Zomato to Start Food Delivery in India From March

The food delivery space in India is getting increasingly active, and following on the heels of Foodpanda acquiring JustEat.in, leading restaurant discovery platform Zomato has just stated that it is also going to start offering deliveries in India. We have reached out to Zomato for more details, but the firm has confirmed it will be rolling out the delivery service on March 16 with 2,000 restaurant partners in India.

Zomato CEO and co-founder Deepinder Goyal told TechCrunch that he expects to reach about 10,000 restaurants in a few months, and told the site:

We have a sales team of around 300 in India and 5,000-odd advertisers... these partners know the volume we bring to them so it is quite easy for us to launch this [new service].

Zomato is already testing deliveries with its staff internally, and has promised that it will roll out the service internationally soon. The firm compares its delivery system to Uber for food, and says it will charge its commission from restaurants based on the rating they receive from customers. A good customer review will mean a smaller commission, while a poor review could see the cut go up to 15 percent.

In the past, Zomato's leadership has been dismissive of the idea of food ordering - a blog post by Zomato co-founder Pankaj Chaddah had pointed out to the lack of customisation possibilities and poor logistics in India, as two big problems. Last year, Goyal reiterated the same points when talking to NDTV Gadgets.

Zomato has been expanding its functionality steadily in the last one year though, and has rolled out payments in Dubai earlier this month. Chaddah had earlier told NDTV Gadgets that Zomato will bring this functionality to India as soon as the requirement for two-factor authentication for small payments is removed, as that will allow for one-touch payments.