The Dining Core
The Dining Core
www.zomato.com
www.zomato.com
The new era of dining
a ground-up redesign.
The new era of dining.
Background
Background
Background
Zomato operates at a massive scale, sitting at the high-velocity intersection of delivery, dining, and quick commerce. But while the wider ecosystem thrived, their dine-in discovery experience was showing its age. Faced with a stagnating value proposition and an aggressive new product launch from a key competitor, the platform was losing ground with potential customers. To stop the bleed and reclaim the market, we formed a dedicated task force. The goal wasn't a feature update; it was a ground-up transformation of the end-to-end dining, ticket booking, and live events—from the first search to the final payment.
Zomato operates at a massive scale, sitting at the high-velocity intersection of delivery, dining, and quick commerce. But while the wider ecosystem thrived, their dine-in discovery experience was showing its age. Faced with a stagnating value proposition and an aggressive new product launch from a key competitor, the platform was losing ground with potential customers. To stop the bleed and reclaim the market, we formed a dedicated task force. The goal wasn't a feature update; it was a ground-up transformation of the end-to-end dining, ticket booking, and live events—from the first search to the final payment.
Overview
Overview
Overview
Our initial concept was expansive—a ground-up transformation unifying dining, ticket booking, and live events. However, to drive immediate impact, we ruthlessly scoped our MVP to revolutionize just the end-to-end dining experience.
Coming into the dining vertical for the first time—and as the sole product designer—I had to get up to speed fast. After digging through past research and running endless wireframing sessions with stakeholders, a glaring issue emerged: we had a massive "discovery mismatch."
In a world driven by dynamic, short-form content, our static discovery cards were showing their age. They completely failed to capture the actual "vibe" of a restaurant. Flipping this into a win, we created fresh digital real estate for restaurant owners to advertise their restaurants in a highly engaging way.
But we knew we couldn't just slap a fresh UI on top of a tired business model. We completely tore down the old membership-only approach and built a stacked retention loop—combining restaurant-level offers, payment discounts, and gamified cashback (The Growth Playbook).
To tie it all seamlessly together, we overhauled the zomato pay flow, building a payment infrastructure that solved the friction for dining today, while being fully scalable for the live events and ticket bookings coming down the pipeline.
Here are some of the snapshots from the project:
Our initial concept was expansive—a ground-up transformation unifying dining, ticket booking, and live events. However, to drive immediate impact, we ruthlessly scoped our MVP to revolutionize just the end-to-end dining experience.
Coming into the dining vertical for the first time—and as the sole product designer—I had to get up to speed fast. After digging through past research and running endless wireframing sessions with stakeholders, a glaring issue emerged: we had a massive "discovery mismatch."
In a world driven by dynamic, short-form content, our static discovery cards were showing their age. They completely failed to capture the actual "vibe" of a restaurant. Flipping this into a win, we created fresh digital real estate for restaurant owners to advertise their restaurants in a highly engaging way.
But we knew we couldn't just slap a fresh UI on top of a tired business model. We completely tore down the old membership-only approach and built a stacked retention loop—combining restaurant-level offers, payment discounts, and gamified cashback (The Growth Playbook).
To tie it all seamlessly together, we overhauled the zomato pay flow, building a payment infrastructure that solved the friction for dining today, while being fully scalable for the live events and ticket bookings coming down the pipeline.
Here are some of the snapshots from the project:
1
1
(Explore)
(Explore)
Don't just find a restaurant. Find your exact vibe.
Don't just find a restaurant. Find your exact vibe.
Don't just find a restaurant. Find your exact vibe.
2
2
(Value prop)
(Value prop)
Exclusive dining perks, unlocked seamlessly at checkout.
Exclusive dining perks, unlocked seamlessly at checkout.
Exclusive dining perks, unlocked seamlessly at checkout.
3
3
(Retention)
(Retention)
Up to 100% cashback to fuel your next reservation.
Up to 100% cashback to fuel your next reservation.
Up to 100% cashback to fuel your next reservation.
Results and impact
Results and impact
Following a high-impact launch, the product scaled across PAN India within a single month. The revamped 'Going-out' vertical achieved a remarkable 154% YoY GOV growth.
Here is an excerpt from the press-release:
"The dining-out business, finally, is starting to shape up well. The revamped product is being well received by both customers and restaurant partners.
INR 515+ cr of GOV was transacted through Zomato Dining-Out in India in Q1FY24, which is ~7% of the GOV our food delivery business did in the same quarter. This business is also already profitable with an Adjusted EBITDA margin (as a % of GOV) of about 1% in Q1FY24 for the India business. At scale, we think that the dining-out business has the potential to generate 5%+ Adjusted EBITDA margins (as a % of GOV).
By the way, the 'Others' segment in our P&L also includes our nascent Zomato Live (events and ticketing) business - the vertical which hosts food carnivals called "Zomaland". Our exposure to the live events space and Zomaland's success has us excited about how the live-events space in India is evolving."
This was later unified with live events and ticketing businesses into a standalone app.
Following a high-impact launch, the product scaled across PAN India within a single month. The revamped 'Going-out' vertical achieved a remarkable 154% YoY GOV growth.
Here is an excerpt from the press-release:
"The dining-out business, finally, is starting to shape up well. The revamped product is being well received by both customers and restaurant partners.
INR 515+ cr of GOV was transacted through Zomato Dining-Out in India in Q1FY24, which is ~7% of the GOV our food delivery business did in the same quarter. This business is also already profitable with an Adjusted EBITDA margin (as a % of GOV) of about 1% in Q1FY24 for the India business. At scale, we think that the dining-out business has the potential to generate 5%+ Adjusted EBITDA margins (as a % of GOV).
By the way, the 'Others' segment in our P&L also includes our nascent Zomato Live (events and ticketing) business - the vertical which hosts food carnivals called "Zomaland". Our exposure to the live events space and Zomaland's success has us excited about how the live-events space in India is evolving."
This was later unified with live events and ticketing businesses into a standalone app.
495/500
495/500
495/500
conversion rates
conversion rates
628/800
click rates
1398/1600
active users
628/800
628/800
click-through rate
1389/1600
1389/1600
monthly active users
More projects?
Design. Technology.
Product. Wisdom.
Design. Technology.
Product. Wisdom.
Design. Technology.
Product. Wisdom.
A multi-disciplinary designer, passionate about solving challenging problems through thoughtful design that extends beyond the screen, exploring new interaction paradigms, and fascinated with the intersection of the digital & physical world.
Learning more about the psychology of design every day.
A multi-disciplinary designer, passionate about solving challenging problems through thoughtful design that extends beyond the screen, exploring new interaction paradigms, and fascinated with the intersection of the digital & physical world.
Learning more about the psychology of design every day.
Made in India with ♥️ &
Made in India with ♥️ &
resources
resources
Bring the ambition. I’ll bring the edge. For real growth and customer love, hop aboard my rocket ship.
Bring the ambition. I’ll bring the edge. For real growth and customer love, hop aboard my rocket ship.
