Uber CEO: We're Going After Groceries Next (yahoo.com)

Uber is digging deeper into the business of food. From a report: Uber's restaurant delivery business "Eats" hit $6 billion in bookings earlier this year, growing over 200%, quickly becoming a crown jewel for the ride-sharing company. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said given the success in the delivery of food, the next logical step is to enter the grocery space. "We will move into grocery. That's fundamental. A lot more people will be eating at home. Right now we are busy with Eats, but you can see grocery as an adjacent business. We're thinking about Uber much more as a platform," he said at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit 2018 on Tuesday.

Comments

Hard No

[SuperKendall]

I enjoy talking to Uber drivers and have liked quite a few of them (compared to liking about 0.0001% of taxi drivers I have ever met).

But there is not one Uber driver I've ever seen that I would want picking out groceries for me nor would even eat anything they hand me (you drink those free bottles of water in Uber cars? Good luck with that).

Re:Hard No

[dysmal]

They'll partner with grocery stores who have employees shopping for you. The Uber drivers will get the employee picked groceries to your home. The employees shopping for customers is already a growing trend in grocery stores and so it's a natural progression for Uber to be the last mile carrier.

All so you don't have to go out in public and associate with real PEOPLE!!!

Re:Hard No

[cayenne8]

But there is not one Uber driver I've ever seen that I would want picking out groceries for me nor would even eat anything they hand me (you drink those free bottles of water in Uber cars? Good luck with that).

It isn't just Uber drivers...

I can't imagine sending anyone out to pick my food for me....

I'd not trust them to spend he time to pick the best produce for me, nor look over the meats, and look for the best marbling in beef, etc.

Not to mention, I usually choose my meals based on a couple things:

1. What's on sale in weekly ads

2. What happens to really look good.

I usually do most of my menus based on seeing what's on sale that week, and going maybe on Friday or Sat to the various stores to get the best deals on things.

Sometimes there's a Costco trip in there too.

But often I get in the store and see something that either looks good, or I didn't realize was in season, etc....and quickly in my head some up with something to cook with that.

Not sure how an Uber driver or shopping service could make me as happy cooking and eating as I do myself shopping for food.

Re:Hard No

[cayenne8]

They'll partner with grocery stores who have employees shopping for you. The Uber drivers will get the employee picked groceries to your home. The employees shopping for customers is already a growing trend in grocery stores and so it's a natural progression for Uber to be the last mile carrier.

The trouble with that is, the store employees will likely pick out your stuff for you in rotation of stock that is best for the STORE, not YOU....

When I go in, I pick to see what looks freshest and best to ME.

Re:Hard No

[PopeRatzo]

I enjoy talking to Uber drivers and have liked quite a few of them (compared to liking about 0.0001% of taxi drivers I have ever met).

Maybe it depends on where you live. In Chicago, cab drivers are much more interesting and engaging than Uber drivers. Much more fun to talk to and more likely to have interesting personal stories. In Houston, Uber drivers were better company, but cab drivers would offer to hook you up with a weed connection or prostitutes, so that's a wash. In California, the cab drivers and Uber drivers are exactly the same, except the cab drivers won't expect you to listen to bad music they recorded in their home studio or tell you about the script they're writing.

Re:Hard No

[alvinrod]

There are a lot of people who don't eat any fresh produce (which is probably not great from a health perspective, but that's another matter entirely) for whom it makes no difference whether they pick out their items or someone else does it. I suppose a few of them might be worried that the store employees will give them the dented cans, but my guess is that the kind of people who leave eating from them all the time probably wouldn't mind since it means not having to go to the store.

Humanity never ceases to amaze me. The strive to persevere even in the face of adversity and the dedication to advancement even after countless defeats is impressive. But on the other hand, the shear abject laziness is remarkable. One would have thought that the thousands of years prior to the modern era where people had to work all day to avoid starving would have removed whatever genes lead to people who would rather vegetate themselves as opposed to steam a raw vegetable for supper, but apparently it didn't get them all.

Re:Hard No

[dysmal]

The trouble with that is, the store employees will likely pick out your stuff for you in rotation of stock that is best for the STORE, not YOU....

When I go in, I pick to see what looks freshest and best to ME.

You and I both!

The sad reality is that a growing segment of the population is "too busy" or can't be bothered to go grocery shopping. They'd rather have someone else go do that for them. The trend of personal shoppers for grocery stores is growing for a reason. People have voted with their dollars and would rather drive up to a special lane and pick up everything and drive away.

Remember that Uber Eats delivers Mc Donald's food for a reason... because the drive through isn't convenient enough!

Re:Hard No

[PopeRatzo]

Yeah, I'm way too fussy about the food I eat to let some minimum-wage worker choose it for me. Since I eat almost entirely fresh food, I want to look at the produce, fish, meat myself. I like to talk to the grocer and the butcher and the hot girl with tattoos at the checkout counter.

I will occasionally order spices and coffee and things like that online. But avocados? Swiss chard? Fresh fish? No.

Re:Hard No

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Since I eat almost entirely fresh food, I want to look at the produce, fish, meat myself. I like to talk to the grocer and the butcher and the hot girl with tattoos at the checkout counter.

