Uber Eats, Uber’s food delivery service is looking to expand. No, not by adding more restaurants into the mix. But by becoming a ‘virtual mall’ that’ll sell more than just non-food items. The best part? The company intends to have these deliveries at your door in 30 minutes or less.
Gobbling up the market
“We’re bringing women’s comfort wear, we’re looking into apparel, but we also want to expand more into verticals such as books, stationery, because we find that those do really well. Herbs, pharmacies, those do very well,” said Uber Sub-Saharan Africa’s Cikida Gcali-Mabusela.
Uber Eats already sells a couple of non-food products like Rain 4G SIM cards, medicine and jewellery. The mindset over at Uber Eats is to add “…anything and everything a person could want in 30 minutes or less.” Who hasn’t needed an urgent jewellery delivery before?
Uber Eats wants in on the small business market too. The company would like to partner up with small businesses “… and then [use] them as a point of distribution for last-mile delivery,” she said.
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Uber currently has three of these distribution points set up around South Africa, though they’re all in Cape Town. The goal is to have six more up and running by the time September ends. These will be spread out across both Cape Town and Johannesburg, at least for now. By the end of Q1 2023, Uber hopes to have 37 distribution sites going, across all major areas in South Africa.
If done correctly, the Uber Eats app could slowly become South Africa’s biggest delivery service out there. The timing does feel a little off, what with the rumours of Amazon launching their own marketplace in South Africa in February of 2023.
Source: Business Insider