When Amazon Foods entered the food delivery business two years ago, most believed that it could seriously oust or pose a major threat to existing players Swiggy and Zomato.
Amazon Foods charged lower commissions of 10-15 per cent against 20-30 per cent by Swiggy and Zomato.
Now, the company plans to amp up its businesses by introducing the service in more cities. However, for Amazon, the pilot journey was a steep uphill climb.
According to a report in The Economic Times, the company will expand but in a very calculated manner, taking its learnings from its Bengaluru pilot project.
One of the major issues it faced in the IT hub was hesitancy to get restaurants onboard due to its stringent checklist.
According to the publication, Amazon Foods required restaurants to pass its expansive checklist if they wanted to onboard the platform. Restauranteurs often found these checks cumbersome and did not want to go beyond the mandatory certifications from the Foo Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).
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However, ahead of expansion plans, the company has reportedly cut back on several of these measures, which included regular water testing reports and pest control checks among over 100 other criteria.
"While the onboarding price for Amazon’s food aggregator business does seem lower than others in the market, the terms of the onboarding process lack clarity... Furthermore, they have been in the pilot phase in one city — Bengaluru, for so long. The delay in a proper launch doesn’t make sense," an industry expert told the publication.
However, even as it begins expanding slowly, it is yet to be seen whether ir can create a footprint big enough to rival the Swiggy-Zomato duopoly.
The company has, according to sources cited in the report, fixed a three-year timeline to test the viability of the business.
DH could not independently verify the report.