Are you seeking innovative ways to automate your shipment and delivery process while bringing in better efficiency and customer satisfaction? Well, goods transport app development is what you need to invest in right now!
The transportation industry, once considered a human-dependent sector, has evolved a lot today evolved a lot. Enterprise solutions like fleet management software, traffic management systems and warehouse automation dominate the transportation sector. And while talking about the latest transportation trends, goods transport app development leads the race.
Goods transport app development is an enterprise mobility service that helps you streamline various facets of your shipping and delivery operations. You can track the real-time status of your consignments, driver’s location, optimal load planning capacity, and even the exact location of your goods in the warehouse with a goods transport app.
What else, transport app development even helps you identify your businesses’ main barriers and KPIs while connecting you directly with your customers. Due to such magnificent benefits, the market for goods transport app development is increasing rapidly.
As per a report by Finances Online, transport app development has a major contribution towards the total revenue of the logistics industry.
Do you wish to develop a transportation app for your business? Don’t worry; we have got you covered. In this guide, you can explore everything about goods transport app development, from features and tech stack to benefits and development process. So, without wasting any further, let’s get started!
Table of Contents
Why are Companies Investing in Goods Transport App Development?
Shipping and delivery are the two most important facets of the logistics business. Even a small error in handling your products and delivering them to the right customers can cost your company a lot. That’s why businesses today are investing in goods transport app development to simplify their operations.
Right from easy management on your preferred mobile device to better communication and enhanced customer satisfaction, a custom goods transport app offers many benefits.
But some exceptional advantages have lured companies into developing a transport app.
Streamlined Operations
The foremost benefit of goods transport app development is streamlined business operations. Managing a logistics business is no simple task. You must monitor and optimize hundreds of processes while resolving customer queries. Even a short mistake can cause a loss of money and brand reputation.
That’s where goods transport app development comes into play! With a dedicated transportation app, you can easily monitor all your processes on your preferred mobile device. That means load planning, yard management, last-mile delivery, and asset tracking; every process can be managed and optimized easily.
Better Business Visibility
Who doesn’t want to get real-time business insights? In fact, it is one of the most important elements of running a successful business. Goods transportation app development streamlines your processes and offers you better business visibility. You can know your equipment usage, fleet location, driving patterns, traffic details, and even the most suitable carrier for your shipment.
High Customer Engagement
Customer is the king, especially for businesses dealing directly with the end-users. Even a small delay in delivery or a wrong shipment can impact your customer experience. But not anymore! With goods transport app development, you can offer the real-time status of your products to the respective customers.
Besides that, your customers can also connect with you seamlessly over online or offline support using a transportation app. What more? You can offer your end-users the latest offers or notifications via goods transport app development.
Zero Paperwork
Who loves the tedious paperwork when everything can be managed with a smartphone? After investing in goods transportation app development, that’s what the companies say. Whether billing, invoicing, returns management, data entry, or even emails, everything can be digitized via a transportation app.
What more? You can even store everything in the cloud and offer access-based rights to other users for a more secure and transparent business. That way, you need no longer worry about thefts and fraud! Plus, your operational cost will be reduced since you no longer require hiring more resources for paperwork.
Better Brand Value
Today’s era is about mobile devices, faster services, and convenience. However, most logistics companies still operate on the traditional approach. That’s where you can play your game! With a goods transport app, you can offer convenience to your employees and customers.
Since you will have a dedicated mobile app, connecting with a larger audience will be easier. Eventually, that means better profits, revenues, and brand value!
Your Competitors are Doing It
Lastly, since most of your competitors are doing it, why not you? Goods transport app development is an innovative approach adopted by many leading logistics companies. Since they are doing it, you must also develop a transportation app for your company.
What Features Enhance Your Custom Goods Transport App?
Now that you know the excellent benefits of investing in goods transport app development, let us move forward to developing one for your business.
Every business has future goals, concerns, and a fixed set of the target audience. You must resolve your customer’s concerns while elevating brand value in the market. That’s where the need for unique and business-specific features comes into play!
You must have excellent features that streamline your business concerns and distinguish your brand from competitors.
Hence, as a leading transport app development company, we list the must-have features for your custom goods transport app.
GPS Tracking
GPS tracking is one of the crucial features for goods transport app development. You can not only track your goods placed in different warehouses, but you can also get real-time information about your fleets and drivers.
That helps determine that your drivers followed your routes and are safe. You can also use GPS tracking to let your customers know their products’ exact location and estimated delivery dates. That, in turn, increases trust and customer experience.
