The decision of restaurants and hotels in Ahmedabad to boycott leading online food delivery platforms Swiggy and Zomato has led to a 30% drop in their online deliveries, and yet they will continue the boycott, an industry association said.
Hotel and Restaurant Association (Gujarat) (HRA) on Tuesday said it will not concede to the suggestion by the aggregators to increase food prices to absorb high commissions charged by Swiggy and Zomato.
The industry body claimed that more than 500 restaurants and hotels have blacklisted Swiggy while many have boycotted Zomato for their poor business practices. It claimed that heavy commissions charged by the platforms had been choking off their profits.
Industry estimates put the total deliveries handled by the two platforms – prior to the deadlock in Ahmedabad – at 70,000 to 80,000.
“Online companies have been forcing restaurants to raise the food price by 20% to absorb the high commissions,” alleged Rohit Khanna, a committee member of HRA who said it’s more than 10 days since the local industry decided to boycott Swiggy.
Representatives of Swiggy and Zomato, speaking on condition of anonymity, however, claimed that their business in the city has stabilised.
While Swiggy has conceded to the demand of the industry pertaining to 100% payment for orders against cancellation and Zomato has agreed to give restaurants the right to deliver food by giving them the hybrid model option to enable self-deliveries, the industry is not happy.
“We seek that the commission is brought down, payments processed in 48 hours, sharing customer data with restaurants, et al,” an HRA member said.
Leave a Reply