The Department of Consumer Affairs (DoCA) has directed major e-commerce food business operators (FBOs) like Swiggy and Zomato to submit a proposal within 15 days on improving their consumer grievance redressal mechanism amid rising complaints from customers.
The department pointed out that during the last 12 months, "over 3,631 grievances have been registered on the National Consumer Helpline (1915) for Swiggy and 2,828 have been registered for Zomato".
The direction was given during a meeting chaired by Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, Rohit Kumar Singh, with major e-commerce food business operators, to discuss pertinent issues which affect consumers in this sector.
The meeting was attended by online food business operators, including Swiggy and Zomato as well as the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI). These platforms were directed to show individual consumer reviews transparently and refrain from showing only the aggregation of reviews.
On Swiggy platform, there were 803 complaints (22 per cent of the total 3,631) related to deficiency in services. Non/delay in delivery of product accounted for 17 per cent of the total complaints, delivery of defective/damaged product 13 per cent. Delivery of wrong product and paid amount not refunded accounted for 11 per cent each to the total complaints. Similarly, on Zomato platform, deficiency in services contributed 25 per cent to the total complaints followed by delivery of defective/damaged product (18 per cent), non/delay in delivery of product (11 per cent), paid amount not refunded (11 per cent) and delivery of wrong product (11 per cent).
During the meeting, major issues raised by the consumers on National Consumer Helpline of DoCA were discussed including veracity of the amount of delivery and packing charges and the reasonability of such charges, disparity between the price and quantity of food items shown on the platform and actually offered by the restaurant, inconsistency in the delivery time shown to consumers at the time of placing an order and the time at which the order is actually delivered, and absence of any mechanism to separate genuine reviews from fake ones.
The National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) raised the issue of customer information not being shared by the e-commerce FBOs with the restaurants which impacts their ability to serve the consumer needs better. Further, delivery charges are determined and levied by the latter. Further, a commission of around 20% is also charged by the online FBOs on each order. In the last few months, the department has taken many steps to protect consumers' interest. It has asked restaurants not to levy service charges and will soon bring a legal framework on this issue.
In April this year, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) asked its director-general to submit a report on the matter in 60 days. The NRAI, which represents over 500,000 restaurants, had moved CCI in July 2021 alleging anti-competitive practices by the food delivery platforms.