Tying up with Swiggy and Zomato: The Essential Guide to online food ordering aggregators

A tie up with online food ordering aggregators such as a Swiggy and Zomato is essential for any restaurant – big or small. In this article, we will be listing down all that you need to know about tying up with Swiggy or Zomato.

We will cover the following:

1. How to tie up with Swiggy and Zomato
2. Legal documents that you would need
3. Reasons behind the growth of Swiggy and Zomato
4. Advantages of linking up with Swiggy and Zomato
5. Disadvantages of linking up with Swiggy and Zomato
6. Alternatives to Swiggy and Zomato

How to tie up with Swiggy and Zomato?

We will be taking you through the steps involved in a tie up with Swiggy and Zomato. The processes involved are elaborate and the restaurants need to carefully fill out the details to get listed. Without further ado, let’s get started.

How to register on Swiggy

Before you begin the registration process, you would need to have a permanent address for your restaurant. And all the legal documents to support it.

Here are the steps you can take to partner with Swiggy

Step 1 – Go to Swiggy.com and click on the ‘Partner with Us’ link at the footer of the screen

Alternatively, you could directly click on the link below.

https://www.swiggy.com/partner-with-us

Step 2 – Fill in your basic details

• Name of your restaurant
• Pincode
• State
• Your Designation
• Contact Number

Step 3 – Click on Submit to have your application underway

Click on Yes for submitting some more information to proceed with your application.

Step 4 – Fill the detailed form and upload the required documents

You would need to have the following information:

1. Website or online listing Link
2. Number of outlets
3. The primary area of your restaurant
4. Typical cost for 2
5. Type of Cuisine

You would also need soft copies of the following:

1. Shop License
2. FSSAI License
3. GST number/PAN details

Additionally, you would need to have pictures of your restaurant outlet. Pictures of the facade, kitchen, dining and packaging examples, and locality shots. All in jpeg format.

Step 5 – Next, keep the following documents ready with you, as hard copies or originals.

1. Canceled cheque or passbook
2. An Image of your menu 
3. Take away bill

Step 6 – Once the detailed forms are filled up, a representative from Swiggy will contact you with the partnership agreement

Your restaurant should go live in 2- 3 weeks, from this time.

Step 7 – You will get a confirmation notification

You will shortly receive a notification via mail and a phone call that your restaurant has been registered.

Congratulations! You are now registered on Swiggy and can start accepting orders immediately.

You could also watch this video that lists down all the essential steps of registering on Swiggy.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rACI7Y0LkuE

How to register on Zomato?

Get your restaurant listed in Zomato in 5 easy steps.

Step 1 – Go to zomato.com and click on the “Add a restaurant” button at the bottom of the page

Alternatively, you can click on the following link to begin the registration process.

https://www.zomato.com/addrestaurant

Step 2 – Fill the basic form to get your application underway

You would need:

1. Restaurant name
2. City
3. Your credentials
4. Contact Number
5. Opening Status

Click on Add Restaurant once you provide the required information

Step 3 – Fill in the detailed form that follows

Here are the details that you must keep handy:

1. Address and the Google Maps location of your restaurant
2. Characteristics of your restaurant

• Alcohol/Non-Alcohol
• Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, Cafe, Nightlife
• Seating
• Mode of payments
• Type of Cuisine

3. Other details

• Operational timings
• Contact Information
• Restaurant website link
• Restaurant official email ID

Step 4: Congratulations! Your listing is now complete

Once you submit your listing, the verification process of your restaurant will start. Post verification, your page will go Live on Zomato.

Step 5: You might be contacted by a Zomato Sales Representative to cross-check the details 

You may want to keep the soft and hard copies of the following documents handy.

1. Shop License
2. FSSAI License
3. GST number
4. PAN details

Note: Don’t put any false or dummy information on Zomato, because they cross-check your data before it goes online.

You could also watch this video which lists down all the key steps of registering on Zomato.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/pDFXb9HNV2A

Legal requirements in the registration process?

You might have to tread carefully when it comes to keeping track of all the legal paperwork.

While Swiggy includes this in their application process, Zomato may also ask you for the legal documents during the verification process.

The following is a list of all the essential documents you will need to complete the verification process. It is essential that you have them, both the hard copies and soft copies, ready.

1. Restaurant registration paperwork
2. Shop License
3. FSSAI license
4. Owner’s PAN card

Also, after registration completion, keep in mind that:

1. You will now be liable to pay a 17-25% commission on all orders made through Zomato and Swiggy’s online ordering portal.
2. You may have to keep track of the menu and price details regularly to ensure they are reflected correctly.
3. You can get an API link done with your restaurant POS system and all your channels of online orders to ensure you stay on top of the status of all orders, at all times.

Reasons behind the growth of Swiggy and Zomato

According to Statista, the Online Food order delivery market is projected to grow by a compounded annual growth rate of 9.1% and that will result in a market volume of USD 11,569 million by the year 2023.

And in India, Swiggy and Zomato are synonymous with the online food delivery space. The success of these leading online food aggregators has attracted a lot of funding. In fact, the capital invested in these companies is now in billions. Swiggy, for instance, has raised more than a billion in a week and is the highest valued food delivery business in the country. Pretty impressive.

