Will Zomato, Uber Eats, Swiggy Stop All Discounts? Restaurant Authority Doesn’t Want Any Discount!

We had informed you some time back that over 300 restaurants, registered under the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) in Gurgaon have decided to break their ties with aggregators and table reservation services, like Zomato, EazyDiner, Nearbuy, MagicPin and Gourmet Passport, under a special #Logout campaign.

In just about 3 days, more than 1,200 restaurants across India delisted themselves from these dine-in programmes and services. Restaurants claim to have suffered heavy losses complying to the anytime, anywhere, any-day discounting behavior by aggregators.

Even though the head body NRAI said it would let the delivery platforms like Zomato, Swiggy, Uber Eats and Foodpanda remain untouched, reports have now flooded in that NRAI has now asked delivery platforms to stop their deep discounts while addressing other issues.

Brief History Over #Logout Campaign

According to restaurants, heavy discounting offers on meal bills anytime, anywhere, any-day, by food aggregators and table reservation services, like Zomato, EazyDiner, Nearbuy, MagicPin and Gourmet Passport among others, deeply hurt the revenues of restaurants, as they suffered heavy losses.

In order to silently protest against this, over 300 restaurants registered under NRAI decided to break their ties with such aggregators, starting in Gurgaon. They called it the #Logout campaign. In just 3 days’ time, more than 1,200 restaurants in several major cities across India continued the trend and delisted themselves off the dine-in programmes and services.

NRAI Now Targets Delivery Platforms

The thing is, when this campaign started, the restaurants promised that they shall let delivery and search platforms such as Uber Eats, Swiggy and Zomato continue their discounts. However, after waging an all-out war against steep discounts by online food aggregators in the dine-in segment, the NRAI now wants delivery platforms to do away with deep discounts while addressing other issues.

It said that after interacting with restaurant operators, they observed that operators were facing discomfort and resentment at the current status of forced discounting, uneven commission structure and general high-handedness of the aggregators in the food delivery space.

According to them, there has been a demand for extending the #Logout movement to the delivery platforms too. These restaurants are forced to levy a discount of 30-70% throughout the year, through these delivery platforms, which they aren’t thoroughly enjoying.

This distorts the market and hinders profitable growth of the sector. These discounts are not sustainable nor are they beneficial to the industry at large.

Delivery Platforms Charge Non-Uniform Commissions

Restaurants complained that these delivery platforms charged commissions unevenly and exploit them. They request NRAI to create a transparent system of commission based on certain logical metrics such as AOV and Volume of Business, among others.

The association also noted that these aggregators do not share customer data with restaurants despite repeated requests but instead they are using the sales and customer data to develop their own brands, their own kitchens and diverting traffic thereby creating a grossly unfair playing field with other restaurants.

NRAI has struck a deal with Dineout, Eazydiner, Nearbuy and Magicpin to make favorable changes to their model and charges, as the four have agreed to rejig their products to do away with deep discounting.