Foodtech platform Zomato has introduced a self-pickup service for its customers and has made its takeaway service available to its restaurant partners at zero commission. The latest move from the Gurugram-based firm is aimed at reaching more customers and further growing its business with its new and existing restaurant partners.
“We are making our takeaway service available for free to our restaurant partners. We will not be charging any commission, and will also forego the payment gateway charges we incur on all takeaway orders,” said Rahul Ganjoo, vice president and head of product management at Zomato on the company’s blog.
According to Ganjoo, more than 55,000 restaurants are already live for takeaway on Zomato and the company is serving tens of thousands of such orders weekly. In addition, the takeaway business has grown with order volume increasing by more than 200% in the last few months.
While the company claims to have reached its pre-Covid peak in October, currently it records around 110% of its pre-covid GMV run rate in the food delivery business. The firm also claims to have delivered over 13 crore orders since the first lockdown in March. To recall, it had delivered 9.2 crore orders between March 23 to October 12.
The development follows Gaurav Gupta’s departure from the post of Zomato’s chief operating officer or COO to lead the nutrition business for the Gurugram-based firm. According to Entrackr’s sources, Gupta could play a crucial role in the expansion of the takeaway business.
Zomato has been witnessing a lot of action in the past three-four months. The company is gearing up for IPO by the first half of next year and has raised over $400 million since August. Zomato’s IPO dream is going to face hurdles as it has not been able to recover from huge losses. According to Zomato’s unaudited financial data, it had a revenue of $394 million in FY20 whereas its EBITDA losses stood at $293 million in FY20.
