Zomato, the well-known food delivery giant, has officially decided to discontinue its lesser-known service, Zomato Legends. After a temporary suspension in April 2024, the service was reintroduced in July 2024 as “Intercity Legends” with a higher minimum order requirement of ₹5,000, in an attempt to push for profitability. Despite these efforts, the service was unable to sustain itself financially.
The announcement was made by Zomato’s CEO, Deepinder Goyal, via his account on X (previously known as Twitter).
Understanding Zomato Legends
Zomato Legends was crafted to facilitate the delivery of iconic regional dishes from one city to another, bringing local specialties to customers far away. For instance, Delhi residents could order authentic dhoklas straight from Gujarat. The service aimed to capitalize on Zomato’s vast network of restaurant and delivery partners, deep food industry knowledge, and insights into consumer preferences, to provide next-day delivery of celebrated dishes from all over India.
Despite multiple attempts to reboot the service, Zomato Legends failed to achieve the right “product-market fit,” leading to its termination.
Deepinder Goyal conveyed in his X post, “Update on Zomato Legends—after two years of trying, not finding product market fit, we have decided to shut down the service with immediate effect.”
Public Reaction to the Shutdown of Zomato Legends
Following the shutdown announcement, many users criticized the marketing approach of Zomato Legends, suggesting that poor promotion was a key reason behind the service’s failure.
One user commented, “I am hearing about Zomato intercity Legends for the first time today through this post… lol. It shows how bad the marketing and service were.” Another added, “I guess it was not marketed well. Not many people know about Zomato Legends.”
In response to a user asking about the main challenges in scaling the service, SEBI Registered Research Analyst Vibhor Varshney highlighted several issues: “There are many reasons. 1—services were never marketed. 2—who likes stale food like hours-old chole bhature? 3—it was too costly.”
Moreover, Zomato also recently discontinued its ‘Zomato Xtreme’ hyperlocal delivery service, which had been launched in 2023. Like Zomato Legends, Zomato Xtreme struggled with low demand and was eventually shut down in July 2024. The service aimed to compete with established intracity delivery providers like Shadowfax, Porter, and Loadshare, and had expanded to nearly 750-800 cities across India, but failed to secure a solid market position.