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Uber caters for hungry Torontonians with standalone UberEats app
With Uber Inc. dominating in the ridesharing market, the company is now taking aim at the food delivery market with the launch of its first standalone app, UberEATS. This is not the first time that we have heard about the Uber food delivery system. It is a system the company has been testing across 12 cities, including Paris, New York and Austin, but until today it was included inside the main Uber app. That changes now and UberEATS becomes a standalone app, at least as long as you live in Toronto and you have an iOS device.
Jason Droege, head of Uber Everything, told Wired that, “We felt we needed to resist the urge to overcomplicate things. With Uber, you hit a button, get a ride. When you think of thousands of meals, all of a sudden that experience starts to need its own world to make it as simple as possible.”
Hungry Torontonians will still have access to Instant Delivery options during lunchtime, which were available in the main Uber app. Instant Delivery provides a short list of popular items that change on a daily basis and can be at your door in 10 minutes or less. However, now they will also have access to a variety of food options from over 100 participating restaurants and will be able to order seven days a week between 10 am and 10 pm. UberEats includes restaurant-to-door delivery tracking.
Toronto residents will also benefit from free delivery until the end of the year when ordering through UberEATS.
Why is Toronto the chosen city to test the standalone UberEATS app? Because they are the ones who embraced UberEATS from the start to get instant lunchtime deliveries, according to Bowie Cheung, general manager of Uber Everything in Toronto, “Toronto’s world class food and tech scenes make it the perfect global launch city for the new app.”
Unlike their ridesharing business where some cities lacked reliable car services, Uber is now attempting to break into the food delivery service, a market that has a lot of competition. In Toronto, they will have to compete with established names like Seamless and Postmates who already have a good head start in the market. We will have to wait and see when the standalone UberEATS app will cross over into the U.S.
Image credit: StockSnap; Pixabay
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