The literal meaning of Uber in German is “above,” and Uber is trying to stay on top of on-demand delivery.
Uber is expanding its pilot of an on-demand delivery service called UberRush to Chicago and San Francisco. UberRush, which uses Uber drivers to deliver merchandise, has been offered in New York City for about two years.
To facilitate UberRush, Uber is partnering with e-commerce platforms including Shopify, Clover, ChowNow, Bigcommerce and BloomNet, as well as local on-demand ordering platforms like Delivery.com. UberRush is positioning itself as a partner for small local businesses, rather than the larger retailers other on-demand delivery services like Instacart and Deliv have targeted.
To use UberRush, a retailer enters an order online. An Uber courier arrives in five to seven minutes to pick up the order and deliver it to the customer, with a fee of $5 to $7. The retailer is free to charge the fee to the customer if they wish.
Uber has had a dramatic impact on taxis in the cities where it operates. Whether it will have a similar impact on other third-party delivery services, or on retailers that hire their own delivery personnel, remains to be seen.