Food delivery volumes back to 85% of pre-Covid levels, says Swiggy

 

After Zomato’s food delivery volumes touched pre-Covid-19 peaks, Swiggy said its overall business has recovered about 80-85 per cent of pre-Covid order values.

The recovery is taking place owing to multiple rounds of unlocks and restaurants opening up for business.

Over 100 million orders were placed on the Swiggy app for food, groceries, medicines and other household items since the lockdown. Over 200 cities have reached 90 per cent of pre-Covid gross merchandise value (GMV) levels with more than 70 cities seeing a full recovery.

“In fact, it has seen double-digit growth over the past 4-5 weeks, especially when the lockdown ended and consumer fear factor of Covid subdued,” said Swiggy. “Certain micro pockets within the country have also reached 200 per cent of their pre-Covid levels,” it added.

Zomato founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Deepinder Goyal said a number of cities are now at over 120 per cent of pre-Covid peaks. “Food delivery is one of the safest recreational options available to our customers during the pandemic. Going forward, we anticipate the food delivery sector to continue to grow at about 15-25 per cent month-on-month for the foreseeable future,” said Goyal, in a tweet.

He said since the end of March, Gurugram-based Zomato has delivered a total of 92 million orders – and there have been zero reported cases of Covid transmission through food delivery or food delivery agents. He said a few weeks ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) also categorically stated that people should not fear food or its packaging, processing or delivery.

Rohan Agarwal, director at research firm RedSeer Consulting, said the Indian Premier League (IPL) and its promotions in the form of campaigns and engagements have definitely strengthened the food volumes.

“IPL has played a key role. Due to the event, food delivery volumes are seeing a jump and food tech companies are capitalising on that demand,” said Agarwal. “IPL is like a festive season for food delivery platforms. During IPL, consumers come together to watch matches. Snacking together is one of the associated behaviours.”

Given the absence of live sporting action on account of the pandemic, analysts have said consolidated viewership across TV and digital for the IPL could cross 700 million this year. It stood at over 600 million last year.

Agarwal said over the last few months, food delivery business has started to recover slowly as the perception of catching the virus due to food delivery is reducing.

We've reduced cash burn by 70%, look to be profitable by end-2020: Zomato

Online restaurant guide and food ordering platform Zomato is looking to be a profitable company by the end of 2020, a top company official said.

"In a year's time, we should be a profitable company. We have been able to reduce our cash burn by around 70 per cent from what it was seven months ago," Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal told PTI.

The company's current cash burn is $15 million per month, he added.

Earlier in October, Zomato had said it has witnessed over three-fold jump in revenue to $205 million (around Rs 1,458 crore) for April-September 2019 from $63 million (around Rs 448 crore) in the same period a year ago.

The company recently announced plans to raise up to $600 million (around Rs 4,277 crore) by next month in a new funding round.

When asked about the segments the company will be focussing on for growth, Goyal said it will be on all segments.

The company is making all efforts to achieve its mission, 'Better Food for Everyone', he added.

Zomato to raise up to $600 mn in new funding round next month: CEO Goyal

Online restaurant guide and food ordering platform Zomato is looking to raise up to $600 million (around Rs 4,276 crore) next month in a new funding round, Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said on Friday.

The company is making all efforts to achieve its mission, 'Better Food for Everyone', he added.

"We are going to raise $500-600 million next month or so," Goyal said adding that good companies can raise money in hard times or good times. He was speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit here.

On the journey of Zomato, Goyal said: "We started very small. We started 11 years ago and we are now present in 550 cities in India and we serve around 48 million people every month."

Outside India, Zomato serves about another 25 million people, he added.

The hardest part of this journey has been to actually hire the number of people that the company has hired, Goyal said.

"We have 2,50,000 people that we hired in last 18 months," Goyal said.

As you scale the big challenge is to ensure consistency and maintain quality. "We just have to ensure that we put the best foot forward all the time," he added.

Talking about the social media onslaught it had to face after its decision of not discriminating on the basis of religion, Goyal said: "This is not the first time we have taken a stand for something that we believe in."

In July this year, Zomato had refused to resolve a customer's complaint about being assigned a Muslim delivery executive for his food order.

Goyal had echoed his company's stand, with a firm message. "We are proud of the idea of India - and the diversity of our esteemed customers and partners. We aren't sorry to lose any business that comes in the way of our values," he had tweeted at that time.