Oh, come on . . . tell the truth . . .

Since I eat almost entirely fresh food, I want to look at the produce, fish, meat myself. I like to talk to the grocer and the butcher and eat the hot girl with tattoos at the checkout counter.

So on the Uber Groceries App, please check the "no tattoos" box under driver preferences. For your own . . . and the driver's . . . safety.

Back to the subject of who touches your food . . . food workers are subject to public heath standards inspections.

But, of course, Uber is a software company, and its drivers aren't food workers, so they will not need to meet any standards.

Re:Hard No

[mentil]

The go-getters with boundless energy who are hyperactive and constantly burning through huge amounts of energy are the first to starve to death when the next famine rolls around. Whereas the fat and lazy survive.

Re:Hard No

[Anonymous Coward]

The sad reality is that a growing segment of the population is "too busy" or can't be bothered to go grocery shopping.

Video Games is why.

Re:Hard No

[Anonymous Coward]

So you never eat out at restaurants? Or every food worker has to get your personal approval before they can touch your food?

Re: Hard No

[Anonymous Coward]

A thousand years ago "Uber eats" were the hunters who went out and killed something, then brought it back to the village. Meanwhile the "lazy" people, as you call them, could focus on other areas of production, such as taking care of the sick and elderly.

Not that I'd ever use Uber for anything other than a taxi service with a driver who can't shut up and mind her own business.

Re:Hard No

[demonlapin]

It's pretty good for one use case I can think of: heavy nonperishables. Otherwise, yeah, I just don't see most of the appeal, and they're definitely competing against Amazon in that space. Good luck with that, because Amazon already owns a grocery store.

Re:Hard No

[Anonymous Coward]

All so you don't have to go out in public and associate with real PEOPLE!!!

It's not like grocery shopping is an exciting social experience. You get an "Hello", the price and a "good bye" at the register and that's about it.

This comment is more "associating with real people" than shopping in a supermarket.

Re:Hard No

[rtb61]

You know the way to build your business is to piss off your customers because they could never ever possibly tell that you are selling them old stock. I had a store do this, I did not order off them again, some time latter they stopped deliveries, not enough people buying to make it worthwhile. Online ordering is competition hell for supermarkets, you are no longer bound by distance, competition is real, you can do a shopping cart comparison straight up and only complete the cheapest order or you can simply choose the one the provides the best freshest product. Bulk of my grocery delivered, I go through the specials list and I change supermarket chain when required and I still go to the store for odds and ends.

Re:Hard No

[Anonymous Coward]

...and the hot girl with tattoos at the checkout counter.

you should eat her pussy. chicks like dudes who eat snatch now. it doesn't make you gay, not like it did in the 90's.

Re:Hard No

[Bite The Pillow]

Looks like you're not the target audience.

Re:Hard No

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly for most people it will just be a way to eat more processed corn and nitrated meats. It’s depressing but most people are below you. God bless the old guard.

Re:Hard No

[dryeo]

People spent 10s of thousands of years as hunter gathers who only needed to work 4 hours a day on average.

Re:Hard No

[Uberbah]

The trouble with that is, the store employees will likely pick out your stuff for you in rotation of stock that is best for the STORE, not YOU....

The grocery business is ferociously competitive, unless you're in a small town with a single store. So if the manager is doing the picking, she probably won't stick you with a filet of fish that expires the day of your order, because they want you as a return customer. But if it's a regular employee they probably won't give a shit either way.

My crotchety old grandfather (picture Abe Simpson) would always rant that the guy working in produce was trying to rip him off. Moldy carrots, a bag of potatoes with at least one gone bad, etc. I had to keep telling him - grandpa, they don't care. They don't get paid to care.

Re:Hard No

[Anonymous Coward]

All so you don't have to go out in public and associate with real PEOPLE!!!

I'm handicapped; have to walk with a cane. I'm not so bad off as to need to use the powered scooters quite yet, but grocery shopping leaves me damn near ready to just give up and drop dead right there in the aisle. Especially since the doctors stopped giving anyone opioids for people who actually DO have chronic pain.

If I could afford whatever price they end up charging, damn straight I'd have grocery delivered. But then, sure, I wouldn't get the absolute joy of going out in public and meeting all those great people who assume I'm faking having to use a cane to get a good parking spot, or who hate me for having whatever color skin is in vogue to hate this week.

Re:Hard No

[q_e_t]

You can spend the time saved to go to a coffee shop and meet people.

Re:Hard No

[MrL0G1C]

In the UK some supermarkets pick from stores and some pick from dedicated delivery warehouses. Getting your shopping from a dedicated warehouse is obviously preferable and the fresh food quality is noticeably better because a) it hasn't had a bunch of people prodding at it to see if it's ripe b) has been stored optimally and c) staff don't care, they will simply grab an item which will be queued in a methodical first in first out system (assuming the supermarkets aren't complete idiots) .

Re:Hard No

[froggyjojodaddy]

It's tempting to think that's the case but it hasn't been my experience. I shop at Zehrs and they offer a service called 'Click and Collect'. You go on-line, order your groceries and when it's ready, they give you a call to pick it up.

