Flipkart Starts Employee Testing of Its 'Eat In' Food Delivery Service in Bengaluru, Takes On Zomato and Swiggy
Walmart-backed Flipkart has begun internal testing of its food delivery platform Eat In among employees in Bengaluru, marking the e-commerce giant's first real move into a market currently dominated by Zomato and Swiggy.
Here's the rollout plan. According to reports citing sources familiar with the matter, Eat In is expected to expand to Flipkart's entire employee base in Bengaluru around September 15, before opening up to actual consumers in the city. For now, the service will operate within the main Flipkart app itself, though the company may eventually launch a separate standalone app as it scales the business, following other cities after Bengaluru.
The strategy behind this cautious rollout matters here. Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy had said back in July that the company would first test food delivery on a limited basis before deciding on a full-scale launch, emphasising that the platform's pitch would go beyond just pricing to focus on selection, service quality, reliability and overall customer experience. Eat In is being built in partnership with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), and Flipkart is also reportedly working on a lower commission structure to make the platform more attractive to restaurant partners.
The timing lines up with a bigger company-wide push too. Flipkart is simultaneously piloting a standalone app for its quick commerce arm, Flipkart Minutes, with a limited group of users, ahead of a broader rollout expected before its Big Billion Days sale in October, signalling the company is expanding aggressively across new commerce categories all at once.
The competitive backdrop makes this entry genuinely interesting. India's food delivery market is already seeing real disruption, Rapido's zero-commission platform Ownly has crossed 50,000 daily orders in Bengaluru alone, close to 10% of the city's estimated daily food delivery volume, while Swiggy's own lower-cost offering, Toing, has been scaling fast too. Flipkart isn't just adding a third major player, it's entering a segment where pricing models themselves are actively being rewritten.
From marketplace commerce to quick commerce to now food delivery, Flipkart's employee pilot is a small first step in what could become one of India's biggest commerce battles yet.
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