Heena Sharma Blog

Odisha has become the second state where online restaurant guide and food ordering platform Zomato will be deliver alcohol at home, starting with state capital Bhubaneswar. Zomato first started the servce in Jharkhand. Starting with Bhubaneswar, Zomato will soon expand to other cities in Odisha like Rourkela, Balasore, Balangir, Sambalpur, Berhampur, and Cuttack, Zomato said in a statement. "We're happy to be of service to our users in Odisha who can now use Zomato to get alcohol delivered in addition to grocery and food delivery," Zomato Vice President Rakesh Ranjan said. Read More

Food delivery app Zomato is cutting 13 per cent jobs as it does not see enough work for all its employees, co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal said in a company-wide email on Friday. "Multiple aspects of our business have changed dramatically over the last couple of months and many of these changes are expected to be permanent. While we continue to build a more focused Zomato, we do not foresee having enough work for all our employees. We owe all our colleagues a challenging work environment, but we won’t be able to offer that to 13 per cent of our workforce going forward," Goyal said in the mail. Read More

Food delivery firm Zomato aims to branch out into delivering alcohol, according to a document seen by Reuters, as it seeks to cash in on high demand for booze during the coronavirus lockdown . Zomato has already diversified into grocery as the restrictions on movement shuttered some restaurants and people hesitated to order outside food. Alcohol stores, closed nationwide on March 25, were allowed to re-open this week, generating queues of hundreds of people, leading to baton charges by police to enforce social distancing. There is no legal provision for home deliveries of alcohol in India, something that industry body International Spirits and Wines Association of India (ISWAI) is lobbying to change in conjunction with Zomato and others. Read More

The government of Goa on Sunday issued a notice, whereby, it authorised Swiggy, Zomato and other home delivery platforms to operate and deliver food, groceries and other essential items at doorsteps during the lockdown due to COVID-19 . "ECommerce operators such as @swiggy_in, @ZomatoIN and other platforms have been permitted to deliver food and grocery items. #GoaFightsCOVID19 ," the Goa Chief Minister's Office tweeted today. Earlier, two more coronavirus positive cases were reported in Goa on Sunday taking the state's tally to five. A total of 1024 positive cases of COVID-19 have been found in India, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Friday. 27 persons have lost their lives due to this disease in the country. Read More

Uber on Tuesday announced the sale of its food delivery business in India to Zomato in an all-stock deal. Uber will get a 9.9 per cent stake in Zomato as part of the deal whose size has not been disclosed. The deal for Uber Eats, which operates in 41 cities, was signed at 3 am, and its customers will be shifted to the Zomato app from 7 am. The deal is applicable only in India and Uber Eats will continue to operate in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. According to sources the deal value is around $300- 350 million. “ We are proud to have pioneered restaurant discovery and to have created a leading food delivery business across more than 500 cities in India. This acquisition significantly strengthens our position in the category,” said Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato. Sources said the move is part of Uber’s strategy to be either number one or two in each of their businesses in every country they operate. In India, Uber Eats grew very quickly to take a 12 per cent share of the food

A day after Zomato snubbed a customer who refused an order from a non-Hindu rider, #ZomatoUninstalled trended on Twitter on Thursday, with many accusing the online food delivery platform of bias. # BoycottUberEats also caught on after UberEats backed its rival’s “Food has no religion” comment. Even as the incident had social media divided, the Jabalpur police in Madhya Pradesh sought an undertaking from the Zomato customer that he would not spread religious hatred. The controversy began on Tuesday when a Zomato customer tweeted: “Just cancelled an order on @ZomatoIN they allocated a non-Hindu rider for my food they said they can't change rider and can't refund on cancellation. I said you can't force me to take a delivery. I don't want don't refund just cancel.” In response, the official Twitter handle of Zomato tweeted, “Food doesn’t have a religion. It is a religion.” Zomato founder Deepinder Goyal tweeted: “We are proud of the idea of India — and the

