Eyes peeled on the piling food app bill

The more things change, the more they remain the same. In July 2022, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) barred hotels and restaurants from adding service charge ‘automatically or by default’ in the bill. Industry federations challenged the order. In April, the Delhi High Court directed hotel owners not to levy service charge, though restaurant bodies said they can impose it as the order has been ‘misunderstood’. Now, food delivery platforms have begun levying extra charges. On Sunday, Zomato introduced a flat ₹2 platform fee on its app in specific markets, irrespective of the cart value. It comes at a time when the company hopes to remain profitable after it reported its first-ever quarterly profit in Q1 FY24. The company has yet to take a final call. But it seems only a matter of time for Zomato to do a Swiggy: slap a platform fee as the latter did in April.

Both food delivery companies also have an inbuilt system for paying ‘tips’ to their ‘delivery partners’. While this is voluntary, customers must ‘uncheck’ the tip box on the app if they don’t want to ‘seamlessly’ (read: unwittingly) add a tip to the bill. Both platforms, like the ‘convenience’ (sic) fee of airline platforms, argue that the extra fee will help them deliver better customer experience.

It is ironic that customers in India are being made to fork out more for using online over offline means. They are also being roped in to pay for upgrade and development of apps that should be the responsibility of developers. And now comes extra chi-ching ‘to keep delivery partners happy’. Talk about passing the buck. With no one keeping an eye on these ‘small’ convenience fees, only a customer backlash or competition (in the open network form of ONDC?) can help consumers.