You park in a designated spot near the front the store and an employee comes out and loads it up in your car. Easy peasy.

The fruit and veggies are exactly the same as the ones I would have picked, I've yet to get home and realize I've got something old, mouldy, damaged etc. The staff are friendly and helpful and they even give you a small bag of goodies as a 'thank you'.

This IS the future, I would recommend it to anyone who lives near a Zehrs that offers this service. It's such a great time saver. I know some people express concern about the growing lack of interactivity with others, but honest, how often to you stop and talk to random strangers when you're doing your groceries?

Re:Hard No

[tehcyder]

cab drivers would offer to hook you up with a weed connection or prostitutes

What could possibly go wrong with taking up the offer of illegal services by a stranger in a strange town?

Re:Hard No

[froggyjojodaddy]

Honestly? Yes, I am too busy to do grocery shopping. I mean, I could do it, but it would mean having 2 hours less to do something else. Not sure if this is typical but there's always something to do:

1. Finish up my basement reno. Working solo mostly. Hard to get into a rhythm but once I get going, I can spend a good 10 hours.
2. Cleaning the cars. Whether it's inside or outside, keeping them rust and damage free is a frequent chore
3. Cleaning the house. Vacuuming, dusting, wiping down cabinets, cleaning furniture etc.
4. Gardening. Mowing takes 3 hours and is a weekly task otherwise the grass grows too long and then ends up clumping when cut, even with a mulching blade. And then there's the weeds that need to be kept in constant check
5. Playing with kids. They've started getting into soccer and volleyball so I try to spend at least 30 mins a day before it gets dark playing outside
6. Gym. Minimum 1 hour a day with 30 minutes drive time there and back

We used to do groceries on the weekend but that's prime time for most of the above activities, except for the gym, and groceries are unproductive time. Most people who use grocery services aren't lazy, they just can make better use of the same time.

Re:Hard No

[froggyjojodaddy]

"All so you don't have to go out in public and associate with real PEOPLE!!!"

I don't know about you, but I find the less "real people" I interact with, the happier I am. It's a rare occurrence when a stranger strikes up a meaningful conversation.

Re: Hard No

[Anonymous Coward]

I often find a 2-3 week better/older expiry date on a item by digging around the shelf.

Re:Hard No

[spudnic]

That's a big night out for some of us!

Re: Hard No

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a treadmill and some weights. Go to the gym once or twice a week.

Ooh Webvan is back!

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

It's the bubble all over again. Watch out for the burst, like in 2001.

Re:Ooh Webvan is back!

[OpenSourceAllTheWay]

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Re:Ooh Webvan is back!

[b0s0z0ku]

Await the burst. Buy low. Profit. Don't watch out, rather, enjoy the show.

Re:Ooh Webvan is back!

[Anonymous Coward]

No Scandinavian language uses "ü", shit-for-brains.

Re:Ooh Webvan is back!

[serviscope_minor]

It's the bubble all over again. Watch out for the burst, like in 2001.

What you don't realise is while the silliest ones like webvan have gone in some countries (e.g. the UK) supermarkets started grocery deliveries in the late 1990s and are still doing it today. The competition is stiffer than ever which is why Amazon got a whole pile of nowhere when it tried to enter the market.

Grocery delivery works if you do it right.

Good luck with that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck with that! Groceries are a low-margin business. The low margin depends on the customer traversing the "last mile" shifting the last mile problem from supplier to consumer.

Sure some wealthy people probably will be interested, but they don't need Uber for that and that demographic would expect and demand a high degree of accountability and Uber is not in that kind of marketspace.

Re:Good luck with that!

[dysmal]

The natural partnership is with Amazon after their recent acquisition of Whole Foods. Uber will go pick up groceries for the Amazon Prime customers.

This'll work nicely during the holiday season when Uber drivers will also get tapped to pick up packages from stores. If a Prime customer wants that last minute gift on 12/24 THAT badly, they'll pay for it and both Amazon and Uber will be more than happy to take their money.

Re:Good luck with that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon already has Prime Now to do this, they would just need to integrate it with Whole Foods if they haven't already. No way they outsource the last mile when they are actively trying to grow their last mile business.

Re:Good luck with that!

[demonlapin]

Eh, they might leverage it for a while. Uber's in a lot of places that you can't get Prime Now, and a quick glance says that Prime Now only works for Whole Foods in numerous of the smaller cities. So, yeah, they're building some last-mile, but they're opening with Whole Foods - which, maybe, is great, if I want to pay Whole Foods prices and have someone else pick out my food. I'd rather see regular Prime bumped up to next-day for items that are located close to you.

Actually, the whole proximity thing was a big bonus for Monoprice back in the day - it turned out that I lived within next-day UPS Ground range of one of their warehouses. Pay for cheap shipping, get it tomorrow. The only problem was that you couldn't shop by warehouse, so you couldn't know when something was coming from across the country. If you needed a thumb drive ASAP, you could get boned by next-day shipping, or you could get boned by going to a brick-and-mortar. It looks like Amazon will only sell you the stuff that you really can get today on this service.

Re:Good luck with that!