Food delivery company Zomato won both praise and brickbats online after it refused to entertain a customer's complaint about being assigned a Muslim delivery executive for his order. "Food doesn't have a religion. It is a religion," Zomato tweeted in response to the customer's request for changing the delivery executive. On Tuesday night, Amit Shukla, a resident of Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, had tweeted about cancelling his Zomato order as the designated rider was a "non-Hindu". "Just cancelled an order on @ZomatoIN they allocated a non hindu rider for my food they said they can't change rider and can't refund on cancellation I said you can't force me to take a delivery I don't want don't refund just cancel," Shukla had tweeted. In a series of tweets, Shukla had also shared screenshots of his conversation with Zomato customer care, saying that he would take the issue to his lawyers. However, Zomato stood its

Food delivery company Zomato is winning the internet after it refused on Wednesday to resolve a customer's complaint about being assigned a Muslim delivery executive for his food order. "Food doesn't have a religion. It is a religion," the company tweeted in response to the customer's request for change of the rider. On Tuesday night, a man tweeted about cancelling his order placed on Zomato as the designated rider was a "non-Hindu". "Just cancelled an order on @ZomatoIN they allocated a non hindu rider for my food they said they can't change rider and can't refund on cancellation I said you can't force me to take a delivery I don't want don't refund just cancel," Amit Shukla, a resident of Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, tweeted. In a series of tweets, he also shared screenshots of his conversation with Zomato's customer care, saying he would take up the issue with his lawyers. The company stood its ground

With this move, Zomato further plans to launch in multiple new cities every month Companies News : Online food delivery platform Zomato on Friday announced its expansion of operations to seven cities including Dehradun, Agra, Patna, Mysore, Ranchi, Raipur and Aurangabad, making its presence stronger in tier II cities. "We're heads down focused on growing this business and are excited to bring Zomato's food delivery services to these cities. India is our largest focus market and growth in tier II and tier III cities has been really encouraging for us," said CEO, Zomato, Mohit Gupta. "We want to continue to reach out to more users in India, and make their interactions with restaurant much more seamless as compared to what they are right now," added Gupta. Earlier, Zomato launched its platform across 25 new cities in India, including Trivandrum, Vijayawada, Raipur, Madurai, Jodhpur, Thrissur, Ajmer amongst others. With this move, Zo

Zomato launched its online ordering and food delivery services in May 2015                    Companies News : Food ordering app Zomato on Wednesday said it has launched its restaurant reviews and ratings platform across 25 new cities in India, taking the number to 63 cities. Newly launched cities are Thiruvananthapuram, Vijayawada, Raipur, Madurai, Jodhpur, Thrissur, Ajmer, Manali, Alappuzha, Gorakhpur, Ooty, Kota, Manipal, Dharamshala, Jammu, Haridwar, Jalandhar, Rishikesh, Mussoorie, Udupi, Cuttack, Shimla, Palghat, Pushkar and Srinagar. "India continues to be our highest priority market and we will continue to expand and build further depth within the country. We are doing everything to take Zomato to more cities - to enable the growth of the restaurant industry and help our audience make better food choices," said Oytun Calapover, Global Head - Listings Business, Zomato. Zomato launched its online ordering and food delivery services in May 2015. G

Food delivery services are taxed at 18% which the restaurants have to pay Companies News : Online food delivery service companies like Swiggy are facing the heat from restaurants after the goods and services tax (GST) on eating outlets was cut to five per cent, from 18 per cent in November, and input tax credit provision was withdrawn. Some restaurants have started charging higher prices on online food delivery platforms. Others are negotiating a commission cut with online food delivery partners to make up for the 3.5 per cent additional cost due to unavailability of the input tax credit (ITC) facility. Swiggy, Zomato and Foodpanda provide online delivery services to restaurants at a commission of around 20 per cent, which is levied an 18 per cent GST. Unlike earlier, restaurants can no longer claim ITC on the 18 per cent GST for the input services from these delivery platforms. “These online food delivery companies have represented for a rate reduction or to allow IT