Uber Just Launched Its Food Delivery App In Mumbai & It Comes With Surge Pricing Baked In!
UberEATS is available right now on both Android and iOS, and is expected to release in other Indian cities soon.
Uber has finally launched its food delivery app, UberEATS, in India, with the services currently only available in Mumbai. Attempting to leverage its local ride-hailing user base, it seems the company is hoping to eventually displace the likes of Swiggy and Zomato.
¡°Mumbai is home to a booming food industry with a vibrant food culture offering both global and local cuisines,¡± UberEATS India head Bhavik Rathod says. ¡°The introduction of UberEats in India, with Mumbai as the first city, is a major step in our global expansion and showcases our commitment to the region.
Rather than be bundled into its existing app, UberEATS has made a separate separate debut on the app store. Even the management is separate team than that of the ride-hailing app. Claiming an average delivery time of 35 minutes, the service has partnered with over 200 restaurants with a range of cuisines.
When you download the app on iOS, it automatically pulls your data if you also have Uber installed, letting you proceed directly to ordering. We encountered a bug on Android preventing that from happening, instead asking us to sign in by email, but we¡¯ll need to test the app a little more before we know for sure. As for the interface itself, it¡¯s clean and intuitive, with shortcut buttons for menu sections customised by each restaurant.
Surge pricing in UberEATS? Hell yes!
The app will ask permission to access your location of course, after which it will display options delivering to your area. Once you place the order, you¡¯re shown a summary of the price, (including the Rs 15 delivery fee) and given a payment option, which bafflingly only includes Paytm right now.
As for how much do the delivery charge is levied depends on the delivery times and the number of orders in any given locality at given time, and whether UberEATS plans to add on its signature surge pricing on peak days, we¡¯ll have to wait and see. If you visit UberEATS' FAQ section, it mentions that a charge above the delivery fee that will be applied in areas where they're seeing a surge in activity. Where have we heard that before? Hmm...
