Recently I ordered take out from a restaurant in Mumbai.  I was passing by the restaurant and stopped to place an order.  On my way out, I asked the restaurant manager which food delivery app shall I use the next time I wanted to place an order from the restaurant and his response was that many of his customers order from Zomato.  He also added that a certain Bollywood star is a regular dine-in customer at his restaurant and has rated the restaurant positively on Zomato which is a strong testament to the quality of food they serve.

Given that there are multiple food delivery apps in the country vying for the customers wallet, some offering fast delivery and some offering the best discounts,  the popularity of Zomato for food ordering highlights the power of the community that it has built over the years.  Customers that have been using Zomato for dine-in recommendations can now use the same app/experience for food delivery.  And new customers to food ordering can benefit from the community reviews on Zomato before they decide to place an order from a restaurant.

Delivery times for any food ordering platform needs to be reliable/predictable and with Zomato's partnership with Runnr, their food delivery service should be best in class.  As the food ordering space matures in India, will integrated dine in and dine out platforms prevail over pure food ordering platforms by being able leverage reward benefits (ie rewards for dine out can be redeemed at dine in), and the multiplier effect of the community reviews (ie. dine in reviews can influence dine out decisions)?