Gone are those days, when you can give a few bucks to your neighbour child for walking your dog, cat or any other pet or you can drop your pet with your kith or kin when you are going out for a vacation. In today’s technological era, everything is getting handled by technology. Whether you need to book a cab, order your burger, or take consultation from your family doctor everything is possible on your mobile screen. Same goes with your pet care.
There are pet apps which have completely changed the pet care industry. On one side it is making the pet owner’s life easy and convenient, while on the other side it is also opening substantial business opportunities. In the year 2018 alone, the market revenue of dog walking services was more than $1 billion and it is continuously growing at the rate of 3% per year. By 2025, it is expected to reach the valuation of $202.6 billion.
You would be surprised to know that the dog walkers have been able to make a whopping amount of $2000 per week by working just 40-50 hours a week. All these facts make us realize the business potential of pet care apps. Henceforth, in this article, we have covered all the details about the pet care app development similar to Rover. But let’s know about Rover first…
What is Rover?
Rover app is a dog-sitting or pet care app which connects the dog-sitting job seekers and dog owners or other pet owners. There are more than 200 thousand verified pet sitters on Rover from Canada and the United States. Through this app, a pet owner can hire a person who will take care of his pet for a particular interval of time at some fees. The pet owners can even track what their pet is doing at any instant of time with the help of in-built texting features and media sharing options. The app also uses location data in the background for tracking services using GPS.
Benefits of Developing a Pet Care app
We have already presented many stats and facts for why developing a pet care app like Rover is truly beneficial in maximizing profits. Still, if you are not sure about this sector, then please go through these points:
- A pet care app reduces the burden of the pet owners when they are really swamped in their work. It will help them in focusing on other important tasks.
- In-built features of the app like instant messaging, push notifications and others helps the dog sitters and dog owners to keep in touch with each other.
- The payment mechanism on the app is smooth and secure with multiple payment options so the payment experience is completely hassle-free
- The dog sitters can also send photos and videos of the dog to the dog owners quickly.
- The app also sends alerts to the user about the dog’s walk, pee/poo time, food/water, and so on.
These benefits of the pet care app make it possible to generate business through the app. It covers benefits for both the parties i.e. dog owners, and dog sitters. This is the perfect time to invest in this business as it is on the development stage and not saturated.
Now, let’s know the business model of the app i.e. how you would be able to make money after developing a pet care app.
The business model of a Pet Care App
There are many different ways by which you can make money through a Pet care app. Here are the major business models of a pet care app:
Whether it is a dog owner or dog sitter, they need to pay an amount if they want to increase their visibility on the app.
Commission
Like almost every other app, you will charge commission either from single or both the parties from the transactions done on the app.
Registration Charges
You can also include an optimal amount of fee for registering on your app. However, it should be as per the market standards else no one would register on your app.
Ad revenues
Advertisements are a great source of revenues for every mobile application. Once you get a substantial amount of traffic on your app, then you can provide spots to other people for advertisements.
Surge charges
This is not an all-time business model but a potential one. You can include surge charges when the demand for any of these parties is high. This is a robust way of earning more.
Features you should include in a Pet Care app
An app is identified by its set of features. There are many different features which you need to include in a Pet Care app as per the different entity. Let’s discuss the important features for each of these entities…
For Pet Owners
Sign-Up/Login
The complete login and user-onboarding process shouldn’t be time-consuming and in fact, must be easy with only necessary details.
Feed monitoring
This feature provides a diet chart and calorie tables of the dog so that the owners can easily monitor the health of their pets.
Reminders
Reminders will help the pet owner in getting timely alerts of vaccinations and vet’s appointments.
Chat with the Doctor
The owner of the pets should be able to contact their pets’ doctors through the app.
Digital Notes
Notes are helpful to pen down the schedule of their pet such as exercise plan, diet schedule, medicines etc.
Text and Pictures Connect
Pet owners should be able to interact and connect with each other by sharing texts and images of pets.
Review, Ratings and Referral
Pet owners can also review the app and refer it to other people to help in improvisation.
For Admin
Dashboard
The admin should be able to see all essential data and info about pet owners, pet sitters, vets, and other data.
E-mail marketing
E-mail marketing is essential for admin in order to promote the app.
Cloud-based Storage
Cloud storage helps in accessing the data from anywhere at any time. It is a safe and secure environment for storing data.
The admin or app owner should be able to check the app performance for taking better business decisions.
Payment Gateway
There should be a multiple-payment gateway in the on-demand dog walking app for a quick and effective payment mechanism
Push Notifications
Push notifications are a necessary feature of an app to remind users about the app and also broadcasting the latest relevant news, offers, services etc.
Ratings and Feedback
Admin should receive all the ratings and feedbacks by the user to make improvisation in the app.
For Services providers/Dog sitters
Sign-Up/Login
Like for Pet owners, the login and sign up process of dog sitters should be easy as well. They can easily onboard and then access the app.
Track the walk
The dog sitters should be able to track the distance covered by the pet in a period of time. It may require to calculate the amount.
Appointments
This feature provides the details of all the meetings the caretaker has in a given day/week.
E-prescription
This feature is necessary so that the veterinarian can prescribe medicines digitally to both pet owners and pet caretakers.
Medical History
This feature will help the caretaker to know all the diseases and other medical records of the pet.
Advanced Features You Can Include
Apart from the above-mentioned necessary features, you can also include some advanced features to make your app out-of-the-box.
AI and ML
Incorporating AI and machine learning in the app will help you in making better business decisions and gaining huge success in your app. You can get features like Facial recognition, intelligence user experience, predictive analytics, monitoring business processes, along with better cybersecurity.
Chatbots
Chatbots are easy to use by customers and can save your excellent employees time for more qualitative tasks. It can also improve brand reputation, accelerate operations, and can give human-like experience to the users. According to research, the worldwide market of the chatbot was valued at $190.8 million in 2016, and by 2025 it is expected to reach the valuation of $1.25 billion.
Blockchain Backed Payments
Lastly, by putting our rich experience in the blockchain, we can help in adding another security layer to the payment system into your software.
What would be the cost of developing a pet care app like Rover?
There are many factors which will decide the cost. After confirmation on all these factors, we would be able to give you the cost and time estimation. The factors are:
- Opted Features
- Platform i.e. Android, iOS, React Native
- UI/UX development
- Mobile app development
- App Store Submission
Wrapping Up
Once we get the complete info about what features you require, on which platform you want to develop etc. we would be able to give you the proper estimation. If you have any query then our consultants will help you in resolving that query. At Amplework Software, the best mobile application development in India, we are having expertise in developing On-demand apps.
