Uber launches new digital shopping, payment features
Uber is expanding the functionality of its app while providing new options to make digital payments.
The provider of delivery and rideshare services is providing several new digital services, including a shopping feature, on its app while also expanding a partnership with payment technology provider Block Inc.
Highlights of Uber’s new digital offerings follow:
Shop for Me
A new “Shop for Me” feature enables Uber users to request items from any store, even those not listed on the app, and have an Uber driver pick up and deliver the item. This expands upon a “Shop and Pay” feature that the company’s Uber Eats delivery subsidiary launched in 2023, allowing delivery personnel to opt-into receiving trips to go into retailers—primarily grocery stores—and to shop and check out for orders before delivering them to customers as usual.
[READ MORE: Uber provides shopping option to delivery drivers]
Hotel bookings
Uber is partnering with Expedia Group to enable customers to book hotels directly in the Uber app. The collaboration is expected to expand beyond the U.S. In addition, following an initial pilot, Uber rides will be integrated directly in the Expedia app beginning in June 2026. Travelers will receive push notifications before their hotel check-in date to book Uber rides at a discount for the duration of their trip.
Travel mode
A new “travel mode” experience within the Uber and Uber Eats apps offering travelers curated recommendations on local favorites, tourist destinations, OpenTable reservations, and forgotten items. Travel mode also includes Uber’s version of room service delivered directly to a customer’s hotel door
Voice bookings
An artificial intelligence-based conversational voice assistant that understands customer destinations and preferences can help users book schedule Uber rides using natural language to verbally describe their rideshare needs.
Other new features
Uber is also allowing members of its Uber One paid subscription service to earn credits while traveling internationally and allowing riders in select cities to make a premium Uber Black or Uber Black SUV reservation and tap “add Uber Eats” to have the driver bring them a beverage or snack. In addition, all Uber searches will now populate results for places, food and items across the Uber platform.
“Uber is becoming an app for everything—helping people go, get, and now travel all in one place,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber. “We’re all living through a moment of real cognitive overload: too many apps, too many decisions, too much noise. At the end of the day, our job is to help people reclaim their time, spending less of it managing the logistics of life and more of it actually living.”
Partnership with Block Inc.
Uber is expanding its collaboration with payment technology provider Block Inc. This includes extending an existing integration of Block’s Square digital payment platform with Uber Eats in the U.S. to Canada, Australia, U.K., Ireland, France, and Spain. In addition, Block’s Cash App Pay digital payment solution will become available as a payment option across both Uber Eats and Uber in the U.S.
On the restaurant side, Square's seamless Uber Eats integration will enable direct management of all orders through Square POS, with self-sign-up capability coming soon; streamline kitchen workflows and control of menus, modifiers, and inventory across channels from a single dashboard. Uber also rolled out Block’s Afterpay buy now, pay later solution in Australia in 2025.
"This global partnership with Uber exemplifies Block’s unique ability to create value across our entire ecosystem by serving both sides of the counter simultaneously" said Nick Molnar, global head of sales and marketing at Block. "Square streamlines restaurant operations while Cash App Pay and Afterpay enhances the customer experience."
