Restaurant search and discovery platform Zomato moved into the transactions space earlier this year following the addition of online ordering support. It now plans to enter the table reservation service with “Zomato Book”.
Likely to be launched over the next “couple of weeks”, the service will allow customers to book tables at restaurants real-time, says Pramod Rao, Senior Vice-President – Growth, Zomato. The Gurgaon-headquartered company has secured funding of $225 million and has 26 million hits every month here in India.
In an interview to
Transactions or customer service areas were always on the platform even when we began as a search. It was more to do with when was the correct time for the market. In fact, Deepinder Goyal (one of the founders) very early on started an online ordering service, which he shut down because the market was not ready then. So it was definitely on the cards. And with many players coming on (in the food delivery space), it accelerated our decision to get into the market.
And if you look at us, we have a very strong base on which we can roll out these services – be it delivery, table reservation or cash-less payments.
How has the segment fared so far?
We have got around 10,000 orders per day with an average order size of ₹600. We are present in 14 cities and sign up about 12,000 restaurants. It shows that having the search bit only helped rolled out these services with far more ease. Right now the focus will be on these 14 cities.
Advertisements have been the main revenue churner for Zomato. How will the mix change post entry into transactions?
Advertisements are still is a major part. In the long run, as we roll out online ordering, table booking, cash-less payments and so on, the ad space will be one third of our revenue and we expect the transactions businesses to be two-thirds.
After online delivery, what’s next for users?
We intend to roll out the table reservation in a couple of weeks, called Zomato Book. Testing is being done. We will start the roll-out with India, the UAE and probably Australia. We acquired NexTable in April 2015 with the intention of facilitating the roll-out of Zomato Book. We will use their technology. Through the technology, users will be able to book tables real time and restaurants will be able to manage the tables booked (either through Zomato, walk-in or otherwise) and keep track of every customers through a dashboard that we will provide.
And will Zomato Book be a paid service?
No. Users won’t be charged. The restaurants will have to pay a subscription – a flat fee per month.
When can the company roll out the cashless payment facility in India?
Basically, there’s a two step authentication process that hinders the user experience. So we are not yet planning to roll it out here. The focus, at present, will be on online ordering and table reservation.
Any plans to be an app-only player?
Not at the moment. We would like to be wherever our customers are. And currently, we see a 50-50 split (between Web and app users). So I don’t think in the immediate future we will become an app-only player.
Are there new acquisitions on the cards?
As of now there are no immediate plans. But acquisitions are something that we take on a case-to-case basis. For example, if we are looking to expand geographically we take a look at the country and if there’s an existing product or team that has something on similar lines, we are happy to speak to them and see if they are willing to work with us. Or we might build from scratch if we identify a significant gap. The same logic applies on the technology side.
So what’s the expansion plan going forward?
What we are doing is opening up our platform so that communities can build a Zomato, on their own. Currently, we are in 22 countries and teams go to each and every restaurant and collect the information. Once we open the platform for others to create content on Zomato – something on the lines of UrbanSpoon model – we will expand rapidly. So we do have the technology to expand further.
We intend to open up the platform sometime in early next year. And three and four years after that happens, we can be there in 100 countries.