How to Develop an Alcohol Delivery App Like Drizly in India

Updated 13 Mar 2024
Published 05 Jun 2020
Rahul Mathur 1984 Views

Drizly is the largest alcohol marketplace in the world and it serves customers by delivering alcohol right at their doorsteps. This alcohol e-commerce platform is operating in over 100 cities across both the United States and Canada. No doubt, it is known by its popular pseudonym, “Amazon for Liquor.”

After the Supreme Court of India created a nation-wide buzz by asking state governments to find ways to deliver alcohol to the customers’ doorsteps, it is likely that India needs its own alcohol e-commerce platform like Drizly. In this regard, the top home delivery service providers like Zomato have already shown their interest in entering the alcohol marketplace.

Considering this paradigm shift in the market, in this article, we will try to understand the various facets of Drizly so the entrepreneurs who are looking forward to developing their own alcohol marketplace app in India can get a clear picture of their venture.

What is Drizly?

Drizly is an e-commerce platform that connects local liquor stores to the consumers, where they can order any alcoholic beverages (beer, wine, and spirits) and get it delivered at their doorstep within an hour. How cool is that?

For seamless customer experience, Drizly has invested in an intuitive website and mobile app for both Android and iOS. Besides, Drizly is famous for offering a huge collection of liquor at competitive prices.

drizly like app development

Funding in Drizly

If you wondering how much funding has Drizly received so far then let me warn you, it is quite a lot. By the year 2020, this online alcohol marketplace has already raised $85 M in its multiple rounds of funding.

The trick is to have a sustainable idea and a business model that looks better on both papers and real life. And luckily Drizly had everything to put them in the sweet spot.

Online Alcohol Delivery Market
Image Credit: statista.com

Drizly is utilizing the funding money in its business expansion in more than 100 cities and further development of its online platform.

A Glimpse of the Global Alcohol Market

It is wise to measure the depth of water before entering. This is why we need to take a look at what turns the market of alcohol business going to take in the near future.

Looking at the reports from reliable sources, the global market of alcoholic beverages is going to flourish because it is predicted that by the year of 2025, this market is going to swell all the way up to $1,684 billion. In contrast, the market value of the same industry was $1,439 billion in 2017.

No doubt, the market is expanding at an unexpected rate. But remember, it is the report of the alcohol beverage market of the entire world. It is quite evident that the innate convenience of online liquor delivery business is going to boost the market growth to a significant rate as well.

All we can see is limitless possibilities and opportunities in the Indian market which is yet to be introduced with this concept.

drizly like alcohol app development in india

How does Drizly work? – Business Model of Drizly

Drizly is a liquor company that does not produce its own liquor nor do they own any physical brick & mortar store or delivery fleet. Instead, they partner with local liquors stores owners to deliver beers, wines, and spirits right at the doorsteps of the customers.

Hence, Drizly proudly calls itself a tech intermediary. Drizly easily integrates with the inventory management software of the stores and helps store owners to connect to their customers via the Drizly app and website.

A customer is required to log on to the Drizly app or website to purchase his/her favorite liquor. After confirming the order, the order will be delivered within an hour to their doorstep.

However, the delivery duration is not guaranteed as it can be affected by various natural causes like traffic, rain, or bad weather, etc.

However, Drizly does not partner with just any liquor store. To be a reliable company, Drizly has to maintain a certain reputation that people can trust.

Therefore, before collaborating with any liquor store the team of Drizly conducts a thorough quality check on the store’s product range, storage capacity, maintenance capabilities, product prices, POS, delivery operation, and many more essential parameters. After a successful quality check, Drizly effortlessly integrates with the store’s inventory to bring it online.

On the other hand, this on-demand alcohol delivery app is turning out a very good growth opportunity for the liquor retailer. Those stores that did not have any reputation among their customers are now selling alcoholic beverages online in a great amount.

