Rapido exec claims Zepto showed 2 prices for 1kg onion, says ‘You're paying very high price for being loyal'

The man shared a picture of the experiment he conducted, showing two different prices of the same commodity on different devices.

An executive working at ride hailing app Rapido pointed out that quick commerce app Zepto, which promises to deliver products within 10 minutes, showed two different prices for the same product on different devices.

Rapido exec claims Zepto shows lesser price for products to infrequent users (LinkedIn/Tejash Padia)

In a LinkedIn post, Tejash Padia shared a picture of five mobile devices placed next to one another. The devices showed the five different carts set up on the Zepto app, all of which were showing the price for one kilogram of onions. While two of the five mobile devices quoted a price of ₹35, the remaining three quoted a price of ₹64.

“BEWARE!!! At Zepto, you are paying a very high price for being loyal to the brand,” Padia said. Explaining what his experiment was about, he said, “Yesterday night, we observed two different prices across five different phones for the same BASIC product - 'Onion'. The pricing wasn't just off by ₹5/- or ₹10/-, but just DOUBLE. ₹64/- vs ₹35/- for a kg of onions.”

He tagged Zepto Co-founder Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra along with Zepto COO Vikas Sharma. He also shared his observations and said that the issue did not pertain to a person using an iOS or an Android device. He was referring to several online discussions regarding this issue which people often attribute to the type of mobile device that the user is using to order the product.

He noted that the cart did not include any surge charges as he performed the experiment during the night and said, “Zepto pass was also not a differentiator.”

What was it then?

Sharing his final observation, Padia said people who ordered from the app very frequently were being shown the higher price of ₹64/kg of onions. By frequent user, he said someone who orders more than 15 times each week from Zepto. On the other hand, users who ordered a maximum of five times each week from Zepto were shown the lower price, he said.

He asked the startup's top management to justify this “different treatment across different customers in the same household”.

There was no comment from Zepto till the time of writing this article. Hindustan Times has reached out to the company and will update the story after getting a response.

The Rapido exec clarified that the price difference was not because of the Zepto Super Saver mode either.

Several users agreed with Padia's observations. One such user said, “While frequency is definitely the factor, there is no specific number. I guess the quantity, overall order size and the consumption pattern also influences the price.”