Since the beginning of the pandemic, with demand for delivery and pickup growing, third-party delivery companies have increased their operations and enhanced accessibility for both consumers and restaurants. The new features of Uber could make it much easier for a customer to find restaurants that they have not yet tried. For example, if a customer orders pepperoni pizza from one restaurant, the app will suggest pepperoni pizza from another top-rated restaurant
This new restructure of the app of Uber Eats also coincides with numerous services that it introduced for restaurants in July, including online restaurant ordering features and customer insights to view consumer behaviour and clicks to gain a deeper understanding of ordering trends. On top of these insights, Uber Eats said it believes its updated user features to provide its restaurant partners with richer data.
The features have included family favourites with food packs, which enable consumers to book from a single order from various restaurants at the same time, and one that displays what other diners in their immediate area have ordered.
Uber Eats said it learned that the delivery experience was fast during customer testing, but users had a difficult time hitting the ordering level. The characteristics of the delivery platform would help improve usability and benefit restaurants with more orders, the company said.
In September, Uber Eats also introduced a contactless dine-in and pick-up order feature after it unveiled a delivery map enabling users to see takeout restaurants within walkable distance. A restaurant loyalty programme and a priority delivery choice were also introduced in June.
Almost all of these features tend to make a difference. During Q2 2020, gross bookings increased 113 percent year-over-year worldwide and in June, Uber Eats’ restaurant collaborations exceeded 500,000, increasing 50 percent year-over-year. Uber Eats said it also had a 70% rise in orders through its website in the U.S. and Canada from February to June on top of increased use of its app.
Through the use of apps among its rivals as well, extra features will help to differentiate each third-party platform. In October, Grubhub collaborated with Lyft to provide free access to Grubhub+ for Lyft Pink users, while DoorDash added customer monitoring for, for example, pick up orders and turnkey digital storefronts.