Customer Details
Offering accurate customer details to your delivery agents is critical. Hence, you must have an option where customers can enter their preferred location for delivery. The delivery agents can also access these modules to check the contact number and preferred location for the final delivery.
Traffic Management
Traffic management is one of the crucial features that not only help you get a real-time view of the routes but also suggest a safer and more efficient route for your product deliveries. You and your drivers can use that feature to make your shipping and delivery process faster and more secure.
Geofencing
Geofencing is a term used to describe the virtual boundaries created by you for your drivers. There may be some locations or areas you do not want your drivers to go to. Hence, you can create virtual boundaries around those areas and get alerts whenever your vehicles enter or exit those areas.
Billing and Invoicing
Who said goods transport app development is only about shipping and delivery? You can even include a billing and invoice module to streamline your accounting tasks. Scan the QR codes for automated data entry, and create digital invoices for every customer and merchant. Using the same module, you can also adjust your bills for the returned products.
Custom Reports
The custom reports feature offers real-time reports of your vehicles, equipment, and drivers. You can see the fleets that need maintenance or the drivers exceeding the desired speed. You can also check harsh driving conditions like harsh brakes and acceleration that may shorten the lifecycle of your fleets.
Online and Offline Support
Have you seen any app without a dedicated support module? Well, of course not, as it shows the credibility of your brand. Hence, you must also include a dedicated offline and online support module to resolve your customer’s concerns.
You can also employ an NLP-based chatbot to automate your customer support operations. An NLP-driven chatbot easily understands the true intent behind your user’s messages and offers them suitable replies in the most human-striking manner.
Proof of Delivery
The proof of delivery module can confirm that the right products have been delivered to customers. You can offer a unique code to your customers that they only need to share with the delivery agent once the delivery is confirmed. The customers can check the product and share the OTP (one-time password) with the delivery person.
What Tech Stack is Required to Develop a Transportation App?
Developing a transportation app is no different from creating other on-demand mobile applications. However, you must know the tech stack required to incorporate the features and automate your business workflows.
So, once you have decided which features to add to your custom transportation app, it is time to know the technologies behind those features. In this section, you can discover the common tech stack we use to develop a transportation app with the abovementioned features.
Messaging and Support
Whether you need to message your employees or offer customer support functions to your customers, you will need a messaging and support module. To run that, you can use Twilio or Bandwidth as your APIs.
User Authentication
Auth0 and OneLogin are the two popular APIs that can offer your users a seamless sign-in and multi-factor authentication process. You can also include Facebook or Gmail API for social sign-up.
Online Payments
Online payments are the most crucial element for any app, and goods transport app development is no exception. You must have a dedicated module to send or receive online payments from various users. Hence, you can use Stripe or PayPal as APIs.
Database
You can use many options to manage the huge database for your goods transport app. The most popular ones are MySQL, MongoDB, and PostgreSQL.
Cloud Platforms
Hosting your goods transport app on the cloud is a perfect way to ensure better security, transparency, and credibility. Hence, you can use AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure as your cloud platform.
Programming Languages
- Android App: Java, Kotlin
- iOS App: Objective-C, Swift
- Cross-platform App: React-native, Flutter
Chatbot
A chatbot is based on machine learning algorithms. Hence, you need to work with NLP frameworks to integrate a chatbot in your goods transport app. Besides that, JSON and Servers are also used for chatbot development.
Notifications
APIs like Twilio, Push.io, Firebase, and APNS can be used in goods transport app development.
Data Analytics
You can use many to get real-time business analytics from your goods transport app. We have IBM, BigData, Apache, Spark, Loggly, and Hadoop.
How to Get Started with Goods Transport App Development?
So, we are at the most awaited section of our article – developing a transportation app. While many companies think custom software development services are tricky, it is not!
You only have to manage a few things and partner with the right software engineering studio to make your enterprise solution development a piece of the cake. Hence, as a leading transportation app development company, here we list the most crucial steps you must follow for goods transport app development!
Don’t want to scroll through the complete section? Don’t worry; we have got you covered! Simply fill out our form to book a free 30-minute expert consultation and get a free no-obligation quote for your project.
Understand Your Business Requirements
That one goes without a doubt. Every business has different concerns, target audiences, and business goals. Hence, the functionalities of the custom application will vary accordingly. Also, some companies are new to app development and might not want an advanced application. However, the ones well versed in app development may want to add next-gen technologies to their transport app.
So, you must understand your major business concerns and frame an effective app development strategy aligning with your business goals. You can ask yourself questions like:
- What are the different processes of my business?
- How many of them can be automated via a goods transport app?
- Will I need to integrate next-gen technology into my goods transport app?
