SUMMARY
The new Zomato Pro Plus subscription would be similar to Amazon’s Prime package which also offers unlimited free deliveries
All existing Zomato Edition Black credit card holders will be automatically upgraded to Zomato Pro Plus.
Zomato Pro Plus subscription will be a limited roll-out for a select number of customers
Food delivery unicorn Zomato has launched Zomato Pro Plus, a new subscription product, which offers unlimited free deliveries, CEO Deepinder Goyal announced in a tweet.
Goyal said that Zomato Pro Plus subscription would be similar to Amazon’s Prime package which also offers unlimited free deliveries. In addition, all Zomato Edition Black credit card holders will be automatically upgraded to Zomato Pro Plus. The credit card is offered in partnership with Ratnakar Bank (RBL).
Goyal also indicated that Pro Plus will be a limited roll-out for a select number of customers. The company’s customer helpline specified that Pro Plus is an ‘invite-only’ service as of now, and is being rolled out to select new customers every day. Pro Plus is priced at INR 300 for a 3 month subscription, and at INR 900 for a 12 month subscription. Existing users can also upgrade to the new Pro Plus subscription at an adjusted price against the remaining tenure of the Pro subscription.
“Everybody else (other than Zomato Black card holders) will need to buy the Pro Plus upgrade from the Zomato app. Fatafat le lena, baad mein shayad nahin milega,” Goyal said in his Tweet on August 2.
Goyal also pointed out that the company now has around 1.8 Mn Zomato Pro subscribers, up from around 1.4 Mn subscribers as of April 2021, when the company announced its FY21 results.
We have 1.8mn Zomato Pro members as of today.
And one of the most requested features from our customers has been “Unlimited Free Deliveries” (something like Amazon Prime).
So… in a few hours, we are launching our Limited Edition *Pro Plus* membership for select customers… pic.twitter.com/RtL4ftDBpt
— Deepinder Goyal (@deepigoyal) August 2, 2021
Zomato Pro was originally launched as a discount product named Zomato Gold back in 2019, where the company offered free food or drinks for dine-in customers. This was later rebranded to Zomato Pro in June 2020 following backlash from restaurant owners, who claimed that the Gold subscription was exploitative and resulted in diners only seeking discounts.
Several restaurant partners began the infamous #Logout movement to protest against the heavily discounted business model of Zomato Gold. The restaurant partners had alleged that it was difficult to fulfil the operational cost of an order due to the unconditional freebies offered by Zomato.
Before the rebranding to Zomato Pro, the company also changed certain policies related to the subscription, and limited Zomato Gold’s offerings to accommodate restaurant partners’ demand. But it eventually went for a full rebranding as ‘Pro’ which included online delivery benefits as well.
The Pro subscription originally included faster deliveries, exclusive delivery offers and money back guarantee. During the launch of Pro subscription in May 2020 Zomato had claimed that users who may not be able to save 2x the cost of Pro subscription would be refunded the entire subscription fee at the end of the year.
The announcement of a new subscription product comes shortly after the food delivery unicorn’s INR 9,000 Cr IPO that went live in June 2021. More than a week after Zomato’s debut in the public market on June 23, the company’s shares were trading at INR 138 at the time of publishing of this article, which is significantly higher than its opening price of Rs 76 per share.
The food delivery major’s market capitalisation passed the INR 1 Lakh Cr mark on the first day of listing and currently, the market cap stands at INR 1,047.33 Bn. At issue price, Zomato’s market cap stood at around INR 65,000 Cr.
