Zomato Gold a game changer; logout campaign hurt restaurants bill by 20 pc: Report

Zomato Gold, the discounting scheme that has been at the centre of an intense standoff between food delivery platforms and restaurants, is a game changer in driving business, with food joints that logged out of the program seeing 20 per cent dip in bill volumes, an independent research by RedSeer said.

"Gold partner restaurants have benefited significantly from the program," the RedSeer report said. "Business growth has been significant for partner restaurants after Zomato Gold."
The report, which presented an analysis of the impact of Zomato Gold partnership for the restaurants based on research of existing members and partner restaurants, said, "Zomato Gold has been a game changer in terms of driving the dine-out habits of customers."
Also, 55 per cent of the Gold partners have witnessed an increase in visit frequency of Gold customers, it said. "Average discounting on bills with Gold discounts is about 27 per cent."
Stating that Gold members dine out more frequently because of Gold discounts, it said: "Dine-out frequency for Gold members has increased from 2.8 to 3.3 times/month after subscribing to Gold membership and is 50 per cent higher than that of non-Gold members."
Also, dine-out spend for Gold members is higher than non-members. "95 per cent of Zomato Gold members order more number of dishes/drinks because of Gold discounts," it said. "Pre-discount average bill value for Gold members is about 11 per cent higher than non-members."
Gold partners have witnessed a 25 per cent increase in bottom-line largely driven by better utilisation of the same infrastructure, the research said. "47 per cent bills get discounted via Gold programme -- almost equally between existing and new customers. Even with this discount, Gold partners have better bottom line owing to increased utilization of existing resources."
RedSeer said high discounting cases will be addressed with the recent changes to the Gold program. "Since every user will now need to buy membership (cannot share logins), and the membership will be costlier, it will deter these members from getting into the program."