Aniruddha Patil’s platform charged as little as Rs 1,000 a month while allowing restaurant owners to ‘unbundle’ the numerous services provided by food delivery networks.
Aniruddha Patil founded Pune Orders.in, the city’s first food delivery website, two years ago with the goal of providing an alternative to established players that charged exorbitant commissions.
“While charging a commission is a legal method to run a business, established players charge commissions of up to 30%.” Small and medium-sized businesses can’t afford it, but given the market’s duopoly, they have little or no voice in the matter,” he says.
Patil’s platform cost restaurant owners as little as Rs 1,000 a month and gave them the option of “un-bundling” the numerous services that are often bundled together under the heading of “food delivery platforms.”
Patil’s business is now in a position to offer individualized services to new food businesses and others after successfully completing more than 30,000 orders in just two years.
Patil — a software professional with years of experience in the IT industry — is a well-known figure in the city’s food and hospitality industry.
As the founder of the Facebook page Pune Eats Out, Patil has, over the years, nurtured and built a community of earnest foodies in and around the city. What started off as a social media page of reviews turned into a 1,70,000-strong community of enthusiastic souls.
Members of the platform include those with a specialized interest in food, such as restaurateurs, home chefs, and others.
Patil realized that the excessive commission charged by food delivery platforms was a prevalent complaint after being associated with the food industry and working closely with them. This realization came after Patil worked closely with those in the food industry.
“I really like the concept of having food delivered… They have packaged a variety of services, such as payment and delivery, and the only alternative left for restaurateurs is to adopt this new model.
Therefore, the retailer is obligated to pay the fee even if the consumer is located just down the street, as he pointed out.
The solution that PuneOrders.in provides for this issue is to “un-bundle” the services and enable two-way communication between the company and its customers.
When a customer places an order through the platform, the proprietor of the company has the choice of selecting the complete package of available services or picking and choosing which ones they want to use.
If the proprietor of the company so desires, we will assist with the delivery of the product and collect payment. On the other hand, the proprietor of the company has the option of personally delivering the order and acquiring payment for it.
According to him, meal delivery systems did not have this choice available.
This adaptability of the service is an additional perk, and companies who want to join the platform must pay a price of Rs 1,000 every month.
There are already more than 500 businesses that are a member of the PuneOrders.in network. These businesses range from five-star hotels like The Conrad to companies like Tata Motors Grhini Social Welfare Society, an organization that specializes in homemade snacks.
He stated that the availability of a variety of options assists business proprietors in selecting the offer that is most advantageous to them. After a period of two years, Patil’s platform has finally achieved profitability and is prepared to expand into more advanced models.
He stated that “we want to investigate models which will allow food start-ups and home cooks to pay per order and other income models.” “We want to explore models which will allow food start-ups and home chefs to pay per order.”
