Zomato, Swiggy Now Delivering Food Through Instagram

Popular social media platform Instagram is now facilitating food ordering on its application by redirecting users to Swiggy and Zomato. Instagram, a go-to platform for many food bloggers, is aiming to revive the industry by this initiative.

For supporting restaurants, Instagram has also announced that it was going to roll out a food order sticker. On clicking these stickers, users will be redirected to either Zomato or Swiggy, depending on the landing link. From there, users can complete their purchase.

These stickers can be used by restaurants which have an Instagram business or creator account. They will have to link the sticker to their products page on either Swiggy or Zomato. After creating the ‘Food Order’ stickers, restaurants can share them in their Instagram stories or can also add an ‘Order Food’ button in their profiles.

Besides restaurants, the sticker will also help other small businesses to stay connected with customers. These stickers will also redirect users to a fundraiser built on Facebook’s Fundraisers platform. Instagram has allowed users to reshare the stickers with their followers to increase the reach of the restaurants.

Instagram, owned by social media giant Facebook, had recently launched the Fundraisers programme in India to empower non-profit organisations for welfare missions running across the country.

The sticker feature was earlier launched in markets like the US and Canada in April 2020 to support the restaurant industries in these countries. These stickers are a part of Instagram’s ongoing efforts to support small businesses, which have taken a hit due to Covid-19.

In the last two months, the government had imposed a nation-wide lockdown to curb Covid-19 in India. During this period, most of the restaurants were shut, facing massive losses and seems very difficult to recover anytime soon.

In an earlier interaction with Inc42, vice president of the Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India (FHRAI) Gurbaxish Singh Kohli said that the hospitality industry was going through the roughest period and this includes both cloud kitchens and restaurants.

However, the government has now allowed all the restaurants to operate normally. This decision along with initiatives like Instagram’s stickers may now allow restaurants get back on the track in the near future.