[0100010001010011]

The low margin depends on the customer traversing the "last mile" shifting the last mile problem from supplier to consumer.

At this point, it's been optimized to the point where the grocery store is obsolete. "Milk Men" are going to come back, which is more or less what this is.

Right now the current method by Shipt is unbelievably worse. You're paying someone to go shop in a store for you, to pay a store to pay people to put stuff on shelves and make them straight, etc.

Look at how much 'dead weight' is sitting around a grocery store. Not to mention all of the overhead of a parking lot, power, prime real estate taxes, a CD and DVD section ... because.

You could build a pick'n'pull factory in the middle of nowhere to only sell non-perishables. Give me a barcode scanner to scan stuff as it's getting empty, let me schedule a drop off time (or pickup location) and I'll never grocery shop again. Our farmers market is good enough to actually eat from (vs the 'art fair lite' farmers markets some towns have).

Re:Good luck with that!

[q_e_t]

Good luck with that!

It works perfectly well in the UK, and major cities in the USA are also pretty dense. Delivery services already exist in the USA, though. My primary way to shop for groceries is either delivery or order and pick up a pre-picked order. In terms of interaction, I have more interaction with the delivery or collection staff (I've known one for several years) than in store.

Re:Good luck with that!

[mjwx]

Good luck with that! Groceries are a low-margin business. The low margin depends on the customer traversing the "last mile" shifting the last mile problem from supplier to consumer.

Sure some wealthy people probably will be interested, but they don't need Uber for that and that demographic would expect and demand a high degree of accountability and Uber is not in that kind of marketspace.

The UK already has delivery for most supermarkets in many areas. Cost is between £0 and 10 for delivery depending on location, order size and so on. Larger orders are usually free or at a lower cost. We even have online only supermarkets like Ocado and Amazon Fresh.

That being said I still drive down there to see what offers are on this week and if they've got any new ales in but I get why some people hate supermarkets.

More crummy $10/hour jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

So now Uber can create crummy delivery jobs where people make barely enough to live on.

This gig economy thing seems to be creating a two tiered society. One where people have good paying 9-5 jobs with benefits, the other where people struggle from day to day at "gig economy" jobs that pay barely enough to get by.

Thanks Silicon Valley!

Re:More crummy $10/hour jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this is going to come as a huge shock to you so brace yourself. Some of us actually do care about other people. Strangers even!
I don't expect your psychopathic brain to be able to process that but it's true. Some of us would even help your unsympathetic ass if you needed it. Lucky you!

Re:More crummy $10/hour jobs.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Shanghai Bill. Keep your diseased opinions in Communist China, would you?

Anything is possible

[rsilvergun]

anything is possible with an endless supply of expendable labor.

Re:Anything is possible

[youngone]

I might buy one of those posters to encourage the henchmen in my super-villain volcano lair.

The bubble for sure

[Anonymous Coward]

Economy and jobs going really good, but wait for all the bubble bursting when a hot economy goes South. All good things must come to a end. After all your paying for a service you used to do yourself, and those services tend to be first in the chopping block for budgets. We have seen this with mail order dinners already, where people finally figure out, hey this get's expensive.

Prior art

[TimMD909]

Giant Eagle already does this in the Pittsburgh area. If I recall, it's about $15 for them to pick out everything you wanted and deliver it. Came in handy after the last surgery where I wasn't able to get around for a bit.

Re:Prior art

[viperidaenz]

That's expensive. I pay no more than $13NZD, which is about $8.50USD. We're a relatively small country with a spread out population. Our entire country is less than half the population of Pennsylvania.

Re: Prior art

[TimMD909]

Understood but apples to apples is hard between us. $15 for someone to take an hour combined for time to shop and bring me food seems fair. My time is worth money too, and I like having an afternoon freed up for such a small amount of cash.

Re: Prior art

[viperidaenz]

That's the problem with Uber, even $15 isn't going to be enough for someone to make money without being able to use the profit margin of the goods sold to offset it.

The supermarket knows approximately how much stock is on the shelf. They know exactly where everything is, they can have pickers dedicated to each section then combine all the bags in to the correct orders. They can absorb losses when more expensive substitutes get picked or the extra half an apple that put the bag over the 1kg that was paid for. These staff members can be a little flexible in when this all happens, so they can do other work when there are no orders, like stacking shelves. They can then load up all the orders to a single refrigerated truck to make the deliveries.

Nice and streamlined.

Re: Prior art

[CanadianMacFan]

I've seen the people who pick the orders in one of the stores here in Canada. They have a cart that holds six large shopping baskets and one person goes around the store for however many orders they are shopping for. I'm not assuming that every basket is an order as some orders could be large.

This is for the pick-up service some stores offer. You order online and some time later you park your car in one of a few spaces near the entrance. (Usually just past the handicapped spots.) Someone brings out your order to the car and you don't have to go into the store.

All you would have to do is forward the order confirmation to Uber and Uber would tell the store which car would be picking up the order. It's already paid for so the driver doesn't have to worry about anything. They bring it to you and everything is done.