It is a surprising fact that over 50% of customers started purchasing liquor from those stores that were their favorite stores on Drizly. As a result, Drizly is receiving a very good response from both parties.

how drizly app works

How does Drizly earn a profit? – Revenue Model of Drizly

The revenue model of Drizly is as simplified as their business model. There are hardly any complications. Maybe this is why their partners – store owners, consider it a boon to work with Drizly. A similar approach can also be applied while building an on-demand alcohol delivery business.

Drizly simply charges a licensing fee from their partners for using their online alcohol marketplace. This licensing fee is fixed and does not vary during a surge of sales on any given event, any extra amount goes straight to the store only. This licensing fee varies from $100 to $10,000 and this amount depends on the zone served by the store and its value of sales, etc.

How to develop an on-demand alcohol delivery app in India? – Just like Drizly

Now coming to the real point where we can talk about how you can develop a liquor delivery app like Drizly. Before we proceed further, let’s shed some light on factors that make Drizly an easy go-to platform for buying alcoholic beverages.

  • Convenience
  • Online payment
  • The business model tends to support retailers as Drizly claimed, on overage 75% of customers come back to the liquor store via the app.
  • Great value
  • Faster service

Now that we know what is good with Drizly, we can take the best out of it and apply it in the environment of India.
Now let’s talk about what do you need to develop in order to start your business:

  • A website
  • Mobile apps (Android, iOS)
  • A powerful management system that connects with stores’ inventory.

alcohol delivery app development in india

Basic Feature of an Online Alcohol Delivery Mobile App

In a mobile app, features are not only necessary for getting the job done for your customers, instead, but it also does more than just that. Features of any app set it apart from its competitors and give customers a unique environment that can play a vital role in offering fabulous customer experience. In other words, being creative with the feature can win you hearts of many customers.

Let’s talk about some essential features that you must include in your liquor delivery app:

Basic-Feature-of-an-Online-Alcohol-Delivery-Mobile-App

Social Media Login

For added convenience and saving your customers from the torture of remembering yet another password, social media signup/login is a great option. With this feature, users can easily start using the app after signing up with their social media accounts like Google and Facebook.

Personal Profile

One of the quintessential features is to offer users a section where they can manage their personal profile. It is the section where users can track their current order or check records of previous orders, payment info, and request invoice, etc.

Product Search and Sort Filter

An online alcohol marketplace can be a very confusing place if it lacks intuitive search and sorting options. By introducing this feature, you can make your on-demand alcohol app more user friendly and time-saving. This feature helps users to find their favorite liquor by brand or price, and easy search allows them to go to directly what they want.

product filter feature in alcohol delivery app

Online Ordering

This feature allows users to place an online order with a simple step.

Delivery Scheduling

This feature cranks the user experience up a notch. It allows users to schedule the delivery of their order. It could be an ideal feature for parties or events.

delivery feature in alcohol delivery application

Real-time Order Tracking

If at any given time users wants to check where their order is, they can check it with this feature. Because one small feature can help you to take a giant leap in terms of customer experience.

Push Notifications

From order confirmation to payment confirmation, from every step of packaging to dispatch to delivery, every single update is provided to the users via this simple, yet useful push notifications. This feature has been around us for quite a long time and it is here to stay.

Multiple Payment Options

Every user loves to have multiple options to choose from, it gives her a sense of freedom and makes her feel she’s in charge. Since there are multiple payment options available in the market. Hence, it is good to open gates for every customer with different payment preferences.

Referral Programs

Referral programs can be a great marketing tool as well as a customer experience enhancer. With these referral programs, users can share the app among their friends to earn some credit score which can be used as a discount on their next order.

Rating and Feedback

The rating and feedback feature serves multiple purposes in an alcohol marketplace. It can help users to leave ratings and feedback for a particular store which can help other customers to place orders from a reliable store.

Furthermore, this feature can also help the company to improve the overall customer experience as well. It is quite likely to see some useful pieces of advice in these feedback and reviews, sometimes it can be a founding stone for a new groundbreaking feature.

So, now that we have talked about some essential features, the final form of your on-demand alcohol delivery app must be taking substantial shape. Let’s move to our next segment that will be focused on the development of the app.