- How will I measure the results obtained by goods transport app development?
Answering questions like these will help you evaluate your business needs and streamline your app development process. Furthermore, you must also invest your time in market research and competitor analysis.
Knowing the latest market trends that can enhance your digital product is always good. For instance, the concept of AI development services is at its peak. Hence, you can invest in AI services like chatbots, robotics, etc.
Hire a Professional Transportation App Development Company
Once you have evaluated your business needs, hiring a reliable transport app development company is the next big step. There’s no doubt that you know your business better than anyone else. However, there are certain aspects that only an expert knows. For instance, the latest market trends, features that can resolve your business concerns, tech stack for your app, etc.
Hence, you must partner with a reputed and reliable app development company to help you develop a transport app. Your chosen app development partner must have expertise in next-gen technologies as they add uniqueness to your digital product.
Besides that, they should also offer a wide array of app development services, including digital consulting, prototype creation, MVP development, UI/UX, testing, etc. You must also check the portfolio to confirm that your chosen development partner has delivered similar applications.
Some companies even offer flexible hiring models and needs-based scaling capabilities to help you hire as many developers as you need during any stage of your app development. Well, at least we offer our clients that and many other perks.
Read More: A Complete Guide for Hiring Dedicated Developers for Your Project
Features and UI/UX are Important
In today’s competitive world, having unique features and an engaging user interface is essential for your product’s success. Features help you resolve your business/customer’s concerns, whereas an engaging interface confirms that your users can access all the functionalities. Hence, you must choose the best designs and features for your goods transport app.
Ensure to hire talented UI/UX experts that can make your app more engaging. Besides that, ensure your chosen features resonate with your long-term business goals and set you apart from other competitors.
We have already provided you with a series of functionalities to add to your custom app. We would be happy to help you if you want further assistance.
Always Begin with an MVP
MVP is a minimum viable product and is the perfect way to validate your concepts before the final development. MVP is a functional prototype that helps you evaluate your ideas. You can check the navigation of your app, its functionalities, and the user interface.
With that, you can know how certain features will work or the UX of your goods transport app. All that eventually eliminates the need for redesigning the app since everything is verified before the actual goods transport app development.
So, you must choose a transport app development company that offers MVP development services. At Matellio, we also offer proof of concept as a service to help you check the feasibility of your ideas and ensure that you get a good RoI from your digital product.
Extend Your App’s Capabilities with Next-Gen Tech and Third-party APIs
Everyone likes to have a digital product that can streamline various facets of the business. However, a single solution can’t work on multiple business aspects. But you can do that via third-party integrations.
So, while developing your transportation app, ensure it easily integrates with other third-party apps and APIs. You can ask your chosen transport app development company to do that for you. Social sharing, online payments, asset tracking, and even messaging is only possible with third-party API integration.
Develop, Test, and Deploy Your Goods Transport App
Once you have done everything, developing a transportation app for your logistics business is time. By now, you will have a dedicated app development team, an MVP, the tech stack and features, and more. So, you must place all those to form a fully functional goods transport app.
You also need to opt for testing services to ensure that your custom goods transport app is free from bugs. You can opt for automated or manual testing services per your project requirements. A reliable transport app development company will always offer testing services integrated into app development. Well, that’s what we offer to our clients!
How Can Matellio Help with Transportation App Development?
As a leading software engineering studio with expertise in mobile app development, we can help you with your goods transport app development. You get a wide array of app development services to develop a transport app, including digital consulting, MVP development, proof of concept, UI/UX services, testing, and maintenance and support services.
We also offer needs-based scaling services to help you scale your development team per your project needs. You can leverage our flexible hiring models to hire app developers at a reasonable price. Not to mention we also offer a free 30-minute consultation call along with market research and competitor analysis services. You can use those to increase the chances of success for your goods transport app development.
So, why wait if you can start today? Fill out our form to book a free consultation call with our experts. Discuss your ideas and business concerns and get a free quote for your digital product!
Final Takeaway!
Mobile app development has become an essential component of every industry, and the transportation sector is no exception. Goods transport app development is, in fact, the most useful trend in helping companies to streamline their shipping and delivery processes.
You can automate your data entry and billing processes, provide 24*7 support to your customers, and even track your assets in real time while reducing your operational cost. Furthermore, goods transport app development also allows you to reach more users, as everyone has a smartphone today. That means you can simply connect with your customers or manage your business from your preferred mobile device.
Hence, you must invest in transport app development for better efficiency, credibility, and customer satisfaction. Connect with us to learn more about goods transport app development and how it can enhance your services.
