

Package tracking

All packages, outgoing and incoming, are displayed in the Personal Dashboard with general data and a history of the package transition.

Templates and registries

The most constant and demanding Personal Dashboard user is the one, who sends packages often, like an e-commerce. Our system now allows users to create a copy of the invoice to get the same order. So, templates with the most popular items and package descriptions can be created to simplify the formalization of a new invoice. We also implemented a possibility to group several invoices in a single registry.

Contacts and addresses

The system stores a user's contacts database with a quick search by name or phone number.

Statistics

Parcel App Development Process and Cost

We always stand the ground that development should be entrusted to professionals. At Stfalcon we follow the standard procedure of software development: discovery, design, development, testing, release, support, and maintenance. The last phase is discussed ad billed additionally because some clients prefer to do it with their in-house teams, while others rely on Stfalcon’s experts in this question.

Speaking about the cost of development, it’s vital to understand that it is always determined by multiple factors: type of app and features needed, tech stack and platform chosen, integrations with other services and APIs, and more. You can start with building an MVP or go for a fully-fledged product at once, and it will also influence the project budget.

Considering all the factors, the estimated budget for a parcel app development can start from $80K and then it’s determined by your choice of features.

Final Thoughts

The present-day technological advancements oblige you to consider many things before you start your courier delivery app development. Users want not only a fast and convenient delivery service but also a simple, intuitive, and user-friendly application to deal with their parcels.

Contact us and let’s discuss all the details of your project.