Flipkart to Take On Zomato and Swiggy With 10% Commission

Flipkart has proposed a base commission of about 10% to restaurants — roughly half the 20% to 25% that Zomato and Swiggy typically charge, according to Sagar Daryani, president of the National Restaurant Association of India. The Walmart-owned company is preparing to break India's food-delivery duopoly, and it has told restaurants it expects to launch publicly by the end of October, expanding to five or six cities by year-end.

How far along is the service?

The internal trial has grown fast. Flipkart started testing with a few hundred employees and has expanded to upwards of 8,000, according to two people familiar with the matter. The employee-only service sits as a separate tab on Flipkart's main shopping app, alongside its Minutes quick-commerce offering and travel bookings.

The mechanics are already visible on the street. Riders wearing "Eat-in by Minutes" jerseys now fulfill orders in Bengaluru, where Flipkart is headquartered. The company has deployed a dedicated fleet through its logistics arm, Ekart, separate from the riders handling quick-commerce deliveries.

The supply side draws on two pools: restaurants listed through ONDC, the government-backed network connecting online buyers and sellers across platforms, and restaurants Flipkart signed up directly.

What does Flipkart stand to gain?

The market Bernstein tracks is growing 18% to 20% a year. But online delivery still accounts for just over 15% of India's broader food-services industry. Zomato, owned by Eternal, and Swiggy together serve an estimated 85 million to 95 million paying customers a year, per Bernstein — a figure that shows both their dominance and the room left for newcomers in the world's most populous country, which counts more than a billion internet subscriptions.

Flipkart's play reverses the incumbents' playbook. Zomato and Swiggy built meal delivery first and expanded into quick commerce. Flipkart is moving the other way, using its e-commerce base and growing quick-commerce operations as a springboard.

"Flipkart's quick commerce benefit will get passed on to food delivery, so it will be leaner, more efficient," Daryani told TechCrunch. Daryani, also co-founder and CEO of the dumpling chain Wow! Momo Foods, sees this sequencing as the key difference between Flipkart and earlier entrants.

Why are restaurants cheering?

The restaurant industry has long wanted a third option. "Monopoly is bad, but duopoly is more pathetic," said Daryani, whose association represents over 500,000 restaurants nationwide. "What one does, the other follows suit."

Commissions are only part of the bill. Daryani said that once advertising, discounts and other promotional costs are factored in, restaurants can spend 40% to 50% of an order's value on the established platforms. He expects Flipkart's total cost to land closer to 15% to 16%, meaning restaurants would keep more from each order.

Flipkart is not alone in pressing on pricing. Rapido, the ride-hailing company that has given Uber and Ola a tough fight, is expanding Ownly, a food-delivery service charging restaurants zero commission. Swiggy has launched Toing, a separate app for cheaper meals, in response to the same pressure on the industry's pricing model.

Can anyone actually beat the duopoly?

History says it is hard. Amazon launched food ordering in Bengaluru in 2020 and shut it down two years later. Google's Areo app failed to gain traction. Uber sold its India Uber Eats business to Zomato in 2020 and left.

The economics of switching are also thin. Bernstein estimates new entrants operating more efficiently could save customers just ₹20 to ₹30 (around 20–30 cents) per order. That may not pull users away from Zomato and Swiggy, and the incumbents could respond with deeper discounts.

What comes next?

The food push runs alongside unresolved questions about Flipkart's future. Chief Executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy recently declined to give a timetable for the company's long-awaited IPO. The delivery expansion fits a broader pattern: Flipkart keeps adding businesses that bring customers back to its app more frequently.

The timing also reflects pressure from the other direction. Quick-commerce platforms that started with groceries in minutes now sell the latest iPhones and other discretionary purchases, putting them in more direct competition with Flipkart and Amazon. Flipkart did not respond to a request for comment.

If Flipkart hits its October target and holds commissions near 10%, the first test will be whether restaurants' enthusiasm translates into customer orders — at a discount of less than a dollar each.