Zomato vows zero tolerance after delivery boy held in Kamlesh Tiwari case

With one of its delivery boys being arrested in connection with murder of Hindu group leader Kamlesh Tiwari, online food ordering platform Zomato on Wednesday said it has zero tolerance for anyone breaking the law and the guilty should be dealt with swiftly.

Zomato was trolled online after the anti-terrorism squad of the Gujarat police arrested two alleged killers, Ashfaq Hussain and Moinuddin Pathan, from a location near the state's border with Rajasthan.

Users questioned Zomato, which had a couple of months back publicly shamed a bigot customer refusing delivery by a Muslim rider, for the role of its employee in the murder of Hindu Samaj Party leader. They sought safety assurance from the company.

Reached for comments, a Zomato spokesperson said Pathan had on-boarded onto Zomato platform on August 17, 2019, in Surat after "a background check" including review of his Aadhaar card, driving license, PAN card, and past court records, by an independent agency. He made last delivery on October 6, "post which he ceased to work on our platform of his own volition," the spokesperson said.

"Zomato is a law-abiding and responsible company. We have pledged our complete support to the concerned authorities and will readily assist them in the investigation," the spokesperson said. "We have protocols in place for onboarding delivery partners which include a thorough check for any past court records and even if there is a single red-flag, the concerned person does not make it to our fleet."

Zomato said the safety and well being of its customers is and will continue to be of paramount importance to the company. "Zomato has zero-tolerance for anyone breaking law. We wish that the guilty are dealt with in accordance with law swiftly."

On Twitter, Zomato was trolled with one user comparing the bigot incident of late July with the Pathan being arrested for Kamlesh Tiwari's murder, saying the "reason for the murder was religious hate. A few days back u canceled an order when sm1 wanted food delivery by a Hindu guy. Could u plz assure ur customers r in safe hands".

Another user saw the arrest as another reason for "not trusting Zomato, Swiggy, etc".

According to police, the two accused killed the Hindu group leader to avenge certain statements against Prophet Mohammad that he had purportedly made in the past.

The two accused - one of whom was wearing a saffron kurta - reportedly met Kamlesh Tiwari at his Lucknow residence on October 18 on the pretext of gifting Diwali sweets and discussing political matters. However, once inside his home, the accused allegedly slit his throat and shot him before escaping.

"We recently learnt that one Moinuddinahmed Pathan has been detained by the Gujarat Police in connection with the murder of Mr Kamlesh Tiwari in Lucknow. It has also been brought to our notice that he was a delivery boy on the Zomato platform.

"Our internal investigations have revealed that the said person had been on-boarded onto the Zomato platform on August 17, 2019, in Surat. Prior to his onboarding, a background check (including a check of his Aadaar card, driving license, PAN Card and past court records) had been carried out on him by an independent agency in which his background check was clear. Between that date and October 6, 2019, he had worked on and off as a delivery person on our platform. All his deliveries were in Surat as he was based there," the Zomato spokesperson said.

Stating that post-October 6, Pathan had ceased to work on Zomato of his own volition, the spokesperson said: "Delivery boys on the Zomato platform are independent freelancers".

NRAI refuses to support the launch of Zomato Gold on food delivery

The National Restaurants Association of India on Friday said it would not support Zomato launching its Gold programme on food delivery.

Zomato Gold, in a message to existing subscribers, said the premium membership programme which entitles subscribers to free dishes on their dine-in restaurant orders, will be expanding to 25 new cities and will also be available on Zomato delivery services.

Calling the extension of Zomato Gold to delivery a “desperate attempt” by Zomato to save the programme, NRAI said, “It is also another instance of Zomato changing the goalpost; Gold was originally launched as a tool to promote the culture of "Dining out" but now it is being extended on delivery too! Essentially, it is now a program that merely promotes deep discounts on both dine-in and delivery verticals, the cost of which is borne solely by the restaurant partners.”

NRAI said extension of Gold to delivery would be “suicidal” for the vertical.

A Zomato spokesperson said, “We have been in constant discussions with NRAI and have received a lot of useful feedback from them and partner restaurants on the Gold program. We have made significant changes to the Gold program. We have made sure that the program continues to be attractive for our members while becoming more sustainable for our restaurant partners.”

According to research conducted by consulting firm RedSeer this month, 90 per cent Gold members try new restaurants because of the offer and 95 per cent order more dishes or drinks because of their Gold membership.

On the restaurant side, according to RedSeer, 35 per cent saw increase in bill volumes, while 60 per cent of Gold partner restaurants saw an increase in the number of new customers.

