This is certainly… different. Taxi app service Uber and online retailer Kalahari have teamed up to make shopping online an unusual experience this year, though what they have in mind would make avoiding the completely mad shopping centres in SA this festive season a possibility. As long as you live in Cape Town.
Uber and Kalahari are setting up to provide some South African users with an UberSleigh, which is an Uber van that pitches up at your door with a selection of retailer Kalahari’s best-selling items this year. All of the items will come in under the R1,000 mark and users will be able to select items from four completely different sets for the different people in your life.
The point? To let you select the gifts you want to give, the cost of which are billed to your Uber account, without every having to leave the house. Or wait for a courier. But, again, that’s as long as you’re in Cape Town. Uber’s drivers and the van assistants will be kitted out like Santa and his elves as well, so there may be some comment from the neighbourhood kids if you make use of this initiative.
The UberSleigh feature will be running from 18 to 24 December, in Cape Town, where users can request the van by tapping an icon in the Uber app. Times that the vans (there are three of them) will be running will be from 10AM to 4PM. All of the preceding fits squarely in the time period where you don’t go anywhere near a mall if you know what’s good for you. Last-minute shopping might not suck this year.