7 Shopify Alternatives to Create an Online Food Delivery Platform

The rising demand for online food delivery services has inspired budding entrepreneurs to invest in the food delivery market over the past years. According to a report, the global food delivery market is expected to amount to $192.16 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 11%.

Developing an online food delivery platform from scratch requires detailed knowledge of several aspects surfacing the software development process. Restaurateurs looking to build their food delivery platform must consult a software development company for ease and convenience.

However, finding and hiring a software development company could be time-consuming and expensive. Another alternative to develop an online food delivery platform without any hindrance is to use a ready-made eCommerce platform.

This blog unveils top Shopify alternatives that restaurateurs must consider to develop their online food delivery platform. But before delving deeper, let’s understand what Shopify is and the pros of using it for launching a food delivery platform.

What is Shopify?

Shopify is a renowned e-commerce platform designed to enable entrepreneurs to start their online e-commerce businesses. Whether it’s about launching an online grocery store or a food delivery platform, Shopify is integrated with powerful features to help entrepreneurs start an e-commerce platform of their choice.

Since its launch in 2006, the platform has been trusted by notable brands such as Gymshark, PepsiCo, Allbirds, Staples, and many more. As of May 2021, Shopify powered over 1,700,00 businesses in more than 175 countries worldwide over the last 15 years. In April 2021, Shopify invested in Swyft, a Toronto-based digital logistics startup, to enter last-mile logistics.    

Pros of Using Shopify

Following are some prominent benefits of setting up an online food delivery platform with Shopify:

• Quick & easy to set up
• Secure & reliable
• Free hosting 
• Excellent Customer Service

Cons of Using Shopify

Though there are several advantages of selecting Shopify to launch an online food delivery platform, it has some loopholes. Below-listed is some significant reasons why you must go with a Shopify alternative for starting your food delivery business:

• Shopify is a bit more expensive than other e-commerce platforms. Pricing plans, additional transaction fees, and the need to buy additional apps offered by Shopify to run an online store make it a costlier platform for entrepreneurs.

• Shopify’s content management system doesn’t let entrepreneurs publish rich content due to some limitations in blog layouts. It could be difficult for you to use Shopify if you want to promote your business via powerful content.

• Scalability is also an issue with Shopify in the long run as it does not efficiently perform with a large customer base, increasing transactions, and multiple restaurant additions.
  

What Are The Alternatives To Shopify?

Yo!Yumm

Yo!Yumm is a multi-restaurant ordering system that could be used as a Shopify alternative to launch an online food delivery platform quickly. It comes with an intuitively designed admin panel that helps entrepreneurs handle their marketplace operations easily. It also provides ready-made web portals and mobile apps for buyers, sellers, & delivery staff so that business owners of all sizes can set up their online food ordering marketplace conveniently.

Moreover, Yo!Yumm is loaded with features like contactless deliveries, geo-fencing, digital payments, curbside pickup, and COVID-19 awareness notifications to reduce the COVID-19 transmission and keep people aware of the safety guidelines.    

Key Highlights 

• Fully Customizable 
• Multilingual 
• Search Engine Friendly
• Tech Support & Maintenance
• Third-Party Integrations
• Push Notifications
• Advanced Delivery Management
• Reports & Analytics

FoodPurby

FoodPurby is a name among the top Shopify alternatives to start an online food ordering & delivery business as successful as GrubHub, FoodPanda, JustEat, Uber Eats, and many more. To help budding entrepreneurs and established businesses improve their revenue in the food industry, FoodPurby is brimmed with several innovative features. Whether you want to deploy your food delivery app on the App Store or the Play store, FoodPurby is the best fit for developing a food delivery app for both the Play Store users and the App Store users.

Key Highlights 

• Secure Login
• My cart
• Order status
• Menu listing
• Restaurant listing]
• Multiple payment options

DelivApp

DelivApp is an API-based food ordering & delivery management platform that enables SMBs and conglomerates in the food industry to manage their business operations such as order management, merchant management, logistics management, and more. Yan Zagatsky created DelivApp in 2014 to help restaurant owners deliver food in an orderly fashion and on time to their customers.

The platform comes with 5 modules: admin, merchant, dispatcher, consumer, and delivery staff. DelivApp also offers varied pricing options named startup, essential, standard, and premium. Business owners can select a pricing plan of their choice by considering their overall budget and using DelivApp as a Shopify alternative to set up their food ordering platform.   

Key Highlights  

• Schedule orders
• In-App order status
• Route optimization
• Navigation options 
• Push Notifications
• Search & filter
• Online chat support
• Efficiency tracking

Craver

Craver is a best-in-class Shopify alternative created to help business owners handle their restaurant’s operations conveniently. The food ordering platform comes with a loyalty and reward program so that startups can easily engage new customers and grow a loyal customer base.

Since Craver is an easy-to-use and fully customizable platform, entrepreneurs have full authority to customize it considering their needs, marketing plan, and business goals. Craver’s admin panel is designed so that restaurant owners can control multiple activities related to customers, merchants, and delivery staff.

Key Highlights

• Fully customizable
• Curbside pickup
• Push notifications
• Store locator
• Reports & analytics
• Payment integration

Yelo

Yelo is a renowned food delivery software that restaurateurs could use as a Shopify alternative for creating their online food delivery platform. Whether it’s about handling delivery staff’s operations or customer’s requests, business owners can use Yelo’s dashboard to manage all activities in one place.

The food delivery software has multilingual functionality to help restaurateurs gain wider market reach and engage new users. Moreover, innovative features offered by Yelo can also help restaurant owners monitor their business’ performance and analyze sales reports to create effective marketing strategies. Yelo offers four pricing plans, named hobby, startup, standard, and growth, and entrepreneurs can select one that suits their business needs and overall budget.

Key Highlights

• Order management
• Advanced search & filters
• Delivery management
• Inventory management
• Powerful analytics
• Live chat
• Multilingual 
• Geo-Fencing

DeOnDe

DeOnDe is a white-labeled food delivery solution created to help businesses streamline their food delivery startups’ operations. DeOnDe is choc-a-blocked with powerful features that allow business owners to set up an admin panel and mobile apps for customers, restaurants, and delivery staff within the time period of just two days. DeOnDe offers four subscription plans to business owners to set up their online food delivery marketplace: Basic, Pro, Premium, and Enterprise.

DeOnDe has been trusted by various food delivery brands, including Osla food, Talabnow, Food Rider, Food master delivery, and more. All in all, it could turn out to be an affordable and easy-to-use Shopify alternative while creating a food delivery platform.     

Key Highlights  

• Browse nearby stores
• Business dashboard
• Real-time order tracking
• Secure wallet
• Schedule order

CS-Cart

CS-Cart is an on-premise licensed software that comes at the top while finding a Shopify alternative for creating a food delivery platform. Due to its customization capabilities, CS-Cart has been used by notable brands to develop custom marketplaces. The platform is available in several editions that make it suitable for both large-scale enterprises and SMEs. CS-Cart has powered over 35,000 stores and marketplaces since 2005.

It comes with built-in designing tools and is loaded with more than 500 features that make it easy for startups to set up their food ordering solution. 

Key Highlights

• Advanced order  management system
• Reports & statistics
• Multiple storefronts
• Advanced search
• Multilingual
• Ratings & Reviews
• Multiple payment methods
• Built-in import/export tool

Conclusion

While these are some popular Shopify alternatives that entrepreneurs must use for launching their online food delivery platform, there are many more such as Ontabee, GloriaFood, DevFood, UpMenu, etc. However, it is advisable to select a food delivery platform considering your overall budget and business requirements.