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Uber Testing Massive Merchant Delivery Service

Posted by Soulskill on from the bring-me-pizza dept.

An anonymous reader writes: TechCrunch has obtained documents showing that Uber is testing out a delivery service that would allow shoppers to buy something online and have it delivered on the same day. "Sources say that Neiman Marcus, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany's, Cohen's Fashion Optical and Hugo Boss are all in talks with the Uber Merchant Delivery program, and one source in particular said that there are over 400 different merchants currently in talks (or already testing) with Uber for same-day delivery. (Cohen's Fashion Optical and Hugo Boss are both used as examples in the training presentation.) ... From what we can gather from the manual, it seems that Uber drivers and couriers are currently taking merchant orders through a different app (and even a separate phone) than the one they use to receive regular UberRUSH orders. Eventually, however, Uber drivers will be able to take both human passengers and Uber Merchant orders at the same time through an intelligent routing system, all from a single driver-side app."

2 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. flashy, but risky too. by nimbius · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Im sure most of these companies feel like its worth the PR, until they realize shipping through an unregulated, unlicensed, un-insured third party is a great way to watch $12,000 worth of shoes and purses go from the back of a prius to a roaring bonfire on youtube.

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    Good people go to bed earlier.
  2. Home or Phone? by quantaman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The article is kind of vague on the dropoff but it seems to be the real benefit isn't in the speed, it's the dropoff location.

    As someone who lives in an apartment getting a parcel looks like me checking the main entrance (which I don't use) for delivery notices of parcels they tried to deliver while I was at work then heading to the parcel depot during the 6 hours window on Saturday when I'm not at work and they're open.

    But Uber can get the current GPS location of its customers, so could do the dropoff directly to the person and skip the game of depot tag.

    The traditional delivery companies might have a real hard time responding to that.

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