Food-delivery platforms, Swiggy and Zomato, have again hiked the platform fee for their customers. The delivery firms increased their platform fee by 20 per cent from Rs 5 to Rs 6 per order.
The platform fee differs from the delivery charges, goods and services tax, and other charges such as restaurant and handling fees. The fee is currently being charged in Bengaluru and Delhi, reported Moneycontrol.
The platform fee is levied on all food orders and is directly deposited with the company. Both delivery platforms offer special membership programmes to the customers, however, these customers still have to pay the fee.
The fee helps keep a curb on costs and also increase revenues for the companies. The increased fee will eventually be applicable across the country.
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The hike of Rs 1 might not have a huge impact on the customers, however, for the delivery platforms, the raise stands to have a huge impact on the earnings for the firms. For instance, Zomato delivers nearly 22-25 lakhs orders per day, therefore, this addition in the fee will translate into a surplus generation of income per day, the report noted. Eventually, the added fee is expected to bring in Rs 1.25 crore to Rs 1.5 crore daily for the companies.
Notably, Swiggy introduced a platform fee earlier last year in April, while Zomato followed in August. However, Swiggy earlier said that it doesn’t plan to raise the platform fee by a significant margin.
Meanwhile, the companies have kept the fee limited to the food delivery business and kept the quick commerce entities, Instamart and Blinkit, outside the purview of the fee. At the same time, Zepto, another emerging player in the quick commerce business, implemented a platform fee earlier this year in March. The platform delivers about 5.5 lakh orders everyday and levies a platform fee of Rs 2 per order.