Rapido To Enter Online Food Delivery Market, Offering Lower Restaurant Commissions: Report

Bike-taxi app service Rapido is all set to enter the online food delivery market in India, giving tough competition to current market leaders Swiggy and Zomato. Rapido is looking to disrupt the market by offering significantly lower commission rates for restaurants, as per reports.

Rapido has agreed to the commercial terms with restaurants through a partnership deal with the National Restaurants Association of India (NRAI), The Economic Times reported. NRAI represents over 500,000 restaurants.

"This will especially help small restaurants," one executive told the media outlet, further adding that a dry run is expected in Bengaluru by late June or early July.

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The executives said that Rapido is expected to charge 8-15% commissions from restaurants based on the order value. The amount is significantly lower compared to Zomato and Swiggy, as they charge 16-30%. As per reports, Rapido will charge a fixed fee of Rs 25 on orders below Rs 400 and Rs 50 on orders over Rs 400.

"We've been in discussion with Rapido over the last few months, just the way we are working closely with ONDC. We are discussing a structure which is economically and democratically much more viable for restaurants to sustain," NRAI president Sagar Daryani told the media outlet, without revealing specific details of the terms.

"It's also very important for us to know our customers and the same has been candidly communicated to them," Daryani added.

NDTV has reached out to Rapido's co-founder for more details.

Ola, Uber have tried entering online food delivery market

Rapido is not the first app to step into the online food delivery market. Ola made successful attempts to launch Ola Cafe in 2015 and acquired Foodpanda India in 2017. Meanwhile, Ola has recently re-entered through the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), which is a government-backed digital platform.

Similarly, Uber Eats, was launched in India as an online food ordering and delivery platform by the company Uber in 2017. But it couldn't survive, as Uber exited the market after selling its business to Zomato. As part of the deal, Uber would own a 10% stake in Zomato.

Rapido says it ensures that customers get quickly at the most affordable prices. Currently, the app provides services including bike, auto, auto share, parcel, cab economy and cab premium.