zomato gold loyalty programme: Zomato tweaks Gold loyalty programme

Food-delivery company Zomato has tweaked its loyalty programme, Gold, by discontinuing ‘on-time guarantee’ benefits for memberships purchased or renewed from November 25, 2023.

Existing Gold members are still being offered the benefits until renewal, sources said.

The Gurugram-based company had introduced the ‘on-time guarantee’ feature in 2019 for members of the Gold programme in its earlier avatar at select restaurants. If the food wasn’t delivered within the stipulated time, the company provided a discount coupon to the customer for their next order. It extended the feature to Gold when it was relaunched in January 2023.

Also read | ETtech Explainer: how restaurants responded to Zomato Gold’s comeback

Zomato’s biggest rival in the food-delivery space, Swiggy, also has its own subscription service Swiggy One, which provides benefits across food delivery, quick commerce and parcel deliveries such as discounts and free delivery.

Queries sent to Zomato did not elicit a response.

Zomato prices the Gold membership at Rs 999 for three months but offers it to users at a discounted rate of Rs 149 or Rs 99 for three months. Similarly, Swiggy also prices its One loyalty programme at Rs 1,299 for three months but offers it at a discounted rate.

In October, Swiggy launched a cheaper version of its loyalty programme called Swiggy One Lite at an introductory price of Rs 99 for three months with limited benefits compared to the main programme.

Over the years, the Gold membership, which was relaunched in January last year, has become an integral part of its service offerings, being a significant driver of the company’s sales.

However, it required some ‘fine-tuning’ to minimise its impact on the company’s overall profitability, ET had reported earlier.

About 40% of the gross order value in the quarter ended September 2023 was driven by users of the Gold subscription, the membership base of which increased to 3.8 million from 2 million in the previous quarter.

Despite this growth, the expansion of the Gold subscription programme had an impact on margins which was attributed to factors such as minimal delivery charges paid by Gold members, the firm said in its quarterly letter to shareholders.

The company has been scaling down on some of its earlier initiatives like Zomato Legends, under which the company had started intercity delivery of food. It has scaled back this programme in certain cities and shifted its focus to an up to 60-minute delivery service for pre-stocked food items.

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