EXCLUSIVE Q&A: Hashim Amin, regional GM, retail, North America, Uber
The Uber Eats on-demand delivery subsidiary of Uber is making inroads with regional grocers and an increasing variety of retail verticals.
Chain Store Age recently spoke with Hashim Amin, regional GM, retail, North America, of Uber about how and why Uber Eats has been gradually expanding its focus from takeout restaurant delivery to filling online orders from grocers of all sizes, as well as retailers across a wide variety of product categories.
What is leading Uber Eats to partner with smaller, regional grocers?
It's important for Uber Eats to bring our customers selection and partnering with regional grocers s about bringing their favorite local brands onto the app so that they can order from the retailers they're used to receiving deliveries from.
[READ MORE: Uber Eats delivers for local grocers across the U.S.]
One of the biggest differences between Uber Eats and some of our competitors is that we have a ‘top up’ use case, which is different from a "stock up" use case. Customers still love going to their established grocery brands to do their weekly shopping, while we serve in this unique, convenient top up space.
What top up means is a customer has done their shopping for the week, but maybe they have friends coming over on the weekend, so they need a bottle of wine, a steak, or a tub of ice cream. As a result, we see incredibly strong growth incrementally.
In addition, Uber Eats has a very young urban customer demographic, and this gives them access to their regional brands in a way they typically wouldn't achieve. When you look at a lot of regional players, they don't always have the scale or resources of national chains.
By partnering with us, regional grocers gain access to aggregated demand and a customer base that is used to a certain way of shopping online, and Uber Eats is able to capture those customers for them.
Are there specific challenges to scaling online delivery services with a Tier II or III partner?
Access to a retailer’s inventory feeds is the most critical component. Some of the larger brands will have more robust APIs providing more accurate and up-to-date inventory information.
In contrast, some of the regional grocers provide us with inventory drops in the morning, afternoon, and/or evening. We work with them to try to obtain access to more of those updates so that we can keep the experience as up-to-date as possible.
Uber Eats can also share research data with regional grocers and get data from them on what's selling, so that we can tailor the merchandising to suit what their customers are typically used to. We find this really helps.
Why has Uber Eats been expanding its delivery scope beyond its initial focus on the takeout restaurant vertical?
We started in the takeout delivery space and then found that customers just love the convenience of ordering products. Adding grocery and retail was a natural extension to our initial offering.
The decision to add some verticals were made based on customer product searches. One good example is pet food. We used customer search data to reach out to PetSmart and Petco. When an owner runs out of pet food, they typically don't have time to go to the store, and they need it quick. Uber Eats presents the perfect use case for that.
In addition, we found that the last-minute demand use case applies to all types of different retail stores and verticals. Consumer electronics is another interesting example where we had a bunch of people searching for chargers. You can quickly find a charger for your phone and get it delivered in 30 minutes.
Are there specific challenges in delivering non-food items compared to delivering takeout or grocery food products?
The challenges are mostly the same. It's about being as accurate as possible with the items we deliver and making sure that we're showing products that are available in stock.
The only areas where things can get extra challenging is if the product is too big to fit into a car. Typically, Uber Eats will work with the retailer or grocer to make sure we don't include those general merchandise items in our delivery assortment so that we don't run into those issues.
