Flipkart has started testing its food-delivery service, Eat In, among employees in Bengaluru before a planned consumer launch in the city.
The Walmart-backed company will expand the pilot to its wider employee base in Bengaluru around 15 September, ahead of a consumer rollout, according to people familiar with the plans. Eat In will run inside the main Flipkart app to begin with, and the company may launch a separate app for the service as it scales. Flipkart is building the service in partnership with the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) and has been working on a lower commission structure for restaurants.
The employee trial follows a July confirmation from Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy that the company would enter food delivery. “We will launch food delivery in the next few weeks,” Krishnamurthy said, adding that Flipkart would first test the service with customers, gather feedback and improve the product before deciding how fast to expand.
An internal pilot lets the company assess order flows, delivery timing and the restaurant experience before Eat In reaches the public. It also runs alongside a separate move: Flipkart is rolling out a standalone app for its quick-commerce business, Flipkart Minutes, to a limited set of users ahead of a wider launch expected before the Big Billion Days sale in October.
The entry pushes Flipkart into a market led by Zomato and Swiggy, with newer rivals adding pressure. Rapido’s food-delivery service Ownly, which runs on a zero-commission model for restaurants, went live across Bengaluru earlier this year and had onboarded close to 20,000 restaurants. Swiggy’s lower-cost offering, Toing, has also been scaling.
