NEW DELHI: After an intense protest over high commission and poor payout, Urban Company (formerly known as UrbanClap) on Thursday said it is slashing its maximum commission to 25% from 30% to improve earnings of its partners.
“For beauty categories (in which almost all our women partners work), we are reducing the highest commission slab from 30% to 25%. Earlier, commissions ranged from 8.5% for small orders to 30% for high-ticket orders. Commissions will now range from 8.5% to 25%. The highest slab currently applies to high-value orders and this change will now help partners earn more on these high-value orders. Average commissions after this change comes out in the range of 20-22%,” the company said in a blogpost.
Last week, over 100 Urban Company (UC) beautician partners had staged a protest outside the company office in Gurugram alleging that the company was deducting huge commissions and giving out small payouts. They also complained about long working hours, safety concerns and harsh fines on missing monthly targets. Most of the claims were later refuted by the company with a detailed chart showing commission deduction, cost of service and payouts to partners.
The home services marketplace has now introduced a 12-point programme to improve partner earnings and livelihood that include ‘marginally’ increasing prices of several high-demand services across categories, reducing product prices of select high demand products by almost 10%, reducing the penalty cap to Rs 1,500 per month from Rs 3,000 earlier that was levied on cancellation of services, among other things.
When contacted, two UC partners said that it is positive that the company is taking steps to address the concerns of gig workers but they could have done a bit more with the commission cap. “Average commission should stand in the range of 15-17% and maximum should come down to 20%,” said a female beautician.
Urban Company also said it will reduce the overall algorithmical blocks by 80% on the platform that prevents partners from providing household services. It will only put quality blocks for partners and work towards upskilling them in case of bad customer ratings, the company said. In recent months, delivery workers of food aggregators Swiggy and Zomato raised their voice relating to high commission and changed service algorithms.
Will improve earnings for partners: UC
Commissions will now range from 8.5% to 25%. The highest slab currently applies to high-value orders and this change will now help partners earn more on these high-value orders. Average commissions after this change comes out in the range of 20-22%,” the company said.