10 years ago it was hard to believe that we will ever get a ride from our doorstep. That is also without raising our hand to call a vehicle. It was unimaginable to get the desired food delivered at home. From the day Uber, Domino’s, and other on-demand doorstep services, coupled with app, came into existence, everything seems like a no big deal at all. All the companies achieved massive success by putting products or services at our fingertips and offering us what we want instantly.

Today, we are gladly living in the on-demand app economy world.

Do you know what that means for your business?

According to Harvard Business Review reports, on-demand app economy is attracting over 2.4 million consumers and $57.6 billion in spending each year.

Image Source: HBR

Looking at the rise of such on-demand apps, startups are rushing towards the ideas of connecting people with products or services while making their lives more convenient. One such idea taking pace these days is on-demand fuel delivery app.

Rise and requirement of on-demand fuel app

Ashish Gupta was working as a reservoir engineer at Shell, a global leader in oil and gas industry, situated at the remote island of West Coast of Africa. The island has a meager population of 5000 people with only one fuel station serving all of them. Each weekend, people would drive 25 kms and stand in long queue to get their vehicles refueled. Living in the same area for a decade and observing the difficulties between people and fuel stations, the idea of creating an on-demand fuel app settled in the mind of Ashish. In early 2016, Ashish left the job and returned to India to make his dream come true.

It is not a new thing for people observing problems and take the charge to diminish them with the help of technology. The story of Uber has a similar beginning. Later on, Ashish Gupta too joined the community of startups who strive day and night to make our lives easier to live.

After returning to India, Ashish discovered that there is a requirement of 85 billion liters of fuel per year, but gas stations fail to fulfill such demand. Also, it is worth noticing that to match the demand, there should be more gas stations which require real estate and a huge investment. Plus, there is a risk of pilferage and adulterations always lingering in the air.

At one side, all the difficulties look like a barrier in connection between people and fuel stations. But if you see it as an opportunity, you will notice that there is an app-way to bridge the gap. Just like Ashish.

In September 2017, Ashish, with his co-founder tech geek Naveen Roy (ex-Infosys and L&T), launched a commercial operations app named MyPetrolPump. Since launch, the app delivered 3 million liters of fuel in Bengaluru (City of Karnataka, India) alone and generated $2 million revenue in its last financial year. That is also without spending a penny on marketing strategies.

If Ashish’ story made up your mind to develop an on-demand fuel app , your imagination is on the right track. You can start with your city and expand overseas as you grow.

Let me show you some more opportunities hidden behind making an on-demand fuel app.

On-demand fuel app opportunities for businesses or startups

An app becomes a success only when it checks some important boxes for customers as well as for businesses. With on-demand fuel app, here’s what you are offering, and what your customers are willing to take it on hand.

1. Participation in “Now” Era

Today’s era is “now” era. If something is available here and now, it is the first choice of users. Uber offers cab services at doorstep. Domino’s delivers food within an hour to fill our empty tummy. On-demand fuel app belongs to the same era. It delivers fuel right at our doorstep. No need to take vehicle, go out, wait in long queues, and refuel your vehicle’s tank. On-demand fuel app cuts through all the lengthy process and come directly to the home to deliver the required fuel.

By Building an on-demand fuel delivery app, you will become a part of this “now” era. Talking about the future, we all know that the day is near when we don’t require leaving our comfy couch at all.

2. Revenue opportunities

Worried about revenue?

As we are talking about fuel here, your worries are obvious. Well, in case of Ashish’s MyPetrolPump app or Startup, they charge $2.79 as flat fee for 200 litres of fuel. That would be fees for big organizations with big requirements. After that, they charge approximately 1-2¢ per litre.

So, if you are worried about revenue, on-demand fuel app is open with many doors to knock on.

3. Problem solver

Solving users’ daily problems via tech is a surefire way to pave the way in users’ hearts as well as in your business world. With on-demand fuel app, you are solving users’ daily problem. Once you become a part of that arena, nobody can stop your startup to become a big brand.

4. High-quality

Fuel adulteration is a worrying matter for almost all oil and gas industries. Fuel adulteration is the key reason why you hear locals saying which places are good and bad for fuel.

By developing an on-demand fuel delivery app, you will diminish the fuel adulteration issue up to a great extent. On-demand fuel delivery service requires trucks to finish the task. And you are refilling those trucks almost each day which prevents the storage of fuel for a long time and adulteration problem doesn’t occur at all. That means you ensure a high quality fuel which would remain first preference for users over other petrol stations.

5. Time saver

Uber saves a lot of time of people. The cab-giant reaches to your doorstep on assigned time. Users don’t have to worry about going to the main road, wait for the cab, and reach the destination. All the while worrying about whether they will ever make it on time. By offering doorstep cab services, Uber cuts out the entire process and saves enormous time. On-demand fuel delivery plays a similar role in users’ life.

6. Emergency filler

One more demand you are fulfilling with on-demand fuel app is emergency availability. People often face fuel issues in the mid of road where there is no nearby access to fuel. Or in the morning, at the time of office, people find their vehicles running out of petrol. In such cases, you can offer fuel on demand 24/7 at the time of emergencies.

Are you want to start your own on-demand fuel & gas delivery business in your city?

How on-demand fuel app works?