After over a month of launching a protest against food aggregators’ deep discounting practices, NRAI has remained steady on its stand that they do not want to be part of Zomato Gold or any other deep discounting schemes.

“Zomato chooses to ignore the core issue of deep discounts. They have instead chosen to curtailed the usage term of the Zomato Gold users to contain the impact of discounts being borne by the restaurants. This is one more case of unilateral change of goalpost by Zomato. Zomato collects money from both; the Gold subscribers and restaurant partners; and yet keeps making unilateral changes on terms of engagement for both,” NRAI added.

The NRAI had launched a #Logout campaign on August 14 against aggressive pricing and deep discounting by restaurant aggregators, but over time, has expressed greater unhappiness with Zomato Gold. Zomato in its communication to subscribers has also mentioned that one one Gold unlock, or availing one free dish in an order, will be allowed for 1-3 diners on a table, while four diners will be eligible for two Zomato Gold unlocks.

Earlier this week, NRAI said talks with restaurant aggregators including Zomato, Swiggy, EazyDiner and so on had progressed well on certain issues. The issue has been going back and forth between both sides since over a month now, even though Zomato has made changes to its Gold offering.

Medikabazaar offers to hire around 200 recently laid-off Zomato employees

Medikabazaar, online B2B platform for medical supplies, on Tuesday said it is looking at hiring around 200 of the recently laid-off Zomato customer support employees who have telecalling and telesales experience for its inside sales and customer care functions.

For the hiring process, the company will carry out psychometric tests for each candidate along with role-specific interviews, Medikabazaar said in a statement.

Zomato had laid off 541 employees across its customer, merchant and delivery partner support teams earlier this month.

"Medikabazaar wants to ramp up its team by an additional 500 staff in various positions. We can immediately look at hiring 200 former staff from Zomato in relevant positions of customer care, inside sales and operations," Medikabazaar Executive Vice-President Akash Rajpal said.

"Other positions that the company is looking to ramp up is in technology," he added.

Medikabazaar HR Head Anil Mohanty said, "Any giant leap towards progress will inevitably lead some people to fall through the cracks. We at Medikazaar want to ensure that these people get back on their feet, and are happy to offer the open positions at our company to deserving candidates."

"This is an exciting opportunity for driven individuals to be part of the company's journey towards facilitating a democratised and cost-optimised standard of healthcare pan-India," he added.

Zomato enters video-streaming space, to bundle content with ads on platform

Come September 16, one can watch 3-to-15-minute long videos on the Zomato app, with the country’s oldest online food aggregator announcing a foray into over-the-top (OTT) space, starting with 18 original shows.

These short-format videos, which will be based on food, will be launched over a period of three months. The company has hired stand-up comedians and celebrity chefs like Sanjeev Kapoor, among others, for the shows.

The food delivery platform’s OTT foray comes at a time when online marketplace Amazon is going big with Prime Video and Flipkart is working on its own content vertical.

According to sources in the company, Zomato, which has been trying hard to sell its video advertisements to restaurants, cloud kitchens, and other clients on the platform, believes that entertainment content would help it bring in more restaurants.

“The plan is to weave in content with the advertisements, something what YouTube does on its platform. A video advertisement of a restaurant might play before or in-between the starting of the show,” said a source close to the company.

After listings, Zomato hopes to sell video advertisements to restaurants on its platform. Having content will encourage restaurants to place video ads as the probability of them getting watched by people is higher.

“Available in an all-new videos tab in the Zomato app, these will be categorised by genre letting users watch 3-15 minute videos across shows, recipes, and sneak peek restaurant stories. The Zomato video experience will launch with 2,000-plus videos that include Zomato Originals, which will be available to stream in India, while sneak peek and recipe videos can be accessed anywhere in the world,” the company said.

“We are constantly looking for new ways to engage our users around food. Most of our users visit our app several times a week. This presents us with an opportunity to further delight our users using Zomato Originals” Deepinder Goyal, CEO & founder

Zomato Original shows are centred around food. “We are constantly looking for new ways to engage our users around food. Most of our users visit our app several times a week. This presents us with an opportunity to further delight our users using Zomato Originals,” said Deepinder Goyal, chief executive officer and founder, Zomato.

Infinity Dining off the table

On Friday, the food delivery platform took its Infinity Dining offer of the app amid a battle with restaurants protesting against deep discounting. The programme allowed Zomato Gold subscribers to order unlimited food and drinks for a set price from the menu of the restaurant for a period of time.

