Zepto becomes first e-commerce company to begin charging a platform fee

Zepto has become the first quick e-commerce company to begin charging a platform fee. Zepto's introduction of platform fees comes at a time when its direct competitors, Zomato owned Blinkit and Swiggy Instamart do not charge any fee for grocery orders. So far, slightly more developed industries like e-commerce and food delivery have seen a higher prevalence of platform fees.

While companies initially began by charging a nominal fee of Rs 2, they have pushed up the fee in some cases as adoption increased and some even teased a significantly higher charge – of Rs 10 – during peak times to capitalise on the surge in demand, implying that there are chances even Zepto tests a higher fee in the future.

A platform fee isn’t the only additional charge Zepto is levying on customers, as the company also collects a ‘late night handling fee’ of Rs 15 on orders that are placed after 11 pm in certain cases.

The Y Combinator-backed company has also done away with free deliveries for select users. It now charges anywhere between Rs 5 and Rs 28 as delivery fee, depending on the cart value, to make each order more profitable. Deliveries were initially free for cart values above Rs 99 or Rs 199, depending on the transaction frequency of customers.

"We don’t believe in being over dependent on delivery fees to be profitable. We believe in core operating efficiency and cost reduction to be profitable. We are on track to achieve the EBITDA positive milestone even with much lower delivery fees- Zepto Pass is the quintessential example of this," a company spokesperson said.