The only deliveries that happen here are for people that come into the store and pay for the delivery. The groceries go into cardboard boxes which are usually put at the front of the store until the delivery person picks them up. They go into a non-refrigerated vehicle while on deliveries. It could be hours before you get your food but then you need time to get back home anyways.

Re: Prior art

[viperidaenz]

I still don't see the benefit outsourcing the delivery to someone else.
I wouldn't order cold food perishable from a place they doesn't deliver it in something that keeps it cold.

We have also have the service that deliver a weeks worth of groceries and recipes. They're usually delivered with ice packs and insulation in the box by courier vans. Probably a good extra source of business for the courier drivers to do a round of deliveries in the suburbs after hours. But again, that only makes sense because they're delivering entire van loads of boxes to a relatively small area.

There's thousands of stories about how much of a bad deal the companies that use Uber Eats for deliveries get. They only really have a choice between losing customers and their future non-delivery business, or make no profit to keep them by offering Uber Eats. When their customer complains about cold food, they end up refunding the whole purchase, including the amount Uber keeps. They actually lose money, not just time and products. Big companies might get a better deal but small shops get shafted.

Re: Prior art

[tehcyder]

I've seen the people who pick the orders in one of the stores here in Canada. They have a cart that holds six large shopping baskets and one person goes around the store for however many orders they are shopping for. I'm not assuming that every basket is an order as some orders could be large.

This is for the pick-up service some stores offer. You order online and some time later you park your car in one of a few spaces near the entrance. (Usually just past the handicapped spots.) Someone brings out your order to the car and you don't have to go into the store.

All you would have to do is forward the order confirmation to Uber and Uber would tell the store which car would be picking up the order. It's already paid for so the driver doesn't have to worry about anything. They bring it to you and everything is done.

The only deliveries that happen here are for people that come into the store and pay for the delivery. The groceries go into cardboard boxes which are usually put at the front of the store until the delivery person picks them up. They go into a non-refrigerated vehicle while on deliveries. It could be hours before you get your food but then you need time to get back home anyways.

I still don't see what the advantage of using Uber over the supermarket delivery services is. Currently, if you pick it up yourself, you're saving the delivery charge at the cost of your time. If you pay Uber to pick it up for you, you're just paying them instead of the supermarket, and I can't imagine Uber will be any cheaper than the five or six quid the supermarket charges.

I see more on the horizon

[Anonymous Coward]

What if.. just stay with me here.. you want a pizza, but you are too busy to make your own pizza.

Now, we have this food service organization (FSO) that produces these pizzas.

I want you to connect the dots and we bring Uber and Independent FSO's to the customer. Now, through the power of Web 2.0 we can bring iFSO's into your home at a fraction of the time the customer would normally spend.

Honestly, I'm surprised no one has thought of this before us.

We're thinking about Uber much more as a platform

[Hognoxious]

We're thinking about Uber much more as a platform

BINGO!

Sad thing: yesterday I saw a uber eats twat cut a corner (nearly hitting a man on a crosswalk), ride about twenty yards the wrong way on the wrong side down a one-way street while looking at his phone, do a sudden u-turn, ride back the right way still looking at his pone, ignore a yield sign and nearly hit a rootard.

The sad bit is the last "nearly".

let Uber do their own propaganda

[Uberbah]

Uber's restaurant delivery business "Eats" hit $6 billion in bookings earlier this year, growing over 200%, quickly becoming a crown jewel for the unlicensed taxi company.

fixed

Re:let Uber do their own propaganda

[magarity]

Delivering food is not unlicensed taxiing.

Re:let Uber do their own propaganda

[mentil]

If the food is Organ Meats, then clearly they are in the Livery business.

Re:let Uber do their own propaganda

[Uberbah]

Pedant, did you read the summary, or know what the company's primary business is?

Re:let Uber do their own propaganda

[magarity]

I'm just tired of the "unlicensed taxi" whining - taxi licenses are a scam.

Re:let Uber do their own propaganda

[Uberbah]

Because Uber isn't a scam??? Their entire business model is predicated on the notion that they can drive other taxi companies out of business, in time for their self-driving technology to take flight before running out of the venture capital allowing them to lose billions every year. At which point they promptly let all of their human drivers go while jacking up rates. This is so obvious that Ray Charles could see it. And Ray Charles is blind.

And dead. What's your excuse for this venture capitalist bootlicking?

well when your stock boys are 1099'er make under m

[Joe_Dragon]

well when your stock boys are 1099'er making under min wage there is profit.

Hello I'd like to make an order

[Anonymous Coward]

Please get me a couple bottles of Crystal Pepsi, some Ding-Dongs and a pair of Ho's, good ones.

Re:Hello I'd like to make an order

[Anonymous Coward]

For Ho Hos, you have to choose UberXL. Otherwise, it's Little Debbie Swiss Rolls for you.

Re: Hello I'd like to make an order

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I don't want Siamese twins.

They do not have to...

[bogaboga]

But there is not one Uber driver I've ever seen that I would want picking out groceries for me nor would even eat anything they hand me...

Someone at your chosen grocery store will ppack the groceries into a "tamper proof" bag.

All the Uber fella will have to do is DELIVER.

In any case, UBER gets their cut with virtually no effort expended; smart!

