Quick commerce company Zepto has come under the spotlight once again after a man alleged that the platform charges different prices for the same product based on user activity.
In a LinkedIn post, Rapido executive Tejash Padia shared a shocking discovery — Zepto was displaying two different prices for the same one kilogram of onions on different devices.
Padia conducted an experiment using five different mobile phones, placing the same item in the cart on each. While two devices showed a price of Rs 35 per kg, the remaining three displayed Rs 64 per kg.
“BEWARE!!! At Zepto, you are paying a very high price for being loyal to the brand,” Padia wrote in his post, tagging Zepto’s co-founders Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra along with COO Vikas Sharma.
He also addressed common assumptions that price variations could be due to iOS vs Android differences, surge pricing or Zepto Pass membership benefits. Padia said his experiment was conducted at night, eliminating peak-hour price surges.
Padia concluded that Zepto was charging frequent users more. According to his observations, frequent buyers (ordering 15+ times a week) were shown the higher price of Rs 64/kg and less frequent users (ordering a maximum of five times a week) saw the lower price of Rs 35/kg.
Calling out this discriminatory pricing, Padia demanded a justification from Zepto’s top management by tagging them in the post.
Last month, Zepto landed in a similar controversy when an X user posted about price difference on the app between Android and iPhone users for the same product, under identical conditions. According to the tweet, capsicum on Zepto was priced at Rs 21 for Android users, while iPhone users were charged Rs 107 for the same item.