NRAI to work with Dotpe to offer digital ordering as an alternative to Zomato’s contactless dining

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In a post COVID-19 world, the Indian restaurant industry not only intends to digitise systems and processes of dining in, but is also looking at ways to reduce dependence on food aggregator and delivery platforms like Zomato and Swiggy.

National Restaurant Association of India, the industry body for restaurants across the country is encouraging its members to offer a digital dining experience to their customers. It has partnered with Dotpe for a technology platform which will allow walk in customers to use their smartphones to place orders and even pay for them.

This would remove any physical contact for customers at restaurants. It announced this initiative through a Facebook live townhall attended by close to 500 viewers today.

“There would be no need for any separate mobile app, customers can just use their smartphone camera to scan the QR code which can be displayed on tables, select their dishes, place the order and even pay digitally,” said Thomas Fenn, who runs Mahabelly, a popular restaurant in Delhi and is a member of NRAI.

To address the concerns of the restaurant owners who are wary of tech partners after their experience with the aggregator platforms, NRAI reiterated that Dot will only a tech solution provider with no interest in customer data. The platform will allow restaurants to keep their own customer data and also help them interact with them directly via WhatsApp.

“The NRAI partnership will help member restaurants work with Dot at a flat fees level and no commissions for every order placed on the platform,” said Fenn.

The developments over the last few weeks have clearly shown that restaurants are looking at COVID-19 as an opportunity to move away from the duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy. While these players had managed to capture the food delivery segment away from restaurants, with contactless dining Zomato could eventually capture dining in as well, fear restaurant owners.

Infact to begin the session Anurag Katriar, president of NRAI said that these measures are specifically aimed at protecting small businesses from ruins because of ‘few large tech giants’.

“Contactless dining cannot be a reality, digital ordering is the future,” Katriar said.

Laying down the road ahead for the future, Riyaz Amlani who runs restaurant chains like Social, Smoke House Deli and others said that eventually technology solutions like these will encourage consumers to move away from their ordering habits on Zomato and Swiggy. They can now directly interact with restaurants through their social media pages like Instagram, Facebook or WhatsApp and place orders remotely and pay digitally. This would help restaurants retain their own customer data.

Zomato and Swiggy does not show restaurants the identity of the customer who is placing the order through their platform, this takes business visibility away from the restaurants. This among many other points have been a bone of contention between restaurants and food delivery platforms. Through 2019, there had been multiple clashes between these two players. 2020 seems to be a point where restaurants are making a deliberate attempt to reduce their dependence on these platforms. However success depends on how many restaurants adopt these solutions.

On April 18, Zomato launched contactless dining for its partner restaurants where even walk in customers can order via the Zomato app and pay online, thereby reducing physical contact in a dine-in set up.

“We are facing multiple problems like high commissions, increased dependence on the food aggregators and disrupted relationship with our customers, the NRAI initiatives are moves to rectify such problems,” said Fenn.

Dotpe was started by Shailaz Nag, Anurag Gupta and Gyanesh Sharma who were all part of digital payments major PayU India. Nag was the cofounder of PayU India, while Sharma headed engineering there till 2015 and Gupta was a vice president at PayU for six years. The Gurugram based startup has raised $8 million in its seed round from PayU, InfoEdge, Fosun International along with few angels.