Bill difference between ordering online and ordering directly: Customer notices, internet takes note

Most of us have gotten into the habit of ordering food online, mainly because of the convenience factor. But we often forget to consider the price angle — the difference we have to pay for ordering online via food aggregators like Swiggy or Zomato over ordering from an eatery directly.

Well, the difference was noted by a Zomato customer recently. He shared it on LinkedIn, garnering considerable attention online.

The whole story
Rahul Kabra, a LinkedIn user, shared pictures of a Zomato order bill and a printed statement for the same purchase, showing an apparent disparity in the cost of the ordered item.

As per reports, he had ordered three items from the restaurant 'The Momo Factory' in Mumbai. The three items were: vegetable fried rice, mushroom momo, and vegetable black pepper sauce. He compared both the bills and underliined the differences through the bill pictures. He also captioned the photos by stating that he was performing an apple-to-apple comparison of online versus offline orders. What he observed was quite shocking. For the offline order, he paid INR 512. However, the order he placed through the Zomato app cost him INR 690. The cost inflation of INR 178 is 34.76 percent, which is relatively high.

In his LinkedIn post, he questioned if it is suitable for Zomato to charge such a hefty premium.

People's reactions to the post
People soon became interested in the post and responded to it, expressing both support and opposition to the pricing strategies used by food aggregators. The post received tens of thousands of likes and thousands of comments.

People said it is better to stick with the current menu and charge separately for their own meals. That way, at least there won't be any complaints from the users.

One user expressed his opinion about a Swiggy-related experience in Indore. He stated that the offline order was just INR 99, and the online order was 40% higher.