After waging an all-out war against steep discounts by online food aggregators in the dine-in segment, the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has now asked delivery platforms to do away with deep discounts while addressing other issues.
The NRAI wrote to Swiggy, Zomato, Uber Eats and Food Panda on Monday to resolve the issues.
In letters written to all major online delivery aggregators, the association has said that during its interaction with restaurant operators, it was observed that operators displayed strong resentment at the current status of transparency, forced discounting, uneven commission structure and general high-handedness of the aggregators in the food delivery space.
"There was a high demand of immediately extending the #Logout movement to the delivery vertical as well. However, our responsibility as an industry body compelled us to engage in dialogue first," the letter said.
As in the case of dine-in services, the industry body complained about discounts being offered in the delivery segment throughout the year.
"Discounts are a privilege and are extended on occasions. However, in the current environment, deep discounts, ranging from 30-70 per cent, are being deployed 365 days of delivery platforms."
This distorts the market and hinders profitable growth of the sector. These discounts are not sustainable nor are they beneficial to the industry at large," the letter said.
The association reiterated its stand that these discounts are mostly funded by restaurant operators and sometimes under "veiled coercion".
The letter also spoke of uneven commission charges. It said these charges are predatory and delivery service providers revised the charges unilaterally.
Over the last 11 days, restaurants across the country led by the NRAI carried out the '#logout' campaign against deep discounts provided by food service aggregators (FSAs) in dine-in services, and a lot of the restaurants have logged out of the services of the aggregators.
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