Fail

[viperidaenz]

Supermarkets are big enough to run their own delivery operations.
It's common in New Zealand. They have people in the different sections of the supermarket picking the items for multiple orders.
You shop online and get told then that is likely in stock. If it isn't in stock when your order gets picked, they'll substitute it. If the substitute costs more, they don't charge you more, if it costs less, they'll refund you the difference. They're very generous on their weight based pricing for produce too. It's cheaper for them to give you more than fuss around trying to hit the exact value you paid for.

Your groceries then get delivered in a little refrigerated truck. No way in hell I'm having some random guy in their car deliver me frozen goods.

To top it all off, this only costs $13 for delivery. $9 if it's over $200. $118 for unlimited deliveries for 6 months - works out to only $4.5 a week.
How is Uber going to compete with that price? They'd need to provide trucks or coolers too, since they can't realistically offer delivery for anything that requires refrigeration

Re:Fail

[Anonymous Coward]

They'd need to provide trucks or coolers too, since they can't realistically offer delivery for anything that requires refrigeration

They'll just make the drivers pay for it, just how they make the drivers pay for all the car maintenance.
Luckily for Uber the average driver has no idea how much vehicle maintenance actually costs. Once these costs are subtracted most of these folk won't even be breaking even.

Re:Fail

[Anonymous Coward]

That's way more expensive than similar services from Safeway (major grocery store chain in at least part of the USA). But Safeway provides an annoying scheduling window. Amazon has closer prices but is more immediate.

Uber might have the advantage (currently occupied by services like Instacart) of letting you buy from multiple grocery stores. Also in some more urban areas, large grocery stores aren't actually a thing, only man small shops.

I also don't imagine Uber as being fundamentally tied to "random guy driving around" -- for instance, they are aggressively chasing self-driving cars to replace the random guys. You can imagine they might use hired driver/personal shopper people in freezer-cars for this sort of thing in the interim. Maybe.

To me, what's fundamental of Uber is that they're a just-in-time shipping company. They originally specialized in just-in-time shipping of human beings, and has expanded out into hot food, now they're expanding into cold food.

Re:Fail

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it a bit odd that they would advertise where they are GOING next. "Yeah guys I'm about to go invest heavily in this hot new opportunity"

It almost sounds as if they want someone else to catch wind of the idea and enter the space before them.

Re:Fail

[Anonymous Coward]

To me, what's fundamental of Uber is that they're a just-in-time shipping company.

No, uber is fundamentally a middle-man. On the internet.

Re:Fail

[youngone]

You're not wrong about supermarkets in New Zealand, but in my view their biggest advantage is that they are a duopoly and can completely shut Uber out if they choose to (which they might).

Re:Fail

[youngone]

Luckily for Uber the average driver has no idea how much vehicle maintenance actually costs.

Luckily for the rest of us Uber loses massive amounts of money with no real sign of ever turning a profit, so at some point they will run out of suckers and shut down.
The summary says Uber Eats had $6 billion in bookings, but how much did they lose on those bookings?
A quick search tells me they lost $890 million or so in the second quarter of this year.
Just think about that for a moment. Nearly $1 billion loss in 12 weeks. Amazing.

Re:Fail

[viperidaenz]

and both companies already offer delivery. Woolworths more than Foodstuffs

Re:Fail

[tehcyder]

Presumably this is a market that hasn't been exploited much in the US?

Similar to NZ, here in the UK there's no way Uber will be able to undercut the supermarkets' own delivery charges. The only thing I can think of that they could offer would be a faster service (rather than booking a two hour slot tomorrow with the supermarket or whatever), but in that case the driver would also have to do the shopping for you.

Re:Fail

[viperidaenz]

Yeah, so you can get bruised fruit and warm milk delivered by a random guy who never washes his hands.
Maybe it could work if they deliver alcohol to people who run out and are too drunk to drive to get more. Uber wouldn't care about the laws that prohibit selling alcohol to intoxicated people. Laws are for the competition to follow.

Lose more money faster!

[crgrace]

But make it up in volume.

I wonder what Uber is playing at. I get that they're trying to "get big fast" because it did work for Amazon, but Amazon lost far, far less money than Uber is losing and they are in markets with much greater barriers to entry.

off topic: uber drivers are always hanging out parked across my driveway (taxis NEVER do this)... usually they move when I honk but on Saturday this guy kept trying to inch forward think I could get into my garage if he just moved six inches forward. I had to honk and make all these gestures... pissed me off.

ShopLïft!

[xpiotr]

Officer, we're not technically shoplifting, we are just Lifting the Shopping to the clients.
That is why we didn't pay at the cashier you see....

Re:ShopLïft!

[Anonymous Coward]

ShopLyft

Re:ShopLïft!

[Anonymous Coward]

and for only $250K we can have an auto drive car kill someone.

Too late

[Anonymous Coward]

There are already online-only supermarkets with their own delivery fleets and warehouses.

Still not good

[SuperKendall]

I've tried some of those services and while I might trust them to handle food more (since they are representing the store more than just a delivery service), they do an invariably poor job of picking out things.