Here are the top reasons behind the astronomical growth of these companies:

1. The convenience of getting food delivered – The ease with which an individual can place an order today is amazing. Swiggy and Zomato have made it extremely convenient for people to log in and place orders. No need to now call up and struggle to get heard or rush to the nearest outlet.
2. The growth of the smartphone culture – The success of many online food delivery companies can be attributed to the easy availability of smartphones loaded with high-speed processors, all at extremely affordable rates. Added to this, the rise of internet technology has further improved the user experience. Most internet providers now provide 4G technology which provides superfast data services.
3. Savvy Marketing – The Swiggies and Zomato’s have spent thousands of dollars in getting their marketing right. Be it the TV advertisements, or the youtube video ads or the OOH advertisements.
4. Ever increasing restaurant options – Especially attractive to millennials, is the option of choosing between various options. People love to experiment. They love trying out different restaurants, different cuisines, different locations, and all these filters are now built into these online ordering platforms.
5. Easy and flexible payment gateways – The convenience of payment which these food delivery startups are offering cannot be ignored. Be it cash or debit/credit cards, wallets,  customers are enjoying the flexible modes of payment. Also, the security layers embedded help address any hesitation of paying online.
6. Restaurant reviews – People want to make informed decisions while choosing a restaurant. Every restaurant profile also has a star rating which shows how people have rated the restaurant. Also, customers like to add detailed descriptions about what they liked or disliked about an experience.

Advantages of partnering with Swiggy and Zomato

There are several advantages of being linked with an online food ordering platform.

1. Piggyback on Swiggy’s or Zomato’s marketing to get people to find you – It is always challenging to formulate a marketing strategy for your restaurant. A strategy that encompasses all the essential marketing levers – website, social media, app, billboards, TV commercials, YouTube ads, Search Engine Optimisation, Google Ads, CRM – email and SMS and so on. Swiggy spends a fortune on ads and marketing. In other words, they make you more visible by having you on their platform. That is why they charge that heavy commision rate.
2. No need to care about delivery – Managing deliveries is always a tedious task. Taking orders from customers directly is also a pain. Swiggy and Zomato do that for you. The core selling proposition of the leading food aggregators is timely delivery and excellent order tracking. The success of a food aggregator relies on the customer experience it is able to provide. Although, off-late there has been a growing trend of restaurants hiring their own delivery fleet.
3. Reviews on Swiggy and Zomato – Swiggy and Zomato have built great products that help customers discover new places to eat. Swiggy and Zomato provide excellent platforms for customers to compare restaurants, check out what people are saying about them and then make a well-informed decision.
4. Built for customer service as a priority – With their excellent order tracking features, customers can now stay updated on the status of their deliveries. In the rare occasion of trouble with delivery, they are very quick to respond and solve queries. In fact, if they happen to delay the customer’s order, they are likely to compensate them with free credits for the next order. Customer service is of paramount importance to their brand and they never compromise on that.
5. Get traffic in the tune of thousands – The leading online food order aggregators get a lot of traffic on their platforms. This is due to their all-round marketing and promotion efforts over the last few years that has cemented their brand in the minds of users. With traffic coming into their platforms in huge numbers, it is more likely for an order to come through to you.

Disadvantages of partnering with Swiggy and Zomato

1. High Commision Rates – Commissions are the biggest disadvantage of tying up with a Swiggy and Zomato. Currently, at 17-30%, this number was at a single digit number when the online food delivery market was starting out. Since then the rates have more than doubled. This should be a cause for concern for restaurants as nothing stops the aggregators from increasing their commissions even further. Restaurant owners in a few states are already contesting the high commission rates charged by online food aggregator. Case in point, the recent stories from Kerala and Ahmedabad.
2. Reduced profit margins – Higher costs of tying up with a Swiggy or a Zomato is eating up on the profit margins of the restaurant. As a Swiggy and Zomato are raking in the mind space of a customer, it becomes increasingly difficult for restaurants to move away from this set-up, even though the net revenue they get per order is largely diminished.
3. Limited space to advertise and brand yourself – When you tie up with a Swiggy or a Zomato you are given a small space to promote and advertise yourself. You might want to run your special offers, run your campaigns, promote the dish of the day but alas. You find yourself constrained by the aggregators’ guidelines. This really inhibits your marketing strategy. Also, who wants to be known as a discount brand?
4. Inability to differentiate from the competition – With a Swiggy or a Zomato tie up, you run the risk of getting lost in the crowd of listings. At which point it becomes about price. So if your restaurant has a unique concept or you serve a special experience it is likely to go unnoticed.

Alternatives to Swiggy and Zomato?

Clearly, there are drawbacks of associating your brand with a Swiggy’s and a Zomato’s. What are the alternatives then?

1. Have your own online food ordering system – Now it is very easy to have your own online ordering website and app. Its merits are obvious.
2. Do your own marketing and advertising the way you want – Now you can build your own set of promotions, run your ads, use eye-catching images and direct traffic to your website or app.
3. More online space – Yes now you don’t need to share your space with other brands. With your own website and app, you can enjoy control of your own space
4. No more commissions to be paid to 3rd party – With Zomato and Swiggy you always lose out on a healthy fraction of your profit through commissions. And the percentage rate just keeps going north. With your own ordering platform, you will benefit through higher margins.
5. Tie up with the smaller players – if you do not want to tie u with a Swiggy or a Zomato, you can think about choosing the smaller players out there. Like Uber eats, Tiny Owl, Foodpanda – their platforms are currently less crowded and you can benefit through higher visibility on their platforms.

Summing Up

In this article, we have presented you the guide to tying up with Swiggy and Zomato. We have also highlighted the merits and demerits of linking up with them.

Our verdict? Whilst it may be a good idea to sign up with them, the need for your own Online Ordering Platform is now greater than ever. Not only to establish your brand in the competitive online food ordering market but to reduce your dependency on third parties.

As always, more power to you!