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Over the years, malls have been rather critical of deep-pocketed Web-commerce companies that routinely showered discounts to divert the flow of business away from shopping centres. But brick-and-mortar stores are rather happy now with at least one new-age business: food delivery, led by apps such as Swiggy and Zomato.
Select Citywalk Mall in New Delhi’s tony southern suburb said various stalls at its food court makes about 300,000 deliveries a month through Swiggy and Zomato, and business is growing by 15-20% annually.
Most of the prominent malls in India have revenue-sharing agreements with their tenants, including restaurants, and any increase in business from the malls would help them generate more profits.
About a year ago, shopping centres objected to Zara prominently advertising Zara.com on its store fronts. Thereafter, malls incorporated a clause in their contracts to prevent retailers from advertising their online business on store fronts. Before that, malls had told fashion brands to segregate their online discounted merchandise from what they sell in malls.
“There is no such conflict between malls and Swiggy and Zomato here,” said Deepak Zutshi, vice president for leasing at Select Citywalk.
The focus, of course, is to ensure on-time delivery without compromising on the shopping experience at the glitzy stores.
"You have to ensure that time is not wasted within the mall itself. If you waste 10 minutes in the mall, it doesn’t make sense as these online platforms have to make home deliveries in 30-40 minutes,” said Abhishek Bansal, executive director of Delhi’s Pacific Mall, which has also allowed food delivery companies to use the service elevator. “We have to create the route where it takes minimum time for them to get to their bikes. So, we have created a corridor that takes five minutes for the meal to arrive from the stall to their bikes.”
Even though online platforms are bringing additional business for malls, as they have revenue-sharing agreements with restaurants and stalls in the food courts, some malls say the presence of delivery staff could irritate shoppers.
“We don’t want 30-40 people standing, chatting, and roaming around in the food court,” said Mukesh Kumar, CEO of Infiniti Mall in Mumbai.