No renewals or new patrons: Zomato takes Pro off menu

Food tech platform Zomato is recalibrating its loyalty packages, and has closed new signal ups and renewals for its flagship program Zomato Pro, The Indian Express has learnt. The firm had already shut down the extra premium iteration Zomato Pro Plus earlier, and revised the phrases of its co-branded bank card with RBL Bank.

The Gurgaon-based firm launched Zomato Pro in 2020 and Zomato Pro Plus in 2021. The Zomato Pro program changed the Zomato Gold membership providing. Pro members get reductions whereas ordering meals on-line from or eating out at accomplice eating places.

In a message to customers attempting to resume their expired Pro membership, Zomato says: “Thank you for being a part of the Zomato Pro program. The membership is unavailable for renewal as we are working on a new and better experience for you. We request you to check the Zomato app to stay updated on the latest offerings.”

Confirming the event in response to queries despatched by The Indian Express, a Zomato spokesperson mentioned: “While Zomato Pro and Pro Plus have been loved tremendously by our customers and merchants, we want it to be even more beneficial, especially for the most engaged customers and merchant partners.”

“We are taking feedback and working closely with our customers and restaurant partners to craft a new program. Meanwhile, we are not onboarding new members and merchant partners to Zomato Pro and Zomato Pro Plus. While active members can continue to get their benefits as promised, they will not be able to extend/renew their memberships once their membership tenure expires,” the spokesperson added.

In a separate message to the customers of Zomato’s co-branded bank card, RBL Bank and the meals tech platform mentioned that September 20 onwards, it was capping the cashback from orders positioned on the app utilizing the co-branded bank card to 500 Edition Cash a day (1 Edition Cash is redeemable as Re 1 for subsequent Zomato orders).

Zomato presents 5 per cent money again on spends executed on its app. Under the brand new situations, the corporate has additionally added spends executed on the Blinkit app to the cashback scheme. Zomato lately acquired quick-commerce platform Blinkit, previously often known as Grofers.

ExplainedEye on newer use circumstances

The choice to pause onboarding of latest members in addition to to resume the membership of current ones on Zomato Pro comes amid the corporate’s technique of introducing newer use circumstances, targeted extra on eating out. These plans are unfolding as Zomato makes an attempt to additional slim its losses.

These latest selections are in step with Zomato’s new technique of trying past loyalty packages to drive buyer frequency. In its earnings name for the April-June quarter earlier this month, Zomato’s chief monetary officer Akshant Goyal mentioned, “I think if you have to go from where we are today and meaningfully increase customer frequency, we will have to look beyond these loyalty programs and look at introducing newer use cases, which perhaps leads to a lot of the current offline spend on restaurant food moving on to our platform.”

The firm reported a consolidated internet lack of Rs 186 crore for the three-month interval ended June, in contrast with Rs 359.70 crore within the March quarter and Rs 360.70 crore within the quarter ended June 30, 2021. This, at the same time as its topline grew to Rs 1,413.90 crore in April-June this yr, towards Rs 844.40 crore in the identical interval final yr.

The firm mentioned meals supply enterprise grew 15 per cent sequentially and noticed a break-even in adjusted EBITDA (earnings earlier than curiosity, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) — a measure of its working margins.

Newsletter | Click to get the day’s greatest explainers in your inbox

Zomato’s chief rival within the meals tech house Swiggy too runs its loyalty program Swiggy One, which was launched in November final yr.

Swiggy operates this program as a standard membership for the bouquet of providers it gives, together with meals supply, quick-commerce and native door-to-door package deal supply.

The Swiggy One program presents the app’s customers limitless free deliveries from choose eating places and limitless free supply from Instamart on orders larger than Rs 99 in worth, along with different reductions and no surge charges.