Vijayawada eateries to boycott online food delivery apps from today

VIJAYAWADA: While members of Vijayawada Hotel Owners Association (VHOA) are all set to stall the online sale through a well-known online food delivery platform from Monday, small eateries and delivery boys were opposing the decision. The boycott comes on the heels of the online food delivery platform increasing its commission from 10% to 25%.
Food delivery apps play a significant role in the hotel and eateries business across the city.Around 320 eateries, including restaurants, offer citizens to order food to their homes through various mobile applications. An added bonus of ordering from these applications were the huge discounts that the apps offered.
Hotel owners say it is not sustainable for them to pay such high commissions. “We are unable to do business with the exorbitant commissions demanded by these food delivery apps. While they initially started their business with zero to five percent commission, it was later increased it to 10% in the beginning of 2019. But now, they are demanding a 18-25% commission which we cannot bear,” said Sanjay Mehta Jain, secretary, Vijayawada Hotel Owners Association.
“We have deployed four special teams to go to restaurants in the city and verify their online transactions. We will suspend the memberships of hotels and eateries which ignore our directions and continue to use the food delivery app,” Sanjay added.
Meanwhile, medium and small eateries have opposed this move, saying that they will lose their livelihood if they stop taking online orders. “We are against the decision of hotel owners association. Online food delivery apps are boosting our business. Big hotel owners are getting worried about the competitive prices offered by small eateries. There is a comfortable margin for us and we will continue with them,” said Sk Basheed who runs a biryani stall on Eluru Road.
Around 800 food delivery boys working in the food delivery portal were worried about the decision of the hotel owners. “I am a graduate and waited for almost three years for a job. I have been working as a food delivery boy for the past six months and have made good money. Going on strike all of a sudden will affect our livelihood. We request hotel owners to look into the issue in a proactive way,” said K Siva, a food delivery boy.