Zomato delivery personnel protest incentive cuts in Mumbai, Bengaluru

After Delhi and Kolkata, over 3,000 delivery personnel for food delivery and restaurant aggregation platform Zomato have been on strike in Bengaluru and Mumbai to protest against the revised incentive structure. The move follows Zomato’s efforts at rationalising costs and manpower.

According to a delivery executive TechCircle spoke to, the incentives have been reduced per touchpoint -- each order contributing to two touchpoints, pickup and delivery. The revised structure pays Rs 850 to riders for 46 touchpoints in Bengaluru, The Times of India reported. 

This is comparable to the change in incentives made by the company in March in Delhi, which led to protests by delivery executives. The revised structure in Delhi stood at Rs 800 for 44 touchpoints.

The company is also said to have hired new executives at lower rates over the last four months. The new personnel work on a fixed order payout of Rs 25 per order plus Rs 10 in variable pay, down from Rs 30 per order and Rs 10 in variable pay for weekday deliveries.

Third party last-mile delivery companies like Rapido and Shadowfax, which partner with Swiggy and Zomato, pay higher amounts per order.

"Different metrics such as base pay, user satisfaction, delivery touchpoints, minimum guarantee etc. help us appreciate our delivery partners in accordance with their efforts. Reduced average delivery time (less than 30 mins) and increased system efficiency have enabled our delivery partners to perform more deliveries in the same amount of time,” said a Zomato spokesperson in response to specific queries sent by TechCircle on email. 

The company has been looking at reducing manpower costs and recently laid off 540 employees in its customer support team  

The company has also revised incentive structures across cities and time slots. Delivery personnel who were previously paid an additional incentive for late-night delivery between 2 am and 4 am have seen a reduction in the payout over the last month in Delhi, said the delivery executive mentioned above. 

The Alibaba-backed company has been in the news for its fallout with restaurant partners which started the #Logout campaign against the platform due to thinning margins and demand for scrapping its premium membership programme Zomato Gold.