Zomato's Game-Changing Payment Feature Includes COD With Instant Credit

Food delivery giant Zomato Ltd. has launched a new payment feature for cash-on-delivery orders. Customers can pay their delivery partners in cash and request the balance amount to be instantly credited to their Zomato Money account, announced Chief Executive Officer Deepinder Goyal.

“For cash on delivery orders, finding exact change can sometimes be inconvenient,” Goyal wrote on X (formerly Twitter). "Starting today, our customers can pay delivery partners in cash and ask for the balance amount to be added instantly to their Zomato Money account. This balance can be used towards future delivery orders or dining out." 

Goyal credited grocery delivery platform Big Basket as the inspiration behind this solution. He thanked their delivery partners, three of whom are working as product managers with the company, for pushing to develop this feature as soon as possible. 

Social media users praised the feature after the announcement, calling it "thoughtful."

“So simple and nice feature. Learning from others too & acknowledging publicly. Good to see,” a user said.

“Build convenience for COD in India, and the battle is already half won," said another user.

This comes after Zomato launched the ‘District’ app, a new platform designed to consolidate various going-out services, including dining, movies, sports ticketing, live performances, shopping and staycations.

Goyal shared the vision for ‘District’ in a letter to shareholders, following the company's first-quarter financial results. He envisioned District emerging as Zomato's third significant business-to-consumer business, alongside food delivery and Blinkit (quick-commerce).

Zomato's restaurant-finding service was already successful, with over $500 million in annual sales. The company wanted to build on this success by adding more services to the district and creating a one-stop shop for going-out activities. 

"Building a one-stop destination app for going out could be a game changer for each of these use cases, and we intend to do exactly that with our new District (by Zomato) app. If we execute this well, we see going-out becoming the 3rd large B2C business emerging out of Zomato," Goyal said.