
UberEATS - azylman
http://ubereats.com/
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dulse
I'm surprised to see this landing page was built with Squarespace. I would
have figured a tech company as large as Uber would have an easy way to throw
together an email collection page without using a 3rd party.

It shows how good these kinds of tools are getting that even for an Uber the
best way to build an MVP website is to use a tool like Squarespace vs. spin it
up using their existing expertise (and, excitingly, the same tool is equally
available to everyone).

~~~
jasonbarone
I've heard it directly from the people that work at these large companies. The
reality is Squarespace (and other platforms like it) offer a user experience
that's perfect for the non-technical people who actually manage these
websites, and the entire infrastructure is effectively outsourced for $20/mo,
which is insane.

~~~
robbiemitchell
Exactly. Large tech companies hire people to build products, not spin up
landing pages. If it's possible to outsource so marketing and launch teams can
work independently, it's a good move.

~~~
omouse
On the other hand, small companies waste $$$ hiring people to spin up landing
pages and build small widgets that could have been bought off the shelf (email
forms, payment forms, payment integration are all plugins).

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toddmorey
So it's interesting. These appear to be pre-made items (limited selection each
day). As far as I can tell, it's only $3 per delivery, no matter how many
items you order. And the listed prices look competitive, though I couldn't
find a restaurant that had any of the Uber items on the actual menu. I'm
assuming they are custom specials.

I've used and liked Favor, but once you add in a tip, and pay their
percentage, it can get expensive quick ($5 per, plus 5% plus 20% or so for
tip). So that can be $7.50 in delivery charges for a $10 sandwich. The upside
is that anything can be ordered custom.

Does anyone know the logistics? For example, are the drivers stocked with
inventory in their cars to avoid returning often to the restaurant? Do food
delivery drivers ever also pick up passengers?

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mmanfrin
Ike's Menage-a-trois is $12.21 on menu, which is actually $1.21 more than Uber
(although comes with chips, so that evens out).

As far as logistics, I would bet dollars to dimes there are drivers with a
large stock of all/many of the items; having them return to a restaurant ad
hoc for each order would make this financially unworkable. Sprig, Bento, and
Rocketspoon all work this way -- drivers are simply given a next destination
to go to and dish out in-car inventory.

~~~
stillsut
It's a good interview question. Here's how I would answer it:

At scale there would be drivers dedicated to filling up at only one
restaurant, and then delivering to multiple customers before refilling. The
more popular restaurants would have a multiple drivers, leaving every N
orders. Less popular restaurants would be grouped geographically to "share"
one driver who would alternate food-pickup between the two restaurants on
schedule.

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donjh
I'm redirected to the UberEATS Chicago page, which has been around for some
time. Did UberEATS launch in new locations today?

~~~
tswartz
Not sure if these are new cities, but these are listed on the page:

Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Barcelona

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fosk
A bad day for Postmates, Munchery or Doordash. Uber really has a huge
infrastructure and they could easily undercut them, push them out of the
market, and then raise prices a-la Amazon Books.

~~~
serve_yay
Postmates seems to feature bicycles in a weirdly prominent way, as if that is
the best way to deliver a meal. But then they offer delivery from places that
are so far away that cycling would be impractical from a delivery standpoint.
Anyway, this space seems to still be up for grabs, but then I don't live in a
place like NYC where Seamless owns it.

~~~
eric_h
From my own usage, Caviar Fastbite, Uber eats and Postmates have significantly
reduced the amount of money I spend on seamless.

Seamless' extremely shitty launch of their website redesign (that still
doesn't work properly) also didn't help.

Edit: I live and work in NYC

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acconrad
This was inevitable. I wonder what this means for a company like Instacart?
Acquisition? Push them out?

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dzlobin
Instacart delivers groceries that you buy through the app/web.

This is a service where couriers equipped with the dishes of the day ride
around and deliver the pre-packed meals you order.

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bernardom
Favor has been doing pretty well here in Boston, though I believe they use
multi-modal transportation (bike, scooter, motorbike, or car).

I wonder whether that's enough to make them operationally superior vs. uberx
drivers?

~~~
Thriptic
I'm in Boston (well, Cambridge to be precise) and am not familiar with Favor.
How does it differ from Grubhub, Foodler et al?

~~~
bernardom
I don't understand the distinctions perfectly, but as far as I can tell, Favor
is a service of people who will walk into a restaurant and order whatever you
want.

Grubhub is, I think, more directly connected with the shop. I think they put
the onus on the shop to do delivery. Favor is their own delivery service.

It all blends though- I think Caviar is basically Favor, and they're pretty
close to TaskRabbit For Food Pickup...

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mayneack
We've had this in LA for quite some time. It works pretty well. I haven't had
any problems with food that seemed too old since they're driving around with
it already in the car.

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bkeroack
Uber Eats is great. You can get delivery food in 5-10 min instead of 30-45 min
(at least in LA). Its usually faster than walking down the street to the
closest lunch place.

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27182818284
How old is this? I've already seen job posting with Uber for people to work
with UberEATS, so I figured it was around or privately around maybe?

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larrys
Failing to see at $3 delivery charge how anyone can afford to do these
deliveries with wear and tear on a car and so on.

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devy
It's actually $4 flat fee for delivery, tips included.

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wehadfun
Actually makes total since. Really they should do all local deliveries.

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seliopou
Shout out to CrunchButton[0] who have been doing curated, location-based food
delivery since 2012-ish.

[0]: [https://crunchbutton.com/](https://crunchbutton.com/)

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slayed0
Oh good, more cars blocking traffic in SF with their hazards on for
justification.

~~~
tptacek
If Uber's delivery fleet is taking advantage of cars already on the road
serving passengers, then this is a net reduction in traffic: food delivery is
already a thing whether or not Uber provides it.

Meanwhile: apparently a lot of these orders are delivered by bike messengers.

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davexunit
Please do not use this service. Uber is a very unethical company that does not
treat their drivers (the ones doing all of the work) well.

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t0mbstone
I don't see how this is possibly true. Every single time I ride in an Uber or
Uber X, I _always_ ask the drivers how they like driving for Uber, and what
their experience has been like, and every single one of them has responded
positively (out of around 20 times I've asked).

If they don't like how they are treated, they can stop driving for Uber. It's
not my moral responsibility to police Uber's business practices for the sake
of their drivers.

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derwiki
Unless they need money to pay bills and have no other sources of income.

[edit] Also, try asking "how do you like being considered a contractor vs full
time with health benefits" \-- I've found that perfectly "happy" drivers will
give you an earful about this.

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cyan_atrus
maybe instead ask "how do you like being considered a contractor and setting
your own hours vs full time with health benefits"?

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fwn
That's a funny question since full time with benefits is clearly not an option
in this business model. To ask if they would prefer living rich without
working would be equally demagogic.