Zomato has of late been in the news for all the wrong reasons. Over the past two months, the food aggregator has given pink slips to 601 employees, terming it a move to correct ‘redundancies’. This is more than 10 per cent of its total workforce.

While a record number of 541 employees were laid off on Saturday, 60 were let go last month.

This is not the first time the firm has carried out layoffs, but the number of people let go this year

is the highest.

Facing heat from restaurants, Zomato suspends Infinity Dining programme

Facing heat from partner restaurants over its "deep discounting schemes", food delivery platform Zomato has suspended the Infinity Dining programme from its app.

A Zomato spokesperson confirmed the development to The Economic Times, saying they have received "a range of feedback about Infinity Dining, and have paused it as we incorporate the feedback".

Introduced in July, the Infinity Dining programme allowed Zomato's Gold subscribers to order unlimited food and drinks at a set price from the menu of partner restaurants for a limited period of time.

The programme was launched in three cities with over 300 restaurants.

The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) said it a was "huge victory" for them.

“Infinity was the tipping point of the logout campaign. It is a huge victory for restaurant companies that it has been withdrawn,” NRAI Mumbai chapter head Anurag Katriar told the business daily.

Online food delivery aggregators, especially Zomato, and NRAI are at loggerheads for over a month.

The restaurant association had started #Logout campaign on August 14 against aggressive pricing and deep discounting by restaurant aggregators. Following which many eateries had had left these platforms.

The issue has been going back and forth between both sides since then, with Zomato’s Gold scheme being at the centre of much discussion around deep discounting. Zomato Gold began last year as an exclusive, invite-only service, targeted at high-end restaurants serving niche customers who may already be their patrons.

In August, Zomato's founder Deepinder Goyal had admitted that his company made mistakes with its premium subscription service ‘Gold’ and would make changes to the appease restaurants.

“Somewhere, we have made mistakes and things haven’t gone as planned. This is a wake-up call that we need to do 100x more for our restaurant partners than we have done before,” Goyal tweeted.

Later, the company had shared a Gold modification plan that addressed some of the issues raised by NRAI. However, NRAI rejected the proposal saying the move from exclusive membership to being available to everyone has made Gold lose its sheen forever.

#ZomatoUninstalled, #BoycottUberEats trend after 'food is religion' tweet

A day after Zomato snubbed a customer who refused an order from a non-Hindu rider, #ZomatoUninstalled trended on Twitter on Thursday, with many accusing the online food delivery platform of bias. #BoycottUberEats also caught on after UberEats backed its rival’s “Food has no religion” comment.

Even as the incident had social media divided, the Jabalpur police in Madhya Pradesh sought an undertaking from the Zomato customer that he would not spread religious hatred. The controversy began on Tuesday when a Zomato customer tweeted: “Just cancelled an order on @ZomatoIN they allocated a non-Hindu rider for my food they said they can't change rider and can't refund on cancellation. I said you can't force me to take a delivery. I don't want don't refund just cancel.”

In response, the official Twitter handle of Zomato tweeted, “Food doesn’t have a religion. It is a religion.”

Zomato India

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@ZomatoIN

 Food doesn’t have a religion. It is a religion. https://twitter.com/NaMo_SARKAAR/status/1156217070247268352 …

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Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal tweeted: “We are proud of the idea of India — and the diversity of our esteemed customers and partners. We aren’t sorry to lose any business that comes in the way of our values.”

While several Twitter users came out in support of Goyal, others agreed with the customer and pulled out examples of complaints where Zomato did not take a similar stand. The tweet that began the entire issue was, however, deleted by Thursday morning.

Hashtags like #boycottzomato trended on Wednesday, #ZomatoUninstalled gathered steam on Thursday.

"Bye bye Zomato, you lost one precious customer, many more to come… Don't support one side if you can't resolve the issue. #Zomato Uninstalled,” tweeted one user. Many uninstalled UberEats’ app as well, and tweeted #BoycottUberEats for supporting Zomato.

This is not the first time religious issues have prompted users to uninstall an app. #BoycottAmazon had trended on Twitter in May after toilet seat covers and other items with images of Hindu gods were spotted. In 2015, Snapdeal faced #BoycottSnapdeal after its then brand ambassador Aamir Khan said he may consider moving out of India with his family.

