Zomato seems to be championing loyalty programmes better than any consumer facing product companies in India. After establishing Treat and Gold, the company had launched yet another subscription-based loyalty programme Piggybank in July.
For uninitiated, Piggybanks lets consumers save 10 per cent every time they order. On every successful order, user accounts will be credited with 10 per cent of ‘Z Coins’ which can be encashed on further orders at Piggybank partner restaurants.
Within two months of its launch, Piggybank has been able to attract 1 million members. According to a Zomato blog post, over 2 million orders have been placed using Z coins.
So far, Zomato also claims to save about Rs 5 crore for users through Piggybank. Meanwhile, it’s working well for restaurant partners too.
“We are finding that Piggybank subscribers are ordering more on Zomato on a weekly basis, compared to the period when we didn’t have this program in place,” mentions the blog post.
Ever since its launch, Piggybank has been gaining popularity amongst Zomato users. Within 2 days (or 48 hours) of its launch, the premium membership program had received 200,000 sign-ups.
Currently, Zomato does 16.5 million orders on a monthly basis while its rival Swiggy volume pegs over 17-18 million.
Over the past 18 months, Zomato has been experimenting with various kinds of programmes to improvise its offerings and maintain a loyal customer base.
Last year, the company had launched a subscription-based Zomato Treat and Gold. Treat is a subscription fee of Rs 249 and lets subscribers avail a free dessert with every meal they order across 16 cities in India.
Rolling out paid subscription programme to create a loyal customer base has been emerging as a strong trend amongst food tech companies. Recently, Swiggy had launched low ticketsize subscription – Swiggy Super.
Consumers will avail unlimited free deliveries across all restaurants listed on the Meituan-backed company. The monthly subscription is priced between Rs 99 to 149.