How to choose the right company for your On-Demand Alcohol Delivery App Development?

The world of the internet can be complex sometimes but trust me, it is as easy as it can be. Every mobile app development company in the world is working on spreading their online presence.

Hence, it will be easy for you to find a phenomenal liquor delivery app development company that can help your business to get an excellent head start. But it is quite a pickle to find the one company that is right for your idea as well as for your budget.

Yes, it is important to find a company that can offer you a business model that can fit in your budget. But we will talk about this part in some other blog. For now, let’s focus on finding the right company for your alcohol delivery mobile app development.

You must consider the following points to find the right company:

  • Search for trust websites where there is a list of top app development companies.
  • Shortlist the companies that have appeared in multiple articles.
  • Now check every possible website to check user reviews for these companies. This step may condense your list a little bit.
  • Check the website of these companies and go through their portfolio. If their website and work seem promising then you can proceed further and contact them.
  • Now talk to them on the phone and talk to them about your plan.
  • Get a quotation from them with their actual strategy for your development work.
  • Assign your alcohol delivery mobile app development project to the one that seems promising.
    Anyways, this list doesn’t promise that by following these steps you will get in contact with the right company. But these steps will help you in this search.

Alcohol Delivery App Development

Required Team Structure for Alcohol Delivery App Development

If you have worked with software development companies before you might be aware of the fact that how important it is to have the right team for your development project. The right team is not responsible for the final product only.

Instead, the right team structure will ensure that you start with a solid idea that is turned into a practical and approachable plan. They work on your idea first, make it good enough, then work on it to ensure successful execution.
Even during the development, they make sure your app is up to the mark of the modern world and its demands. But first, let me help you to make sure you get at least the following members in your dream team to build the liquor delivery app you want.

  • Business Analyst
  • Project Manager
  • Front End & Back End Developers
  • UX/UI Designers
  • Graphics Designers
  • Android & iOS Developers
  • QA Professionals
  • Delivery Manager

When these many people are involved in your app development process then you can rest assured that your app is in good hands. Because it is the process of handling a project of a company that defines how good a company is.

How much does it cost to develop an alcohol delivery app?

Alchohol Delivery Business

There are several things that can affect the alcohol delivery mobile app development cost. Such as type of app (Minimum Viable Product, or Fully Fledged), number of platforms (Android, iOS), number of features, the region of development, etc.

The region of development is a huge defining factor in the cost of development. The difference in cost is because of the different economic conditions of the countries whereas the quality of development remains equal.

Asian countries like India, are a great place to get your liquor delivery website and app developed within your budget.

Since there are various factors that can affect the cost, let’s consider a situation to get an idea. The cost of development of an MVP alcohol delivery app for just one mobile platform may vary somewhere around $35,000 to $45,000 in Asian countries.

This cost may increase as the number of the mobile platform and features & functionalities increases.
So, this is almost everything you need to know about developing an online liquor delivery mobile app in India, should you have any questions, please feel free to contact our experts, we will be happy to assist you.

Conclusion 

Alcohol-On-Demand has become a rewarding and promising business that is flourishing even during the pandemic and economic turmoil. If you are planning to launch your alcohol delivery app like Drizly, then this is the right time to venture into this domain.
However, to initiate your alcohol delivery business, you need to identify a capable application development team, a workable monetization model, government and authorities’ licenses, and lawful age verification methods. If you are concerned about hiring a reliable mobile app development team, then you must opt for Arka Softwares. Our seasoned experts can develop a full-fledged SaaS alcohol delivery app for you with less coding and in no time, that can help you outclass your competition.
At Arka Softwares, we can transform your business idea into a successful app with a plethora of modern features and capabilities. 

Rahul Mathur

Rahul Mathur is the founder and managing director of ARKA Softwares, a company renowned for its outstanding mobile app development and web development solutions. Delivering high-end modern solutions all over the globe, Rahul takes pleasure in sharing his experiences and views on the latest technological trends.

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