In a move that will help restaurants reduce expenses amid the ongoing slump due to the pandemic, restaurant aggregator and food delivery company Zomato said Wednesday, it would waive off the commission it charges its restaurant partners on self-pickup or takeaway orders.
“We will not be charging any commission, and will also forego the payment gateway charges we incur on all takeaway orders,” Rahul Ganjoo, vice president and head of product management, Zomato, said in a blogpost.
The food ordering and delivery giant currently works with 200,000 restaurants across the country, of which over 55,000 eateries offer takeaway service. The Gurugram-based startup claims to serve “tens of thousands” of takeaway orders weekly.
Deepinder Goyal, co-founder and chief executive of Zomato, in a tweet thread, said, the company has seen a spike in takeaway orders.
“We have already seen more than 200% increase in takeaway order volume in the last few months,” said Deepinder Goyal. “We are introducing takeaway/self-pickup services at a much larger scale than before.”
While Zomato’s gross merchandise value (GMV) of its food delivery business has reached 110% of the pre-COVID-19 number, delivering 130 million orders since March, the company said there are still millions of customers who haven’t yet ordered since the beginning of the lockdown.
“We believe a lot of them who are bored with home-cooked food will start consuming restaurant food with a safe and convenient takeaway option,” said Ganjoo. “For restaurants that already serve delivery orders, takeaway provides another avenue to access more customers, and further grow their business.”
Making our takeaway service available for free to our restaurant partners is another step the company is taking towards helping the restaurant ecosystem get back on its feet quickly, he added.
The commission waiver on takeaways will be for an indefinite period, a Zomato spokesperson told local media, Economic Times.
The commission that Zomato charges for takeaways are lower than that of food delivery. Moreover, takeaways still remain a very small portion of the overall online food market. Thus the impact of the waiver on restaurants is likely to be limited.
It is to be noted that Zomato’s biggest rival Swiggy does not offer takeaway or self-pickup service as of now. The Bengaluru-based company has seen its order value recovering, which is around 80-85% of pre-COVID-19 levels, it said last month.