Rapido Launches Food Delivery App 'Ownly', Most Dishes Priced Below Rs 150

Rapido on Tuesday launched its standalone app 'Ownly' for food delivery. This comes two months after NDTV Profit first reported about the cab aggregator's plans to launch a completely new platform for its foray into the food delivery segment.

Ownly is currently live across select locations in Bengaluru, and most dishes on the platform are priced below Rs 150. Ownly currently includes brands like Wow!, Eatfit and Krispy Kreme and Faasos.

Rapido's food delivery app promises 'no hidden fees' on the delivery app and offers 'offline prices' for food online.

Rapido's foray into the food delivery space follows months of negotiations with restaurant partners over business models and services offered. Ownly will compete in the hotly contested food delivery space that Swiggy and Zomato currently dominate.

Separately, Swiggy, which currently holds around 12% in Rapido, is re-evaluating its stake in the Aravind Sanka-led firm over a potential conflict of interest over the food delivery business.

Ownly claims to deliver food at prices lower than competitors, thanks to a zero-commission model. The Rapido app will not take commissions from restaurants, which can go up to 30% in the case of other food delivery apps, and will instead charge a fixed fee per order. 

Rapido’s business-to-business logistics arm already offers food delivery services to Swiggy and the Open Network for Digital Commerce.

In 2023, Rapido had raised $180 million in a Series D round of funding led by Swiggy. "Swiggy's participation in this round will build on the synergies between the two companies," it had said. However, this investment lacked an exclusivity clause that could have restricted Rapido's D2C food delivery push, according to people in the know.

NDTV Profit had exclusively reported in June that the new platform will ask restaurants to pay delivery fees directly to the delivery partners and is also likely to offer the option of self-delivery at zero cost to restaurants that have their own delivery network.

Rapido's D2C food delivery platform will also not be charging packaging costs to customers, and customers are unlikely to pay any extra costs other than GST. On top of this, partner restaurants are being asked to keep the same pricing for meals online as they do offline.

While the platform hinges on a zero commission model, it will look to charge a flat subscription fee from restaurants once the business achieves a certain scale.

Currently, commissions for restaurants on both Swiggy and Zomato range from 10% to 28%, industry insiders told NDTV Profit. On top of this, there are also payment gateway charges and GST that restaurants have to pay to the platforms. Average order value and number of orders also affect the commission charges, the industry insiders said. Added to this, a restaurant's brand identity can also affect commissions.

Generally, larger chains or legendary brands whom Swiggy and Zomato want on their platforms end up paying much lower commissions than smaller restaurants.

Rapido's foray into the D2C delivery space comes at a time when Zomato and Swiggy have a comfortable duopoly in the market. Restaurants, however, are raising concerns over commission models and margins, which is what Rapido's strategy seems to be focusing on.