Zomato To Scrap Its Grocery Delivery Service From September 17

Online food delivery platform Zomato will stop its grocery delivery service from September 17 due to gaps in fulfilling the orders, which, in turn, is leading to poor customer experience. Instead, the company believes, that its investment in Grofers will help generate better outcomes for its stakeholders than putting in efforts into its in-house grocery services. In an email to its grocery partners, Zomato told PTI that the company wants to terminate its pilot grocery delivery service soon as it doesn’t think the current model is serving them the best way possible to deliver service to their customers.

The mail by Zomato said that the company believed in delivering the best services to its customers and the largest growth opportunities to their merchant partners. But the current model was not proving to be the best way to deliver services. Zomato made it clear that the company wanted to scrap its pilot grocery delivery service from September 17, 2021.

The email also mentioned that store catalogues were dynamic and inventory levels kept changing, making it difficult for Zomato to provide a satisfying customer experience. A Zomato spokesperson, too, accepted that the company wanted to shut its grocery delivery service and, as of now, had no plan to run any other form of grocery delivery on its platform.

Grofers, on the other hand, promises grocery delivery in 10 minutes. So, Zomato believes that its investment in the company will help generate better outcomes for the shareholders. Zomato has said to have invested $100 million in Grofers, which is around Rs 735 crores.

A couple of months ago, Zomato CEO Akshant Goyal had approved the idea of online grocery and said that it was growing rapidly across the world, including India, and was a big opportunity.

Zomato had launched the pilot grocery delivery service in July this year, promising delivery to customers in 45 minutes.