Zomato institutes a “Large Order Fleet” for group catering
The Gurgaon-based company's plans to join the catering industry by utilising its network of restaurant partners as part of a larger campaign to handle huge orders
India’s first “Large order fleet”
On Tuesday, April 16th, 2024, Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal announced the launch of India’s first “Large order fleet” to handle orders for groups of people or events of up to 50 people. “Today, we are excited to introduce India’s first large order fleet, designed to handle all your large (group/party/event) orders with ease,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter), sharing a photo of the EV (electric vehicle) for deliveries.
The new fleet will be an ‘all-electric fleet’. The Gurgaon-based company’s plans to join the catering industry by utilising its network of restaurant partners as part of a larger campaign to handle huge orders, as originally reported by ET. This launch aligns with the company’s inclusive strategy of introducing more use cases for food delivery to expand its total addressable market.
“Such large orders were earlier served by multiple regular fleet delivery partners, and the customer experience wasn’t what we really aspired for… These vehicles are still a “work in progress”, and we are in the process of adding important enhancements to them – like cooling compartments, and hot boxes with temperature control – to ensure everything arrives just the way you like,” Goyal said.
The food delivery company earlier handled large orders by assigning multiple delivery partners, but the customer experience was not what the company aspired for. During its quarterly results call in December 2023, Zomato stated that it anticipated both new customers and monthly transacting users to be major drivers of growth.
The Zomato Chief said that they “don’t build products and services to make money. We make money to build better products and services, so we can serve our communities better. This is one of such endeavours.”
Zomato launched the multi-cart option in June 2023, enabling customers to place simultaneous orders from several locations.
The firm stated on March 20 that it will have a ‘pure veg fleet’ that wears green uniforms just for vegetarian consumers, ordering from vegetarian restaurants only. However, criticism and concerns of the meal delivery service for promoting casteism in the current era, which may annoy those who order non-vegetarian cuisine or renters, who can have problems with their landlords if they request non-vegetarian cuisine, forced the Zomato CEO to roll back on its decision in less than 24 hours after the announcements.
“While we are going to continue to have a fleet for vegetarians, we have decided to remove the on-ground segregation of this fleet on the ground using the colour green. All our riders — both our regular fleet and our fleet for vegetarians, will wear the colour red,” Goyal had said in an update post on X.
Zomato’s yearly consolidated operating revenue climbed by 69% to Rs 3,288 crore during the December quarter. Still, adjusted income for the food-delivery vertical went up 29% year-on-year to Rs 2,025 crore.
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