KrASIA reports Indian restaurants moving some orders to WhatsApp, their own websites and ONDC to avoid aggregator commission. Restaurant India's analysis finds a delivery-only kitchen still relies on Zomato and Swiggy to win new customers, so direct ordering works best for repeat customers who already know the brand, alongside the aggregators rather than instead of them.
What going direct looks like in practice
KrASIA's reporting on restaurants working around the Zomato-Swiggy duopoly found owners using three routes to take at least part of their orders without paying aggregator commission:
- Taking orders over WhatsApp
- Running a branded website of their own
- Joining the ONDC network
The idea did not start with recent commission increases. As far back as 2021, The Week was writing about Indian restaurants trying different ordering setups and business models to lean less on the two big apps, at a time when margins were already thin enough to make the effort worthwhile.
The software is easier to get now
One reason more restaurants can try this is that the tools have caught up. Oracle India describes online ordering built into the point-of-sale system, so a restaurant can take orders on its own branded website or app instead of sending every order through a third-party marketplace. That used to need custom development.
Restaurant India's piece on POS systems traces the wider shift in Indian restaurants away from manual billing and paper tickets towards digital point of sale. The move makes daily operations smoother, and it also means the order and customer records belong to the restaurant itself instead of arriving in the masked form an aggregator provides.
Can a cloud kitchen manage without the aggregators?
Restaurant India looked at this question too, and the short answer is: not easily. A kitchen set up only for delivery still depends heavily on Zomato and Swiggy to be found by people who have never ordered from it. Direct ordering tends to work best with regulars who already know the brand, and is not a replacement for the way new customers discover it.
The realistic way to see direct ordering, then, is as a second channel that protects your margin on repeat orders, not a full exit. Restaurants that handle this well use the aggregators to get discovered and their own channel to keep customers coming back.
What this means for your restaurant
- Keep your Zomato and Swiggy listings for discovery, and build a direct route such as WhatsApp ordering, your own website or ONDC for customers who already know you.
- If you run a delivery-only kitchen, do not plan on direct ordering replacing the aggregators as your source of new customers.
- Look at POS systems with built-in online ordering, which let you take orders on your own branded site or app and hold on to your own order and customer data.
Sources
- How restaurants in India are bypassing the duopoly of Zomato and Swiggy — KrASIA
- Restaurants try new models as alternatives to Swiggy, Zomato in battle of survival — The Week
- Online Ordering for Restaurants — Oracle India
- How POS Systems Are Redefining Indian Restaurants to Go from Paper to Pixels — Restaurant India
- Cloud Kitchen Without Zomato & Swiggy: Is It Possible in India? — Restaurant India
This article summarises the reporting and guides listed above; the figures belong to those sources and are attributed in the text. Check anything that affects your business against your own platform agreements, payout statements and advisers.