FINDINGS
Swiggy Go for instant pick up, dropping packages launched
Food delivery platform Swiggy on Wednesday launched 'Swiggy Go here which is
an instant pick up and drop service to send packages anywhere across the city.
According to the company, Swiggy Go can be used to pick up and drop off
laundry, get forgotten keys, send lunch boxes from home to office or even deliver
documents or parcels to clients.
Similar to Swiggy Stores -- which promises to deliver to users' doorsteps
household items like groceries, flowers, and medicines among other things within
an hour -- Swiggy Go will be part of the main app. "Swiggy's vision is to elevate
the quality of life of urban consumers by offering unparalleled convenience. After
enabling this with food delivery for five years and stores across the city with
Swiggy Stores, Go will open the Swiggy delivery superpower to all consumers in
the city," Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy, said in a statement.
"Bengaluru will be the first city in the country to experience Swiggy do the last-
mile delivery for everything, not just food. By 2020, we will expand Swiggy Go to
over 300 cities and Swiggy Stores to all the major metros, ushering in a new era of
convenience for consumers across India," Majety added.
Swiggy also said it will expand its on-demand delivery service -- Swiggy Stores --
to Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
In Bengaluru, the platform will deliver from any store, including more than 300
merchant-partners like Godrej Nature's Basket, Nilgiri's, Organic World, Heads Up
For Tails and Nandu's Chicken.
In Hyderabad, the company has tied up with close to 200 merchant-partners like
Ratnadeep, Ghanshyam, Sneha Chicken, Yellow and Greens and 24 Organic
Mantra, in addition to delivering from any store a customer chooses in the city.
This comes weeks after the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) asked
food delivery platforms Swiggy, Zomato, Uber Eats and Food Panda to do away
with deep discounts while addressing other issues. In letters written to all major
online delivery aggregators, the association said that during its interaction with
restaurant operators, it was observed that operators displayed strong resentment at
the current status of transparency, forced discounting, uneven commission
structure and general high-handedness of the aggregators in the food delivery
space.
Source :- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/swiggy-go-for-instant-pick-
up-dropping-packages-launched/articleshow/70973657.cms (ET news -5sep2019)
Swiggy may cap its share at 25% of the total bill
Swiggy may cap the commissions it charges restaurants at 25%, two people with
knowledge of the company’s plans said, in a potential sign of a thaw in an ongoing
impasse between food delivery companies and a restaurant owners’ body.
The move comes right after the Bengaluru-based food delivery company met with
the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI) last week to resolve the
impasse.
Swiggy’s decision will benefit small business owners, who do not have the
leverage to seal better deals due to the inability to process larger volume of orders.
“Compare this to large chains, which sign ironclad agreements because they have
the capability to furnish larger volumes,” said one of the people.
A Swiggy spokesperson told ET, “Commissions are a range, depending on various
factors. Keeping these factors well defined and transparent, Swiggy has always
worked with commissions that are mutually agreed upon and create a win-win with
our restaurant partners.”
The spokesperson, however, said the 25% cap was “speculative”. Recently, a
Hyderabad-based hotels association said that most restaurants in the city were
willing to go off online food delivery platforms, if the commissions were not
capped and discounts not done away with.
Swiggy’s move will mean a temporary loss of revenue, as several restaurants who
have signed deals with the company earlier give commissions of nearly 30% of the
order value. “It can be easily made up via ads for now and other revenue verticals
such as Stores later,” said one of the people mentioned earlier.
A cap on commissions was discussed at the NRAI meeting last week, but the
restaurants’ association had insisted on a matrix-like structure.
“We spoke about a tier-based structure that would depend on average order value
and the number of orders,” said one of the people who attended the meeting with
the NRAI.
Officially, NRAI has asked Swiggy to come back with a revised proposal in 14
days.
“Our commissions are in accordance with the industry average and take into
consideration the quality of services we provide both consumers and restaurants,” a
Zomato spokesperson said in an email, adding the company had a detailed meeting
with NRAI where all issues were discussed.
Over the last few years, both Swiggy and Zomato have aggressively focused on
acquiring new customers and driving customer repeats. They have managed to do
that by offering services such as free delivery, and partly funding discounts. On the
restaurant side, both companies have significantly increased their take
(commissions) to as high as 30% from a low 5%.
Apart from commissions, NRAI also asked Swiggy and Zomato to unbundle their
services.
Both companies have, however, stayed quiet on unbundling services.
Initially, when Zomato introduced online orders, it kept food delivery restricted to
partners who could make their own delivery. Swiggy, meanwhile, is working on
technology that will enable restaurants to accept and make their own deliveries if
they so choose.
