Your own delivery app for a cafe or store in Uzbekistan: how to stop paying aggregator commissions

Delivery aggregators are a convenient start for a cafe or store in Uzbekistan: you sign up, and orders arrive the next day. But you pay twice. First, a 15–30% commission on every order. Second, the customer: the person who ordered your plov through an aggregator is anonymous to you. Their phone number, order history and next order belong to the platform, which can show them the cafe next door with a discount tomorrow.

While volumes are small, the commission feels tolerable. For a venue with 30 orders a day and an average ticket of 80,000 soums, the aggregator keeps 14–22 million soums a month. That is two cooks' salaries or the rent, and most of it is paid not for new guests but for regulars who already know where you are.

Your own delivery app for a cafe or store does not replace aggregators; it brings back the customers who are already yours. Below: when it pays off, what must be inside, what it costs in Uzbekistan and how to move customers over without losing orders.

When your own delivery app pays off: a worked example

Three numbers matter: share of repeat customers, average ticket and order volume. Take a cafe with 25 aggregator orders a day, an average ticket of 90,000 soums and a 25% commission. That is roughly 67 million soums of monthly turnover and almost 17 million soums of commission.

If at least 40% of those orders come from regulars who can be moved to your own app, the commission saved is around 6.5–7 million soums a month. A Telegram Mini App with a menu, cart and payments costs roughly $800–1,200, or 10–15 million soums. It pays for itself in two to three months; after that it is pure savings plus a customer base you can message: "new menu", "discount on your second order", "free delivery when it rains".

For a store the logic is the same, only the ticket is higher and the frequency lower: an electronics or pet supplies store with loyal buyers recoups its app even faster.

What must be inside a delivery app

The minimum without which the app will not replace an aggregator:

• a menu or catalogue with photos, options and a stop list that the kitchen or warehouse can update in a minute;
• a cart, address with a map and delivery zones, time slot selection;
• payments via Click, Payme and Uzum plus cash to the courier: without online payment half of the customers will not finish checkout;
• order statuses (accepted, cooking, handed to courier, delivered) with push notifications or Telegram messages;
• promo codes, bonuses for repeat orders, "invite a friend";
• a staff panel: accepting orders, printing a kitchen ticket, assigning a courier;
• simple analytics: what sells, at what hours, who has not ordered for a month.

Couriers deserve a separate note. If you deliver yourself, you need a courier screen: order list, route, a "delivered" button. If you use an external courier service, the app should hand orders over automatically. We plan this at the design stage when we build a mobile app for delivery.

Options by budget: website, Mini App or native app

Benchmarks for Uzbekistan, 2026:

• Ordering website — from $500. Menu, cart, payment, Telegram notifications. Opens via a link or QR code, needs no installation, gets indexed by search engines. Good for a single location and a start. We describe this format on the website for a cafe or restaurant page.
• Telegram Mini App — $500–1,500. Lives inside Telegram, where your customers already are. No installation, automatic sign-in by phone number, free notifications through the bot. For most cafes and small stores in Uzbekistan this is the best format.
• Native iOS/Android app — from $1,500–3,000. A home-screen icon, full push notifications, offline mode, a loyalty programme. Makes sense for a chain, a large catalogue, or a brand that wants to live on the customer's phone.

Support for any option starts at $50 per month: updates, servers, small menu and promo changes. A good practice: start with a website or Mini App, build a base, and only then, if the numbers justify it, add a native app on the same backend.

How to move customers from the aggregator to your own app

Customers will not come on their own. Tactics that work:

• a QR code and short link on every box, receipt and bag: "Order direct — 10% off your first order";
• an insert in every aggregator order with a promo code that only works in your app;
• a discount or free delivery on the first direct order: the aggregator's commission is bigger anyway;
• bonuses for repeat orders — something the aggregator will never do for you;
• a link to the app on Instagram, in your Telegram channel, on the sign and at the till;
• reminders to those who have not ordered for a while: a bot message to your own base.

Typically 30–50% of regulars move to your app within 2–3 months. Growth slows after that, but these customers bring most of the margin.

Do not abandon aggregators completely

An aggregator is a shop window. It brings new people who did not know you. That flow is worth its 25%: it is essentially advertising paid on results. The strategy that works for most of our food and retail clients: the aggregator for the first acquaintance, your own app for every following order. That way the commission is paid for new customers, not regulars.

What to check before launch

• payments really go through Click, Payme and Uzum on real amounts, not just in test mode;
• the order reaches the kitchen within seconds and is visible on the manager's phone;
• the menu and stop list are edited by staff, not by the developer;
• notifications reach the customer at every stage;
• there is a clear "How to order" page and a phone number if something goes wrong.