Paytm Enters the Food Delivery Market With Zomato to Rival Swiggy

Paytm is the latest mobile player to enter the hyperactive food delivery business, rivaling Swiggy and Uber Eats.

Food ordering comes to Paytm users.

(Photo: The Quint)

Paytm is popular for its mobile payment service in the country and now it wants a similar response in the food delivery market as well. The payment platform is eyeing its next scalp and has started offering food deliveries in cities like Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune and Chennai among others.

This business, in a unique partnership with Zomato goes in direct competition with established names like Swiggy, Uber Eats and Ola (via Foodpanda) also in the reckoning.

Paytm tried its luck in other avenues like Paytm Mall for e-commerce and Inbox for social messaging over the past six months or so. The brand has prospered, ever since the country was hit with the demonetisation shocker by the Indian government in 2016. It claims to have over 200 million users and one of the top ranked player in terms of UPI transactions.

The service is available via the Paytm app, where in you’ll be able to see the Food Ordering section. Click on that to check out hotel/restaurants that are delivering in your area.

Starting with Delhi-NCR, this partnership will cover more than 80 thousand restaurants across 121 cities by the end of this month

Zomato India

Choose from a list of restaurants on the Paytm app. (Photo: The Quint)

The interface, as expected is blue coloured but functionality wise, it’s not very different from how Zomato works and that is understandable. This ensures that people don’t have a big learning curve to get used to and that’s a clever ploy by Paytm and Zomato.

Paytm continues to use its blue colour code for the service. (Photo: The Quint)

This partnership makes a lot of sense for both the parties, with Zomato looking to expand its reach, aided by Paytm and its access to more mobile users.

Paytm has a strong user-base in tier 2 & tier 3 cities, where users frequently use its services for a wide array of every day payments and Food & Beverage is among one of the largest payment categories for Paytm both in terms of volume and number of transactions.

Zomato India

The food delivery market has exploded and is flooded with many delivery services and unlike its payment space, Paytm will have its work cut out to attract existing Swiggy loyalists. What could work in Paytm’s favour are cashbacks which the company is known for dishing out, along with Zomato’s Gold offering, will counter varied loyalty programs from Swiggy.

Industry trends suggest that people aren’t too keen on using one app for all services like payment, food delivery and messaging, and changing this pattern will play a big role in Paytm’s success or premature demise in this segment.