It works similar to Uber. Customer place the order of fuel with quantity required. The app picks up the customer location. Drivers receive the order with location. They arrive at the location on the assigned time and deliver the fuel at the doorstep.

Challenges attached with on-demand fuel app

Challenges always come along with opportunities. On-demand fuel app is no different. Here are the set of challenges it represents. Fortunately, they are less than opportunities.

1. Legal issues

Government issues are always there when it comes to oil and gas industry. Ashish faced similar legal issues during initial periods of his fuel delivery app startup. The startup received approval from Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, but failed to impress Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization (PESO). Some even saw it as an illegal and threatening idea.

To survive the legal challenges, MyPetrolPump took a year to design trucks that keep threats at bay. Finally, after adopting necessary security measures, the startup received full support from the petroleum ministry.

When you step ahead to build an on-demand fuel delivery, you will face legal issues. But if you prepare your startup to beat the threats, you can easily pass these legal challenges.

2. Designing safe and passable trucks

It’s not all about designing an app like Uber where the responsibility of cars is on drivers. Fuel is highly sensitive to leaks, air, and combustion. So, the designing of trucks comes to you. MyPetrolPump built air-tight, theft-proof, and combustion-proof trucks. The startup even took care that trucks shouldn’t be too large to fit in various areas.

3. High tech system

Not only security, but you have to build trucks featured with high technology. These trucks must include fuel quality monitoring system that can tell you the details of adulteration and impurities.

That’s it. Take care of these challenges and you are good to go for a fuel delivery app.

Features required to develop an on-demand fuel app

Basically, you have to look after three categories while counting features to develop an on-demand fuel and gas delivery app:

1. Customer-focused features

  • Login/sign up: On-demand fuel delivery application needs to be having an easy and quick registration process. The customer can be given the options to register with email and their social media accounts.
  • Fuel delivery request: It is the most essential feature of the application. The customer can choose the fuel type and quantity, customer location with on-demand and scheduled delivery.
  • Pricing: Based on choosing the fuel type and quantity, the customer can view and confirm the total price of their order.
  • Payment integration: The customer can pay for the requested fuel delivery with various payment modes such as debit/credit cards, internet banking and wallet.
  • Real-time tracking: Real-time tracking is an essential feature of an on-demand fuel delivery application for the customer. So the customer can keep track of fuel delivery request with driver’s name and track the driver’s fuel tank truck in a real-time on the map with ETA.
  • Push notifications: It helps to keep customers engaged and informed about latest activities associated with the service which they have requested. It keep updating with the recent offers and discounts to promote the business.
  • Order history: The customer views their current and past fuel delivery requests and bills.
  • Ratings & reviews: The customer can provide their reviews relevant to their orders based on the driver.
  • Digital receipts: After delivering the fuel and completing the fuel request, the customer can receive the invoice as a proof of their purchase order in their registered email.
  • User profile: The customer can maintain their profile like name, address, payment modes, etc.
  • Support and assistance: The customer can reach out to admin executives to get their queries solved for the fuel delivery request.
  • Referrals: The customer can encourage other users to share the app with their friends and relatives.

2. Driver-focused features

  • Login/sign up: The driver can install the different version of application and register or login with this application.
  • Active status – Online/Offline: The driver can provide their service availability status which allows them to turning on or off their availability status of their working mode.
  • Dashboard: The driver can view the requested, scheduled and finished deliveries and earnings on the dashboard.
  • Real time features: The driver can accept or reject the receive request and track the order in a real time.
  • Customer information: After accepting the fuel received request, the driver can view the customer contact information including name, phone number, location, fuel, etc.
  • Navigate location – navigation: The driver can navigate easily to reach the location on time with real time tracking on the map.
  • Digital signatures: The driver can take digital signatures from customer and finish the fuel delivery and generate the invoice from the application.
  • Payment: The admin receives the fuel order delivery payment after the final job done
  • Profile: The driver manages and maintains the profile information like their name, email, contact details and address.
  • Help & support: offer them access to help and support department in the need of moment

3. Admin- focused features

  • Login: The admin can securely log-in to the web based panel.
  • Dashboard: The admin can view the different statistics for this web panel. Such as total fuel tankers, total drivers, total customers.
  • Fuel tankers: The admin can easily add or update fuel tankers in the admin panel.
  • Drivers: The admin can manage the drivers and their real time locations in a map in the admin panel.
  • Customers: The admin can manage registered customers in the admin panel.
  • Fuel pricing: The admin can manage and change the pricing of different fuel types in the admin panel.
  • Order history: The admin can view the customers’ previous orders with their transaction in the admin panel.
  • Notifications: The admin can receive the different events notifications. Such as new driver registration, order payment received.

Cost of developing an on-demand fuel app

It majorly depends on the number of platforms for which you want to develop an app and complexity level of app. Besides the development cost also depends on the country from where you choose your developers. For e.g. US developers charge higher and Indian developers charge affordable or even less price.

Hire TriState Team to develop your on-demand fuel delivery app. it would cost you approx [Price Range] E.X $10000 to $50000.

This cost is not a fixed cost it is subject to different if you need any extra features or other customized services.

The next Uber for fuel app

Are you up for the next Uber for Fuel app? From developing an app to designing fuel-focused trucks, everything is available at your access. You just need to hire best app developers and truck designers to take care of your on-demand fuel delivery app dream. Step out today.