Two years ago, when Aniruddha Patil started his venture PuneOrders.in — the first food delivery platform based in the city — he aimed to provide an alternative to established players which charged high commissions. “While charging a commission is a legitimate way to run businesses, established players charge commissions as high as 20-30 per cent. Small and medium players can hardly afford this but given the duopoly in the market, they have little or no say in the matter,” he said. Patil’s platform charged amounts as low as Rs 1,000 per month while allowing restaurant owners the option of 'un-bundling' the various services offered by food delivery platforms. With more than 30,000 orders delivered in two years, Patil’s company is now ready to offer customised services to food start-ups and others. 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. The platform has food connoisseurs, restaurateurs, home chefs and others as its members. After being associated with the food industry and working closely with them, Patil realised that the high commission charged by food delivery platforms was a common complaint. “The idea of food delivery is great. they have bundled an array of services like payment, delivery etc and restaurateurs have no option but to accept this. So, even if the customer is right down the road, the outlet has to pay the commission,” he pointed out. PuneOrders.in tackles this problem by ‘un-bundling’ the services and allowing direct communication between the business and clients. When an order is placed on the platform, the business owner has the option to choose either the whole bundle of services or take only some of the services offered. “We can help in delivery and collect payment if the business owner wants us to do so. On the other hand, the business owner can choose to deliver the order and collect payment themselves. This option was lacking on food delivery platforms,” he said. This flexibility of service is an added incentive and businesses can choose to join the platform by paying Rs 1,000 per month as fees. With more than 500 businesses now part of the platform, PuneOrders.in has star hotels like The Conrad as well as businesses like Tata Motors Grihini Social Welfare Society, an organisation which specialises in homely snacks. “The flexibility of option helps every business owner choose the best deal for them,” he said. Two years down the line, Patil’s platform has now broken even and is ready to scale up into newer models. “We want to explore models which will allow food start-ups and home chefs to pay per order and other revenue models,” he said.
