Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
1–10 of 66 posts
Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
#2"But long-term this is most likely not going to be economically feasible unless Uber starts to figure out other ways to monetise this, through adding delivery fees or charging advertising fees to brands that take part in the programme."
Really sums up the article.
Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
#3As a resident of San Francisco, I find it somewhat amusing to be informed about local services via a British news organization.
Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
#4I'm just curious as to why DC? They're not based there nor is DC considered to be one of the most densely populated cities.
Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
#5I'm just curious as to why DC? They're not based there nor is DC considered to be one of the most densely populated cities.
Probably influenced by David Plouffe joining the team. He was Obama's senior advisor.
Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
#6I'm just curious as to why DC? They're not based there nor is DC considered to be one of the most densely populated cities.
DC is Uber's second largest market outside of San Francisco - and that includes Chicago, NYC, LA, etc. It's a test kitchen for a lot of consumer services because it's got a lot of different demographics under one roof. It's also relatively small, making it easy for Uber drivers to get around the area without incurring a bunch of extra costs for the company. Grocery delivery is also super popular in DC already.
San Francisco, by contrast, is almost too perfect. It would no doubt be successful there, but it doesn't give them as good of a feel for how this service would fare outside of Silicon Valley where these types of ad-hoc delivery services are far more common.
Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
#7I'm just curious as to why DC? They're not based there nor is DC considered to be one of the most densely populated cities.
Cities like San Francisco are much more saturated with on-demand delivery services. We're a lot harder to impress.
I get the sense that they're trying to gather data without drawing a lot of attention to their experiment.
Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
#8Instarcart started its delivery via Uber, right? That's a fun little circle.
Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
#9Why are Silicon Valley startups continually trying to get into the food and grocery delivery business? Is there research somewhere that shows that this is a lucrative market?
I'm old enough to remember Webvan, I'm seeing COSTCO cede their delivery service to Google, and I realize that most food delivery business is minimum wage work. I don't see the money in it.
Re: Uber starts same-day grocery delivery service in US
#10It's hard to compete with grocery stores:
1. They're local. Most people have a grocery store within 5 minutes of their house.
2. They're well-stocked. You have ten thousand products to choose from. Who could ask for more?
3. They're timely. If you go to a grocery store, it will take you a certain maximum amount of time - the amount of time it takes to go down each aisle once.
4. They're accurate. You picked every item. Your fruit fits your exact criteria.
With grocery delivery, you can be perfectly local, but your stock is identical and your accuracy is almost always worse. And your time window + the time it takes to pick the two dozen items you need will almost always be worse than going to the grocery store.
That said, there is a niche for this - the elderly and the very, very busy. To capture the second niche, you'll need to up your timeliness though and improve your branding on speed. It should take no longer to deliver groceries than it does to deliver a pizza.
I want my DiGiorno delivered.