Zomato says majority of Blinkit stores which were shut have resumed ops

New Delhi [India], April 19 : Zomato on Wednesday said the company had shut some of its stores of Blinkit for a few days and added, "Most of these stores have now resumed operations."

In addition to this, the food aggregator said over the past few days, it made changes in the delivery partners' payout structure with respect to the Blinkit business to address the needs of delivery partners, improve customer experience and reduce cancellation or order rejection frauds by a few delivery partners in the system.

According to a statement shared with stock exchanges by Zomato, it said, "such changes are done from time to time, as needed."

The company said these disruptions and changes have no material impact on the operations or financial performance of the company, which Zomato said was less than 1 per cent revenue impact, and hence the company believed that this event does not warrant any disclosure under regulation 30 of the SEBI.

According to a report published on a news website, "Hundreds of delivery partners working with Zomato-owned Blinkit have been on strike for the past three days, in protest against the change in the company's payout structure."

It again mentioned, "The reason behind the strike is the recent changes in the payment structure of Blinkit, where delivery partners are now receiving a minimum fee of Rs 15 per delivery instead of the earlier payment of Rs 25 per delivery."

The report said, "Blinkit app service has been 'temporarily unavailable' in most parts of Delhi-NCR (National Capital Region). This is affecting the regular customers of the app as they are not able to place orders on the Blinkit app for the last few days as a message greeted them saying "Due to excess demand, temporarily unavailable".

Blinkit, formerly known as Grofers, was acquired in a Rs 4,447-crore deal by food delivery company Zomato in June last year.