Zomato begins testing platform fee on food orders: Report

Foodtech giant Zomato announced that it is rolling out a platform fee of Rs 2 per order, which will be levied irrespective of the cart value, a report said.

The Gurugram-based company said it is a “small fee that helps us pay the bills so that we can keep Zomato running”, and these additional charges have only been rolled out to select users. Zomato has not introduced the policy on Blinkit, its quick commerce platform.

"This is in an experiment phase right now, and we may or may not scale," a Zomato spokesperson told Moneycontrol.

Notably, Zomato’s main competitor, Swiggy, started levying a platform fee of Rs 2 on all food orders a couple of months ago.

Zomato delivered around 17.6 crore orders in the June quarter, translating to roughly 20 lakh orders a day, according to a note by JP Morgan.

“It's a business call. We're aware about that [peers charging a platform fee], and we'll take a call if we think it’s the right thing for the business. At this point, we haven't done that. There's no platform fee on our platform,” Zomato’s CFO Akshant Goyal said.

Last week, Zomato posted its first-ever profitable quarter, bringing some much-needed cheer to its investors and the bourses.

It recorded a first-time profit of Rs 2 crore in the first quarter of FY24 from a loss of Rs 186 crore in the same quarter last year. The Deepinder Goyal-led firm reached profitability much earlier than its previous guidance, where it said it expects to hit the milestone by Q2 FY24.

Operating revenue rose 71% to Rs 2,416 crore from Rs 1,414 crore in Q1 last year, helped by massive growth in Hyperpure.