Uber Launches New Delivery Feature Uber Rush
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS Sacramento)-- Uber is launching a service that helps businesses perform same-day deliveries to customers in three cities.
New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco will be the first three cities that can request an Uber pickup, while the merchant and customer are able to track the location of the driver from pickup to drop-off.
A trial of the service was launched in 2014, and now the company is expanding the experiment into a business, as reported by Business Insider.
Uber Rush differs from many carrier services like Postmates given that is designed specifically to deliver, not to place an order.
Users will be able to select the Uber Rush option in the app to transport items from one location to another, but will not offer ordering of the actual products needed.
Experts say Uber Rush's real success may be found in becoming the delivery fleet for small businesses in need. For example, if a restaurant is overwhelmed with delivery orders they could hire a courier through the app to help deliver for the day. Uber Rush also allows for multiple package pickups from multiple locations.
Each Uber Rush delivery is estimated to cost the merchant from $5 to $7, with the driver receiving 75 to 80 percent of that fee and Uber keeping the rest. The merchant can decide whether they want to pay the cost of deliveries to the service, or add it to the order total paid by consumers.
The launch of Uber Rush in San Francisco will allow deliveries via a mix of bike couriers and cars. Uber says passengers and delivieries will ride separately for the time being and that couriers will be given training on wait times and parking.
Experts say if Uber is successful in its new endeavor that delivery giants like UPS and FedEx may be threatened by the cheaper and quicker delivery option.
