Tag: Zomato

Zomato Successfully Tests Aerial Food Delivery

Indian food search and delivery startup Zomato have successfully tested aerial food delivery by using a drone. In a blog post by a senior company executive, it has been revealed that the test was conducted using a hybrid drone. It was conducted as a part of Zomato’s attempt at reducing the time taken to deliver food to customers. While in its initial stage, the service is expected to be more mainstream and may roll out in the following months.

Zomato Aerial Food Delivery

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As mentioned above, Zomato has successfully tested food delivery via a drone. The news arrives a few months after the company acquired the Indian drone startup called TechEagle. In the blog post, it is claimed the teams of both companies worked together for the test. The drone covered a distance of 5kms in a time period of 10 minutes; with a peak speed of 80kmph while carrying a payload of 5kgs. As it was a non-commercial delivery, it is not known where the drone dropped off the package. According to Zomato, when the service is ready, the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) will pick up the food package from the restaurant hub; and drop the package at a customer hub, which will be a landing station close to dense communities. To fly back, the drone will use a mix of various flight modes to navigate to the dispatch site.

Also read: Pixel 4 Design Revealed By Google

To fly a drone in India currently, a slew of permissions from the government is required. Zomato claims it is forming a consortium as per the guidelines of the DGCA (Director General of Civil Aviation); to carry out remote drone operations in India. The company is also looking forward to solving issues like pollution and traffic by using a drone for food delivery. Unfortunately, it is not known when the service will start rolling out commercially, but the successful test insinuates it may be introduced soon.

June 13, 2019
Zomato’s New Service Allows Restaurants to Create Independent Apps

In a bid to further expand their already growing food-tech market, Zomato has launched its very own Whitelabel platform that gives power to restaurant owners to set up their own custom-branded mobile app on iOS and Android. This is Zomato’s latest move in allowing restaurants to have a more direct and personal relationship with its customers. Zomato also stated that the customized app can be created and managed with no technical expertise necessary.

Restaurateurs will be able to set up their app and provide real-time menus and prices, and other information, while also allowing direct reservations without having customers do it through the Zomato app. The app will also offer photos and offers, push notifications on upcoming events and promotions to targeted customers. Overall, the idea is to help restaurants connect with their customers, and to provide customers greater satisfaction and value offers from restaurants they frequent.

A similar kind of app called Wisely was launched in Ann Arbor just last week and serves the Ann Arbor market providing personalized services to customers. A few other adopters of whitelabel platforms include the Summer House Café in New Delhi, Miyabi Sushi in Dubai, and Shizuku Ramen in Melbourne. However, none of them have managed to launch it as big as Zomato intends.

“There is not one single service provider for restaurants which can give them the entire suite of technologies required to run an internet presence closely integrated with the operations of their business,” said Ashish Goel, Chief of Product and Design, Zomato.

Zomato has stated that the service will be available in all the 22 countries it currently operates, and will provide a subscription based service at approximately $200 a month per location. The service should be up and running by the end of September.

September 8, 2015
Zomato Will Soon Help You Locate Disabled-Friendly Restaurants

The social media was abuzz in March, when Nipun Malhotra – a disability rights activist tweeted that he, “Was declined entry at Keya Delhi, DLF Promenade because they don’t allow ‘disabled’ inside!” And as a response to his feedback, Zomato, is all set to announce a new feature by introducing a ‘disabled-friendly’ filter.

The above story does have another side to it, with Keya representatives clarifying that Malhotra had earlier dined there and had been welcomed because the restaurant was disabled-friendly, but he was denied entry because he was part of a stag group on Holi.

According to reports, Malhotra got in touch with the Zomato executives, who welcomed this suggestion and are said to have already begun collecting data from restaurants focusing on establishments that are accessible through wheelchair.

This idea is said to have struck him after having visited the Unites States, where he discovered that the popular restaurant listing service Yelp featured the disabled-friendly indicator for establishments that offered ramps and other disabled-friendly facilities.

The Zomato disabled-friendly feature is said to be implemented in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai within the next two weeks.

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August 12, 2015
Zomato Takes Online Food Delivery to the Next Level with its New App ‘Order’

In March, Zomato launched a delivery system where customers can place an order on its site and the same is delivered at their homes. More recently, Zomato had partnered along with Uber to help customers book cabs to the restaurant they are planning to eat. Now, the company is preparing to launch another new app called Zomato Order for its Android and iOS users.

The new yellow app’s primary functionality lies only on delivery of food. However, both, the native app and the new Order app, are intertwined in functionality. Users can switch from the older Zomato app to the new one instantly.

Zomato’s official blog reads that there are three main reasons as to why a new app is being launched. One, the focus on a single function will improve user experiences, thus making it a hassle-free app. Second, the new app will not have to be updated along with the native app and vice versa. Lastly, the two apps will be linked to each other in such a way that users will be able to look up to the restaurant in the Zomato app, and place the delivery order in the Order app.

Zomato explained,

Having two separate apps allows us to build lightweight apps that get straight to solving the problems you face. Actions that are core to the app experience can be given priority of position, and we aren’t forced into making real estate compromises.

The Order app is currently available for users in NCR and will soon be released for Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata users. Zomato is also working on a variety of new apps. One such app is ‘Zomato Book’ which will deal only with table reservations and is scheduled for launch in the next few months.

