As the private label launched by the two dominant food aggregators, Zomato and Swiggy, threaten to derail the dine in business of the restauraterurs, National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), the apex national body of restauraterurs, has amplified it's engagement with ONDC to break the stranglehold of the two dominant e-commerce giants on the industry.
As the private label launched by the two dominant food aggregators, Zomato and Swiggy, threaten to derail the dine in business of the restauraterurs, National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI), the apex national body of restauraterurs, has amplified it's engagement with ONDC to break the stranglehold of the two dominant e-commerce giants on the industry.
“Together we will work towards making ONDC the third alternative to ensure that we have access to our data, are able to do business with reduced commission and deliver the best product and experiences to customers without deep discounting. The moment we get our commission levels cheaper, and are able to do business without deep discounting our PNL will become viable. ONDC is one platform that can make it happen,” Daryani said.
He said that they are working out parameters of partnership with ONDC and once that happens NRAI will organise another townhall to brief its members on the parameters as well as way to get onboarded on the platform.
“We have already lost the ground in the delivery business completely to food aggregators. We cannot afford the same to happen in the dine-in business,” he said.
If the marketplace platforms are not complying, the industry has to consider alternatives Daryani said adding that 20 percent of the food delivery business in Bengaluru is currently handled by ONDC and it can be further escalated and replicated in other cities.
Moderating the Townhall, Anurag Katriar, founder and MD of Indigo Hospitality and trustee of NRAI said that while the industry is not against e-commerce platforms enabling the businesses, what they are doing is dollar dumbing. These heavily funded e-commerce platforms, he said, are bothered about valuations and not profitability.