Restaurants Raised Discounts To Fend Off Swiggy & Zomato

Large restaurants have increased discounts and promotional offers by 15-20% on their own apps to compete with aggregators like Swiggy and Zomato. This step is taken to reduce the steep commission and search optimisation fees being charged by the aggregators and lower the dependence on them, the industry executives said.

India’s largest quick-service chain, Domino’s Pizza, which has almost 1,625 outlets, launched multiple ‘free rewards offers’ on its own app last weekend on all delivery, takeaway and dine-in. 

Zomato and Swiggy charge at least 15-30% commission on every delivery order. Whereas new tech platforms like ThriveNow and Google-backed DotPe Levy only charge 3-5%. The high commission charge by these tech food platforms allows restaurants to set their own digital services. It will help restaurants and save consumers money. 

“We have grown 40% this quarter over the previous, enabling restaurants to set up their own direct ordering platform. We expect to see further escalation in demand in the upcoming festive season”, said Dhruv Dewan, cofounder at Hashtag Loyalty, which operates ThriveNow.  

Right now, Thrive charges a 5% commission and is working to increase its scale from 11,300 restaurants in the upcoming time.

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Domino’s, McDonald’s, Street Foods of India, Punjab Grill, WoW! Momo, Pizza Hut, Social, and deGustibus Hospitality are among a few restaurants offering higher discounts on their own apps. 

Large brands are placing orders from their app somewhere between 10-25%, though small restaurants still rely heavily on aggregators for scale. 

“Our focus is to increase the promotion and give more value to our own delivery platforms to entice customers to transact and reduce dependence on more expensive aggregators,” said Rohit Aggarwal, director at Lite Bite Foods, which operates Punjab Grill, Artful Baker and YooMee. He later added that nearly 20% of the company’s delivery business was now through its platforms.

The annual food-service market in India is about Rs. 4.2 lakh crore and can grow to Rs 7.7 lakh crore by 2025, as estimated by the National Restaurants Association of India. 

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