May 11, 2015
You Can Now Book an Uber Cab Using Your Zomato App

Zomato is collaborating with the cab company, Uber, to help customers book cabs to the restaurant they are planning to eat at. This announcement came after Zomato acquired NexTable, an online table reservation app based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

This partnership has been rolled out to Zomato users across 27 cities across 13 countries including India, Australia, Canada, UK, Indonesia, South Africa, New Zealand, Philippines, Qatar, Turkey, Portugal, UAE and the US. The feature is already live for users in London and South Africa, and it will roll out soon in the other countries mentioned.

Commenting on the new feature, Pankaj Chaddah, Co-Founder and COO of Zomato, said:

[quote text_size=”small” author=”Pankaj Chaddah” author_title=”Co-Founder and COO of Zomato”]

We’re constantly looking for ways to make every meal, for everyone, a great experience. This partnership makes eating out more convenient with the Zomato app connecting to Uber services seamlessly.

[/quote]

How does it work? Once you have found a suitable restaurant on the Zomato, an Uber button appears on the restaurant page. This shows the estimated fare and the time required for the cab to arrive at your location, hence serving your needs. Seems like a favourable development for both the companies, as well as the customers.

April 23, 2015
Zomato to Start Food Delivery Service in India

Zomato is making headlines every other week. About a month back, Zomato acquired Urbanspoon, a restaurant information and recommendation service in the US and just few days back, it expanded beyond search by debuting its cashless payment system in Dubai. Now, the company is planning to get closer to their customers by reaching their doorstep.

The online restaurant discovery service is geared to launch a delivery service where users can place an order on Zomato, and it will deliver the same to your home. The service will commence in India on 16^th March and will cover 2,000 restaurants initially. The company expects to increase the count to 10,000 within one month of the launch of the service.

The CEO and Co-Founder of Zomato Deepinder Goyal said –

We have a sales team of around 300 in India and 5,000-odd advertisers… these partners know the volume we bring to them so it is quite easy for us to launch this [new service]

The service is presently in testing mode which includes 500 staff and a few restaurants. Goyal drew some light on its workings saying that the company will provide the restaurants with an iPad, which will be fitted with an app. This app will transform the iPad into a hotline and order will be taken through it. After each order, users will be asked for their rating and on the basis of the evaluation, the restaurants’ profile will be displayed.

With Zomato’s reach to millions of people across India, there is a pressure on the restaurants to make timely deliveries. After all, the site is a dominant medium for free advertising.

February 12, 2015
Coming Soon: Dine-and-Dash Using Zomato’s Cashless Payment Feature

The popular restaurant discovery service Zomato is getting bigger and better with every passing day. After spreading its reach to more than 22 nations across the globe, Zomato is leaving no stone unturned to become everybody’s to-go service. The restaurant search service recently introduced a new feature that allows you to pay from the app itself, without peeking into your wallet for a card or hard cash.

The cashless payment system on the app is launched in Dubai as of now, but the company will soon release it in India this year. The Co-Founder and COO of Zomato, Pankaj Chaddah, confirmed the same in a conversation with a leading publishing daily.

We definitely plan to introduce it in India over the course of the year. Once we see how this does in Dubai however, we’ll get a better idea as to what we can expect when we roll it out on home turf.

Let’s take a look at how the Zomato’s cashless feature works. When a person visits a partnered restaurant and checks in through the app, the ID gets connected to the billing system. It totally depends on the user how he/she wishes to pay. If the customer opts to pay through the cashless payment option, the payment method integrates with the billing system of the restaurant and the amount gets deducted.

The company said that Dubai was the ideal city to test the new feature as credit card users. On the other hand, Indians prefer to pay the bill via cash and not by card. Meanwhile, users can pay through the app at the participating restaurants, but the company will continuously be adding more restaurants to its list.

For now, the feature is released for Zomato iOS only, but Android users can expect it soon.

February 4, 2015
After Acquiring US-Based UrbanSpoon, Zomato to be Available in 22 Countries Globally

It is a big day for foodies, as one of their favourite restaurant guide, Zomato, has entered the US market with the recent acquisition of UrbanSpoon. According to TechCrunch, the acquisition is worth $50-60 million, however, the company didn’t disclose the terms of the deal.

Urbanspoon is an IAC-owned restaurant information and recommendation service that operates in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Urbanspoon’s apps are known for their randomized Slot Machine. Users tap the ‘Spin’ button (or shake the device) to see new places to try based on neighborhood, cuisine or price.

This is one of the biggest deal in the food service industry as well as it marks the entry of Zomato in the USA market. Zomato claims that the deal is one of the largest purchases of a U.S-based consumer Internet company by an Indian start-up.

This latest deal, the sixth and biggest acquisition so far by Zomato, will be an all-cash transaction powered by the Gurgaon-based company’s most recent round of funding that closed in November. According to the founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal, most of Urbanspoon’s current staff will be retained, but its traffic and information will be redirected to Zomato’s apps and website by the end of March.

With US in its portfolio, Zomato has now reached 22 countries. Zomato last year acquired five restaurant search players in New Zealand, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Italy. The purchase should more than triple its database of restaurants, bringing the total up to over a million. In US, Zomato will compete with the likes of Google-backed online food listing portal Zagat and OpenTable. The deal will also help Zomato enter the Australian and Canadian market.

Zomato has recently revamped its online portal making it more like a Facebook for foodies. In the future, the company intends to add mobile payment options along with the ability to search among specific food items. Right now, Zomato’s biggest competition is Yelp which operates in about 28 countries and lists business ranging from restaurants to beauty salons and spas.

January 13, 2015