The photo-sharing app Instagram will now make it easier for its users to order food through its platform. The company on Thursday announced that it has partnered with food-delivery giants Swiggy and Zomato to help small restaurants survive and establish themselves during the ongoing coronavirus crisis. Instagram launched a special food order stickers to enable users to order food.
The small-scale business can share newly launched food order stickers by Instagram on their Stories, which would allow users to just tap on it and place an order through Swiggy or Zomato.
“We want to do our part in helping small businesses stay open, keep in touch with customers, and be informed on how to navigate this crisis. For the food industry in particular, we’re rolling out the food order sticker, which will aid order discovery and spur engagement, and we’re glad to have partnered with Swiggy and Zomato for the same," Nitin Chopra, industry head, e-commerce and retail, Facebook India said in a statement.
In order to use the food order sticker, businesses or restaurants should have the latest version of Instagram on either iOS or Android. They should either use a business account on the app or a creator account. They can add either Swiggy or Zomato’s link to their Instagram Stories and also share the link on their Instagram profile. This would make it easier for people who follow them to place orders just by tapping on the “order food” button or the Stories.
Talking about the collaboration with Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform, Srivats TS, vice president - marketing, Swiggy said, “Supporting the small business ecosystem, especially the restaurant business, which is severely affected, is a huge priority for us. As physical distancing continues and businesses innovate with online models, features like the food order sticker from Instagram will aid engagement between customers and their favorite food businesses, and ideally have a positive impact on increasing online food delivery order volumes.”
People can also help the small scale businesses by sharing the stickers with a link to Zomato or Swiggy in their Stories too. This would help the restaurants in reaching out to more and more people.
“At Zomato, we are focused on the overall development of the food delivery sector and have been working with restaurants to design different growth models. Instagram’s food order sticker will not just help restaurants introduce themselves to more customers, improve their engagement but also add a new growth avenue for their businesses," said Sandeep Anand, chief marketing officer, Zomato said in a statement to Mint.
