Zomato-backed Magicpin, Domino's amp up food delivery discounts on ONDC

On the Magicpin app, consumers will be able to order food from Domino's free of any delivery charges for orders worth over Rs 150

In a move to capitalise on online food orders during the upcoming long weekend and the ongoing Indian Premier League season, Zomato-backed e-commerce startup Magicpin and pizza chain Domino's will offer heavy discounts on purchases via the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC).

On the Magicpin app, consumers will be able to order food from Domino's free of any delivery charges for orders worth over Rs 150. This is in contrast to Zomato and Swiggy where users have to pay significant delivery and packaging charges on Domino's orders.

In January, Domino's stores went live on ONDC for users in the Delhi-NCR region, a move likely to help franchise owner Jubilant FoodWorks shore up profit margins and de-risk online sales from food aggregators Zomato and Swiggy in the long term.

Further, Magicpin has also announced a flash sale that will see 30 top food items on the platform from restaurant brands such as Wow! Momo, Wendy’s, Faasos, and Behrouz being offered at throwaway prices of Rs 9, Rs 19 and Rs 29.

Beyond the flash sale, Magicpin said that it is introducing additional "jaw-dropping offers", such as Rs 125 off on orders above Rs 200 across Rebel Food brands (Faasos, Oven Story, Behrouz Biryani), McDonald’s, Wow! Momo, Pizza Hut, Burger King, Box8 throughout the weekend sale.

This is not the first time that Magicpin is using large discounts amid a big cricket tournament. During the World Cup last year, the company had said that it was planning to spend up to Rs 100 crore on discounts to drive up purchases by users.

Anshoo Sharma, CEO & Co-founder of Magicpin said, “As the first-of-its-kind offering in the food delivery sector, magicpin’s Rs 9 food delivery flash sale is to set a new benchmark for affordability and quality. This initiative reflects our commitment to delivering exceptional value and convenience, making indulging in favorite meals accessible to everyone without breaking the bank."

Earlier this month, Magicpin also joined a pilot project by ONDC to onboard street food vendors in Delhi and Lucknow.

Over the past year-and-a-half, multiple new-age companies such as Paytm, Ola, PhonePe, Meesho, Magicpin and Shiprocket have taken to ONDC, aimed at breaking the stranglehold of a few players such as Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato and Swiggy on online retail in the country.

Moneycontrol reported earlier that ONDC's transaction volume grew 15 percent to over 7.5 million in February from the previous month.

The interoperable network clocked 6.5 million transactions in January. In effect, the average number of daily transactions on the network grew 23 percent to over 258,000 in February, which is a shorter month.

Of the 7.5 million transactions, 3.8 million were in the ride-hailing bucket via the Namma Yatri platform. The remaining 3.7 million were retail purchases.

The share of retail purchases in the total monthly transactions stands in stark contrast to early 2023, when it accounted for only 5-10 percent, with the mobility category dominating with 90-95 percent of all transactions.

In 2023, ONDC focused on laying the groundwork for onboarding buyers, sellers and platforms, the year 2024 will be a crucial year for determining its scalability. The network is looking to achieve a monthly run rate of up to 8 million transactions by the end of FY24.

Sources earlier said that over 370,000 sellers and service providers, from top brands to farmers and taxi drivers are now on the network.

ONDC is operational in 588 “countable cities”, which are the cities or districts with more than 100 orders a month in the last 3 months. This is approximately 70 percent of cities in India. The platform has fulfilled transactions in over 800 cities in India.