Plan C: Eateries Counter Food Delivery Giants

Many restaurants are revolting against Zomato-Swiggy and are beginning to chart their own course

- Samiksha Goel

Three months ago, Arul Murugan, secretary of the Namakkal Town and Hotel Owners' Association, called a general body meeting. Murugan, who also runs a small restaurant in the Tamil Nadu town, began by presenting his own sales data to the 80-90 fellow restaurant owners who had gathered.

Recounting his presentation to Mint, he said, "I showed them I'm not getting any revenue from online sales. It's just a waste of time, waste of material, and waste of manpower."

Thereafter, Murugan said, others began sharing their experiences, and some were horror stories. One restaurateur did ₹3,000 in sales in a week and got zero in return. When he did ₹5,000 in sales, he got just ₹100 after deductions.

For Namakkal's restaurants, commissions paid to delivery platforms Swiggy and Zomato have been rising for years—up from about 16% six years ago to as much as 25-30% now. Add in "hidden costs" and other deductions, as Murugan called them, and the total revenue loss climbs to 40-45%. The last six months, he claimed, have been particularly brutal.

The association requested a meeting with the platforms. Representatives from both sides sat across the table, but nothing came of it. Murugan said the platforms told the restaurateurs that lowering commissions in Namakkal would require them to be lowered nationwide, something they weren't willing to do.

On July 1, the restaurateurs decided to go for a divorce. Almost every restaurant in Namakkal, except for centrally managed chains such as KFC, pulled their menus from Swiggy and Zomato. Instead, they turned to Zaaroz, a local delivery platform offering a flat subscription fee: ₹1,500 plus GST per month for up to 100 orders and ₹3,000 plus GST for anything above that cap.