Even for dead simple things, like canned cat food - an employee at one place picked out a can that was dented with the paper label completely missing from the can so it was unidentifiable. How could they think it was a good idea to unload that on a paying customer?

Not to mention a lot of fruit veggie choices I might make are based on what they have in stock and seems like it's good quality.

As much as it's nice to save a few hours going to the store to shop, it's just not worth it to get back substandard, if technically correct, results.

New Uber Perk

[sls1j]

It's the new cafeteria plan for the drivers. It'll supplement their low income and high hours by making food available.

Uber Going After Groceries?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're going to sexually assault produce?!?

Rushing to fill orders

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to pick fresh fruits and veggies at my local supermarket because they frequently have things that are starting to rot, overripe, wilted, etc .... I'm pretty choosy. And there have been times where I left without what I wanted because everything they had in stock was crap. Mostly things that are out of season or have been shipped across the continent or from South America.

Now someone who's being paid shit isn't going to take the time to pick and choose nor do they know what I like. Actually, even if they were being paid $100 and hour, they still wouldn't do it.

Re:Rushing to fill orders

[q_e_t]

It's probably not pay, more time demand. They probably have 0.5 seconds per apple to pick it and put it in the bag, and examining it isn't viable in that time. They don't get a bonus and no one ask you "How do you like them apples?".

Here in the UK the picking and packing service from the local grocery store is pretty fantastic, though. Maybe they are just given a little more time? I have had only one complaint over a substitution of passata for tomato puree, which is minor.

Uber Users Disgust Me

[Anonymous Coward]

People that use Uber services and propel them to $6B+ revenues while perpetuating the usury company practices, that continue to manipulate the gig economy as a whole, disgust me. They're all save the planet, ban transfats, organic non-GMO everything, vegan leather... But also, fuck the peasant drivers, my convenience is far more important.

No, your "big" tip changes nothing but the size of your overinflated ego.

Faster!

[Anonymous Coward]

If this makes them lose more money faster, then I'm all for it. Go, Uber! Go out of business. Soon.

I want self-driving groceries

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Combine the grocery delivery with their self-driving cars. When the delivery arrives, I disable the computer and steal the car. Now I get a free car for the price of a few food items! It's foolproof!

Oh HELL NO

[Rick Schumann]

I don't want a supermarket employee picking my groceries for me, and I sure as FUCK don't want some Uber asshole touching anything I'm going to eat either. Who the hell comes up with this shit? Who the hell uses this shit?

Re:Oh HELL NO

[Anonymous Coward]

But you're okay with all the people who put it on the shelf? Uber hands are somehow worse than stocker hands?

Re:Oh HELL NO

[serviscope_minor]

Who the hell comes up with this shit?

It's a very obvious idea.

Who the hell uses this shit?

In the UK it's hit nearly 50% market penetration (that's like 30million people) for occasional use, with about 12 million using it for every single shop.

So... lots of people.

Re:Oh HELL NO

[Rick Schumann]

So you're claiming you have 12 million people that are okay with a stranger at a store picking out their meat and produce for them? I don't believe you.

Re:Oh HELL NO

[Rick Schumann]

Grocery stock people aren't picking my meat and produce that I'm taking home, genius.

Re:Oh HELL NO

[serviscope_minor]

So you're claiming you have 12 million people that are okay with a stranger at a store picking out their meat and produce for them? I don't believe you

It doesn't matter how many brits tell you what life is like in the UK you simply cannot accept it's different from your life in a different country. And all because you personally can't imagine you it can be made to work. Your arrogance is astounding. Smarter people did in fact manage to figure it out.

It's true. Get over it.

http://www.mintel.com/press-ce...

https://www.statista.com/topic...

etc.

Re:Oh HELL NO

[Anonymous Coward]

I also remember in Spain this service was available in early 2000s. It was an option in more of premium stores like El Corte Ingles but I knew few people who used it. Must of been profitable if it kept running.

Re:We're thinking about Uber much more as a platfo

[CanadianMacFan]

So just like some other people then. I've seen a woman drive through a stop sign because she was looking at her phone. The only reason she didn't hit anyone is because everyone else was paying attention. I've seen a pedestrian walk out, at a crosswalk, in front of a fire engine with it's lights and siren on. It had been honking it's horn to get everyone to stop at the intersection and was halfway across the intersection when this idiot just started to cross. He had his earphones in and was looking at his phone. Never noticed the fire truck, even when it almost hit him. He just kept walking.

Ridesharing might profitable

[Ukab the Great]

But everyone knows that grocery services are where the bread is.

Traditional Grocery Stores are Dead

[erp_consultant]

These places like Albertsons and Safeway are dying a slow death. At the low end, WalMart can sell things cheaper. At the high end, you have Whole Foods and Trader Joes, etc. and Albertsons simply doesn't have the cachet to match them on the high end.

For commodity items like paper towels, canned goods, diapers, etc. you can get that from Amazon. And they deliver it.

That leaves traditional grocers with low margin items like bread, and that has a very short shelf life. Same with produce and produce is worse because, unlike bread, you can't bake it in the store. You have to ship it. And pick it. And store it. And it too has a short shelf life.