'Food doesn't have religion': Zomato after customer seeks non-Muslim rider

Food delivery company Zomato is winning the internet after it refused on Wednesday to resolve a customer's complaint about being assigned a Muslim delivery executive for his food order.

"Food doesn't have a religion. It is a religion," the company tweeted in response to the customer's request for change of the rider. 

On Tuesday night, a man tweeted about cancelling his order placed on Zomato as the designated rider was a "non-Hindu".

"Just cancelled an order on @ZomatoIN they allocated a non hindu rider for my food they said they can't change rider and can't refund on cancellation I said you can't force me to take a delivery I don't want don't refund just cancel," Amit Shukla, a resident of Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, tweeted.

In a series of tweets, he also shared screenshots of his conversation with Zomato's customer care, saying he would take up the issue with his lawyers.

 

Zomato India

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@ZomatoIN

 Food doesn’t have a religion. It is a religion. https://twitter.com/NaMo_SARKAAR/status/1156217070247268352 …

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@NaMo_SARKAAR

Just cancelled an order on @ZomatoIN they allocated a non hindu rider for my food they said they can't change rider and can't refund on cancellation I said you can't force me to take a delivery I don't want don't refund just cancel

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 The company stood its ground and refused to change the delivery executive. 

Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal echoed his company's stand with a firm message. "We are proud of the idea of India - and the diversity of our esteemed customers and partners. We aren't sorry to lose any business that comes in the way of our values," he tweeted.

Zomato's response won it many admirers. 

"Respect. I love your app. Thank you for giving me a reason to admire the company behind it," former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah tweeted.

Former Election Commissioner S Y Quraishi tweeted: "Salute Deepinder Goyal! You are the real face of India! Proud of you."

Goyal had in an internal message to his team at Zomato applauded the customer team for "upholding our values and not discriminate on basis of caste or religion for sake of growth (or customer satisfaction)".

Sources said he told his team that they should not succumb to any demands of a customer, partner, or even an employee on racial grounds or grounds of any form of diversity.

Shukla, the customer who cancelled the order, identifies himself as Pandit Amit Shukla and has the username @NaMo_SARKAAR. He tweeted on Tuesday evening that he had cancelled his order after a delivery executive called Faiyaz was assigned to deliver his food. Shukla shared the order status with a map from a locality in Jabalpur.

He also shared a screenshot of the app's chat support, through which he requested for a different delivery executive. When asked for a reason for the change, Shukla replied: "We have Shravan and I don't need a delivery from a Muslim fellow."

The customer care executive responded that cancelling the order would cost him Rs 237, and then said: "At Zomato, we don't discriminate on basis of riders, I hope you understand."

Shukla tweeted that he cancelled the order without refund, and said that Zomato was "forcing us to take deliveries from people we don't want".

He claimed he was uninstalling the app as the company was not cooperating and he would discuss the matter with his lawyers.

His tweets received angry responses from several users with one asking Shukla if he had ensured that the person who cooked his food was a Hindu, while another pointed out that Shukla's vehicles run on "Muslim fuel" -- alluding to most of the oil India buys coming from Gulf nations. 

Available in Ayodhya too: Zomato expands food delivery to over 300 cities

Close on the heels of achieving its 200 cities milestone, Zomato has now surpassed 300 cities where it offers its online food delivery services.

Among the new cities it now operates in are Bhuj and Junagadh in Gujarat, Rishikesh in Uttarakhand, Shimla and Mussoorie in Himachal Pradesh, Nagercoil in Tamil Nadu, Ayodhya and Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh, Chikmagalur and Hosur in Karnataka, Kharagpur in West Bengal, Chhapra and Begusarai in Bihar, Hazaribagh and Ramgarh in Jharkhand, Jalna and Parbhani in Maharashtra.

It has also expanded its footprint into the north eastern state of Tripura, where it will deliver in the capital city Agartala. It has also added two more cities in Assam- Silchar and Dibrugarh.

Punjab and Andhra Pradesh have had the most number of new city additions in this round of expansion.

“We are onboarding 45-50 restaurants in each city on average; a figure that’s bound to move northward over the coming weeks,” said Mohit Gupta, CEO, Food Delivery Business at Zomato.

The main factors that Zomato takes into account while expanding to a new city are population, which must be over a 100,000; the student demographic in the area and whether there are enough restaurants that can serve the city adequately when orders spike during special occasions and weekends.

Zomato had said it crossed the 200 city mark around March this year, and Gupta had said the company aims to deliver food across 500 cities in India by the end of September.