Swiggy-Zomato platform fee hike: Market veteran Deepak Shenoy has chipped into the discourse around online delivery platforms such as Zomato and Swiggy raising their platform fees. Posting on social media site X (formerly known as Twitter), Shenoy on July 15 said he is happy to reduce this cost.
“Happy to learn, from media sources, that I have reduced this ordering because of a move of platform fee from Rs. 5 to Rs. 6. Yes, that’s what caused it. I moved for health reasons, to a much more costly alternative, but it’s way way healthier,” the Capitalmind CEO wrote on X.
How much more will you pay?
Food delivery platforms Zomato and Swiggy have reportedly increased their platform fees by 20 per cent to ₹6 in in Delhi and Bengaluru from July 14. In fact, Swiggy is experimenting by charging ₹7 as a platform fee in Bengaluru and discounting it to ₹6. The plan, as per reports, is to expand the revised platform fees to other cities in due time.
Notably, the platform fee is charged separately from goods and services tax (GST), restaurant charges, delivery fees, and other charges. And these apps charge extra up to ₹9 during peak hours of the day.
This is not the first time that platform fees imposed by these food delivery companies have been hiked.
Swiggy introduced the concept of platform fees in 2023, and it was later implemented by Zomato, starting with ₹2 per order. Zomato later increased the fee from ₹2 to ₹3 from October 2023. It raised the platform fee for users from ₹3 to ₹4 in January this year and later revised it to ₹5 in April. In April, Zomato increased the platform fee to ₹5, a 25% rise in selected cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Lucknow.
Besides the food delivery apps, Blinkit and Instamart — the quick commerce brands of Zomato and Swiggy also charge platform fees.
The companies are looking at increasing daily income by ₹1.25-1.50 crore just through platform fee, as per reports.