The unknown status of food delivery apps

Technology is the easiest way to make you laziest. Food delivery applications have been a matter of debate, be it the offers Swiggy provides or the Zomato Gold privileges at any eatery. We are all trapped in the tempting food trap because food has become affordable. No matter how hard we try to spend our Sunday mornings shopping for groceries, we end up switching off the alarm because we have Swiggy installed on our phone.

Challenges faced by the food delivery applications -

Gaining the loyalty- The incentives and freebies is one way to gain loyalty from your customer. For the restaurants and the food delivery applications, this is the mantra to follow. You need to stand out with what you offer to maintain a permanent relationship with your customer.

The arrival of the big brothers- We are well aware of the growing e-commerce in every sector which is inviting the big giants to step in as well. Uber Eats and Amazon have set their foot in the industry. The time is not far when biggies like McDonald and Starbucks join in the bandwagon of food delivery applications. The moment these big brothers step into the industry, small startups will have a hard time, trying to retain their place in the market.

Disgruntled restauranteurs like Rekhi are now at the forefront of a fight back against food aggregators. Over the weekend, a slew of restaurants across India began delisting from dine-in apps that offer membership-driven discounts—such as EazyDiner (Prime), Zomato Gold, and nearbuy—in a "#Logout" movement led by the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI).

Five years ago, there were only a handful of online food aggregators. Today, the industry is a behemoth that ferries 80 million orders each month in over 500 cities. In all, food aggregators like Zomato, Swiggy, and Uber Eats deploy over 400,000 delivery boys and girls daily on the ground in the country. Ordering food online is convenient and restaurants gain from the extra visibility. But who is raking in the profits? Five years into the food delivery boom, many restaurants have now come to the conclusion that they are losing more than they gain. The biggest irritant is the steep discounting game which has started to hurt margins.

Restaurants—both big and small—say they are increasingly finding themselves being coerced into accepting terms and conditions favourable to aggregators. These include: funding a large part of the discounts, using only the aggregators’ fleet to fulfil delivery, a drastic reduction in meal preparation time, and complete non-transparency over how in-app recommendations work and what restaurants can do to get recommended more often.

Then, there are other concerns with regard to customer data—some restaurant owners that Mint spoke to claimed that some large aggregators refuse to share data on who their customers are. This, they added, is helping the aggregator build a vast database of consumers’ dining habits and even help expand their own business in what can be seen as a conflict of interest by restaurants. "They are shutting us off from our customers... that’s how loyalty is built," said New Delhi-based restaurateur Thomas Fenn who runs Mahabelly.

Logistics- Service providers find it problematic to decide which areas would they be providing their services to? They have to analyze if which areas will get them the maximum number of orders. The number of vehicles along with the deliverymen is required and they have to ensure that the food remains fresh. The food-delivery applicationservices should be quick and ensure that one must have effective logistics. Never let a customer lose trust in you.

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