Flipkart Tests Food Delivery Service In Bengaluru, Aims To Take On Zomato And Swiggy

Flipkart is quietly rolling out an internal food-delivery pilot in its home city and plans a wider launch that could reshape how restaurants and customers use online ordering.

Flipkart, the Walmart-owned e-commerce firm based in Bengaluru, has expanded an employee-only meal ordering pilot from a few hundred staff to roughly 8,000 people, according to two people familiar with the trial. The company has also put a separate pool of delivery riders under its logistics unit Ekart in the field as it prepares to open the service to the public as soon as late October, the sources said. Company insiders say the test appears as an additional section in the main Flipkart app alongside its minute-based quick-delivery option and travel bookings.

The experimental offering sources described draws restaurants from India’s open digital commerce network backed by the government, as well as eateries Flipkart signed up directly. Delivery workers in new uniforms tied to the program have been seen completing orders around Bengaluru, where Flipkart is headquartered. Company officials did not reply to questions about the test or timing for a wider roll out.

The move comes as the online meal delivery market expands at about a fifth a year, while internet orders still make up only just over one-seventh of India’s overall dining-out and takeaway market. The two leading platforms, Zomato and Swiggy, together handle an estimated 85 million to 95 million paying customers annually, a scale that highlights both the incumbents’ reach and the space available for growth across a population with more than a billion internet subscriptions.

New rivals have already started chipping away at the established model. Ride-hailing firm Rapido has been piloting a zero-commission delivery product for restaurants, and Swiggy recently introduced a budget-focused app for price-sensitive users. Those moves underscore mounting pressure on the commission-driven economics that many restaurants say squeeze margins. Recent exits by big tech — Amazon and Google previously tested food-ordering efforts in India and later wound them down, while Uber sold its local food business to Zomato — show the challenges newcomers face.

Restaurant owners expect Flipkart to use its quick-commerce logistics to keep costs lower than the incumbents. Sagar Daryani, president of the National Restaurant Association of India and CEO of a regional chain, told reporters that Flipkart floated the idea of a roughly one-in-ten base commission for restaurants, compared with the typical one-in-five to one-in-four charged today. When advertising, discounts and other promotional expenses are included, restaurateurs say the total cost per order on the dominant platforms can climb to about two-fifths to one-half of an order’s value; Daryani predicted Flipkart could keep the all-in burden closer to about one-sixth. Independent analysts caution, however, that consumer savings may be small — industry research estimates customers might save only about 20 to 30 rupees a transaction — and that entrenched players could respond with deeper promotions.

Flipkart’s food push arrives as the company’s public listing remains without a set date. Chief executive Kalyan Krishnamurthy has avoided committing to an IPO timetable even while the company broadens services that could increase repeat visits to its app. The expansion also intensifies competition among players that began with rapid grocery delivery and now sell phones and other discretionary items, bringing them into more direct friction with traditional e-commerce. Flipkart did not respond to a request for comment.