Then you get to the problem of unions. All the cashiers, drivers, warehouse workers, etc. are all unionized. All of them have slightly different contracts so trying to figure out how to pay them properly becomes a nightmare. If they try to go to a cashier-less model, like Amazon is playing with, they will face legal challenges from the unions.

Looks like a pretty crappy business model to me. Gone the way of the horse and buggy.

Re:Traditional Grocery Stores are Dead

[Gavagai80]

There are plenty of people like me who are way too poor for Whole Foods or Nugget, and who like to shop for our own food in a pleasant atmosphere, but do not wish to endure the agony of the Walmart atmosphere. That's why I go to Safeway. The middle ground may not be trendy like the extremes are, but it's what most people actually want.

Re:Traditional Grocery Stores are Dead

[erp_consultant]

"The middle ground may not be trendy like the extremes are, but it's what most people actually want." - Perhaps but their earnings don't reflect that. They are closing stores left and right. Their recent merger attempt with Rite Aid fell through. They are deeply in debt. That limits their ability to innovate. It's turning into a real estate play, a la Sears.

We are thinking of Uber as a failed self-driving

[Anonymous Coward]

car company, but you get to have your own little fantasy, Uber CEO.

This could end badly

[Jeremy Erwin]

Uber is infamous for disrupting, or actually breaking established social systems. I'm not sure that disrupting the food supply-- even if it to make money-- is a laudable social goal.

There's more to the world than the US

[shilly]

It is hilarious how parochial most Slashdot posters are.

Online grocery shopping has been a major business in the UK, the world's most competitive grocery market (competitive, not lucrative or largest), for more than a decade.

Perhaps Uber would like to study up about Ocado (and Sainsburys.com and Tesco.com and Waitrose.com etc etc) before they jump into this market. Perhaps Slashdotters might want to learn a little bit about them as well, before confidently declaring that online grocery shopping can never be a thing.

Ocado's story, in particular, has many lessons to teach about platform vs exclusivity, the role of automation, the importance of new brands for online (eg Natoora), the cognitive differences in shopping decisions online vs in-store (smart lists etc).

A few articles here:
http://www.cityam.com/264588/d...

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/ch...

Re:There's more to the world than the US

[DNS-and-BIND]

Gosh, arrogant looking down the nose at Americans - from a European. Never seen that before! Especially on Slashdot! Tell me, did you get that idea to do this yourself or did you read it somewhere?

Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you start your own UK Slashdot? Then it can be so cosmopolitan and international, and you can ban people from using customary units. Ah, we all know that's not going to happen. All you're going to do is just continue being a little bitch and write mean little spiteful comments about Americans.

Re:There's more to the world than the US

[shilly]

Go back and re-read my comment, and you'll see I didn't mention Americans. That's your projection right there, oh muppety one.

And I don't need to start my own Slashdot, because it's on this special thing called the World Wide Web which enables us to learn about things from all around the world including the US, the UK and lots of other countries too, oh muppettier one.

And why don't you engage with the actual substance of my critique, instead of just replying with a dumbfuck ad hominem? You could, for example, have quoted a dozen links to me that showed that many Slashdotters were in fact well aware of Ocado; or that Uber's approach already took account of global trends in online delivery; or even that you yourself had known about Ocado for ages. But no, you just whined that I pointed out a shortcoming in the analysis of several of the posts on this story. And you moaned about what you saw as my moaning, which would have been ironic of you if done intentionally, but was instead just even more stupid, oh muppietest of all.

Re:There's more to the world than the US

[DNS-and-BIND]

The Muppets: also American. Are you even able to express yourself without reference to that culture you hate so much? Survey says: no.

They already have grocery deliveries

[Anonymous Coward]

Handled by the grocery store themselves. $3 for delivery, $1 for seniors.

Lose money fast!

[Raven268]

Uber isn't making a profit, as far as anyone outside the firm can tell. Naturally they are seeking new lines of business.

Perfect fit

[ElitistWhiner]

UBER first order business success came from the UX marriage of software gamification and JIT order efficiency. A sub-3% margin distribution business model and HUGELY expensive brick and mortar UI is exactly the target rich problem that UBER knows how to disrupt.

Interesting will be Amazon/WholeFoods PRIME subscription model .vs. UBER/grocery.app delivery model

Re:Perfect fit

[drsquare]

Their business success came by running huge losses, subsidising their services paid for by investors. How often can they repeat that trick before investors start asking where their money is?

Ah, first world problems

[Anonymous Coward]

We are truly a pathetic and lazy society.

The start of an exit strategy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exit strategy: purchased by Wal-Mart?

You know what Uber really is

[Anonymous Coward]

A cooler version of calling your parents to pick you up.

Back in the day we did our own thing, drove ourselves, rode bikes took the bus, but the Uber generation were handled by helicopter parents that drove them everywhere, and they found a way to perpetuate that.

Wait, shouldn't they fix Uber Eats first?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to stop ordering from my favorite pizza restaurant when they switched from their own delivery people to Uber Eats after 5 for 5 times, the Uber driver was unable to deliver the pizza intact and warm. Drivers claim Uber gives them no insulated bag that can fit a pizza, and it would seem they have no horizontal surfaces in their cars!