Uber eyes move into luxury deliveries
UBER is eyeing its first foray into retail with plans to launch a new luxury shopping delivery service as it seeks new ways of tapping into its huge inventory of drivers around the world.
The controversial taxi app has already been trialling a new courier service, called UberRush, in New York, letting customers request a car to pick up and deliver packages on the same day at the tap of a phone screen.
The five-year-old company now wants to expand the delivery programme to luxury brands and is said to be in talks with as many as 400 retailers including Louis Vuitton, Tiffany’s, Hugo Boss and Neiman Marcus, according to reports by TechCrunch. The tech blog said it has obtained documents, apparently from driver training manuals, which outline a pilot merchant delivery scheme.
A spokesperson, for the company yesterday said: “Experimenting and finding new, creative ways for the Uber app to provide even greater value to our riders and driver partners is a way of life at Uber. We have been piloting UberRush with multiple retailers for the last year.”
Uber has already partnered with mobile shopping app Spring in the US to test deliveries with a selection of high-end brands such as sunglasses -maker Illesteva and jeans brand Industry Standard.
UberEat also launched this week, delivering fresh food to customers’ doors in New York City. and Chicago after being piloted in Barcelona and Los Angeles.