Food tech platform Zomato is recalibrating its loyalty programs and has closed new signups and renewals for its flagship Zomato Pro program, The Indian Express has learned. The company previously discontinued the premium iteration Zomato Pro Plus and revised the terms of its co-branded credit card with RBL Bank.
The Gurgaon-based company launched Zomato Pro in 2020 and Zomato Pro Plus in 2021. The Zomato Pro program replaced the Zomato Gold membership offering. Pro members receive discounts when ordering food online or eating out at partner restaurants.
In a message to users trying to renew their expired Pro membership, Zomato says, “Thank you for being part of the Zomato Pro program. Membership cannot be renewed as we are working on a new and better experience for you. We encourage you to check the Zomato app to keep up to date with the latest deals.”
A Zomato spokesman confirmed the development in response to inquiries from The Indian Express, saying, “While the Zomato Pro and Pro Plus have been greatly loved by our customers and dealers, we want it to be even more beneficial, especially for the most dedicated customers and dealer partners.” .”
“We’re taking feedback and working closely with our customers and restaurant partners to create a new program. In the meantime, we are not accepting new members and resellers for Zomato Pro and Zomato Pro Plus. While active members can continue to receive their promised benefits, they will not be able to renew/renew their membership after their membership expires,” the spokesperson added.
In a separate message to users of Zomato’s co-branded credit card, RBL Bank and the food tech platform said that starting September 20, they will be offering cashback on orders placed with the co-branded credit card through the app to 500 Edition Cash per day (1 Edition Cash is redeemable as Re 1 on subsequent Zomato orders).
Zomato offers 5 percent cashback on expenses made with its app. Under the new terms, the company has also added spend made using the Blinkit app to the cashback program. Zomato recently acquired quick commerce platform Blinkit, formerly known as Grofers.
Watch out for newer use cases
The decision to pause the onboarding of new members and renew the membership of existing members in Zomato Pro aligns with the company’s strategy of introducing newer use cases that are more focused on restaurant dining. These plans unfold as Zomato tries to further cut his losses.
These latest decisions are consistent with Zomato’s new strategy to go beyond loyalty programs to increase customer traffic. In his earnings call for the April-June quarter earlier this month, Akshant Goyal, Zomato’s Chief Financial Officer, said, “I think if you need to go from where we are today and increase footfall meaningfully, we need to have these loyalty programs.” look out and see the launch of newer use cases, potentially leading to a majority of the current offline spend on restaurant food being moved to our platform.”
The company reported a consolidated net loss of Rs 186 crore for the three month period ended June, compared with Rs 359.70 crore for the March quarter and Rs 360.70 crore for the quarter ended 30 June 2021. This was despite its turnover increasing to Rs 1,413.90 crore in April-June this year versus Rs 844.40 crore in the same period last year.
The company said its grocery delivery business grew 15 percent sequentially and reached breakeven in adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) — a measure of its operating margins.
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Zomato’s main competitor in the food tech space, Swiggy, also operates its loyalty program, Swiggy One, which launched last November.
Swiggy operates this program as a shared membership for the services it provides, including grocery delivery, quick trade and local door-to-door parcel delivery.
The Swiggy One program offers app users unlimited free delivery from selected restaurants and unlimited free delivery from Instamart on orders over Rs 99 in value, on top of other discounts and with no additional fees.
