Swiggy Introduces Swiggy Scheduled To Bolster Its Food Delivery Service

In its endeavour to bolster its online food delivery service against rival Zomato, Swiggy has introduced a new service, Swiggy Scheduled.

The development comes in soon after the online food delivery and ordering platform secured $100 Mn from in Series F funding round led by Naspers and Meituan-Dianping. Interestingly, recently Zomato also received a $200 Mn investment and last year it also introduced its international paid subscription service Zomato Gold in India to woo the Indian customers with exclusive dine out and social drinking membership program.

Swiggy Scheduled will enable users to plan and order their meals for lunch, dinner, breakfast, or party menus in advance. With this service, the users can place their orders in slots of 30 minutes, a minimum of two hours and maximum of 48 hours in advance for a zero delivery or cancellation fee (before the order becomes live).

As Anuj Rathi, VP, Products at Swiggy said, “Sometimes convenience means being able to plan ahead, especially when order delivery time is crucial. We’ve introduced Swiggy Scheduled for those who not only love a great meal but also want the assurance that it will reach their tables on time.”

Swiggy Scheduled’ has already been launched in Hyderabad and Chennai and would be rolled out in other cities by the end of March.

Managing the in-house delivery fleet is quite a pain for the online food delivery marketplaces like Swiggy, who even handle midnight orders. With this new service, Swiggy can certainly plan its day’s delivery plan in a much smoother manner. A win-win for both the company and the end user.

At the time of the Series F funding announcement, Swiggy also indicated that it will further strengthen its market leadership position by introducing a host of unique and advanced products and services.

The company further aims to build on its adaptive, real-time prediction and optimisation systems to further improve consumer choice and personalisation, along with speed, volume, and efficiency of deliveries.

“We will continue to invest in building differentiated offerings, plugging the white spaces in the ecosystem, and developing our technology while keeping superlative customer experience at the core,” said Sriharsha Majety, CEO, Swiggy in an earlier media statement.

With the rival Zomato gaining $200 Mn round adjacent to Swiggy’s $100 Mn round, the battle has become intenser in the online food ordering and delivery space. While Zomato has already claimed profitability, Swiggy is still burning cash and resources to land on the path towards profitability.

However, on the other hand, Swiggy has continued to innovate and introduce new avenues of growth and generating revenues to continue its journey. From cloud kitchen to introducing new supply chain, the company has been aggressively working to promote its market share in this segment.

Not only it has introduced features like Swiggy Access, long-distance deliveries, and Capital Assist, but has also strengthened its senior leadership with several additions to the team including those from the recent acqui-hire of gourmet food startup 48East. It also underwent a revamp, making it more intuitive and personalised to each consumer.

Furthermore, the company has posted a record increase of 500% in revenues in the last financial year and saw order volumes nearly double since its previous funding in May 2017.

According to a study by Netscribes Research, the online food delivery segment in India is expected to expand by 34%-36% between 2015 and 2020.  While the speculations of Swiggy and Zomato merger are still gaining heat, it will be interesting to watch if the introduction of new features like Swiggy Scheduled, will be able to bring the food delivery startup on track to profitability.