Uber Eats Sees 59 Pct Spike In European Grocery Delivery

As much of Europe remains on lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, Uber Eats experienced a 59 percent spike in grocery delivery orders in March compared with February, helping it offset the losses caused by closed restaurants.

“Everything that we are doing on grocery and convenience is driven by the fact that we are seeing strong consumer appetites from new consumption trends, people who are confined and cannot go out,” European General Manager Stephane Ficaja told Reuters in a Thursday (April 16) report.

Stores wanting to sign on with Uber Eats doubled in March as grocery markets and convenience stores searched for new ways to serve customers duirng the lockdown. Online meal delivery orders were down in March across the sector, prompting companies to look into new ways to generate revenue.

Uber Eats now has some 1,000 grocery and convenience stores in Europe using the app and over 3,500 worldwide, Ficaja said, which is helping to meet extensive demand for essential food and household items in Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Sweden.

Uber Eats, the food delivery spinoff of ride-hailing service Uber, recently partnered with French supermarket Carrefour to help people in Paris get food, toiletries and cleaning products in about a half-hour. And in Spain, Uber Eats teamed up with the service station Galp to deliver in 15 cities including Madrid, Valencia and Seville.

“As we face this crisis, we have a duty to come up with new solutions,” said Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, executive director of eCommerce, data and digital transformation at Carrefour. She said Uber Eats enabled the market to bring necessities to people in a way that is safe as well as convenient.

In Britain, Uber Eats has nine networks of convenience stores and over 700 shops on its platform, and is in talks with other retailers and supermarket groups, Ficaja said.

“Classic online channels are mostly completely saturated,” he said. “Our offer is a bit different; it’s a smaller basket, smaller ticket, faster delivery.”

Lyft announced that it was going to move into on-demand delivery of groceries and other essential products. The service will first be rolled out in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Orlando, Phoenix, San Francisco, San Diego, San Antonio and Seattle, but could later expand to more locations once the company finds more partners.