Uber Eats to be launched in mid-September

By Divya Thotawatte

In an effort to connect people who love food to the food they love, the world’s largest on-demand food delivery app, Uber Eats recently announced its launch in Colombo during the third week of September. 

Uber Eats is a subsidiary of Uber, the ridesharing app, and focuses on helping consumers get their food delivered to their homes in a convenient and reliable manner. With over 150 restaurant partners on board in the launch phase, consumers in Colombo will be able to order from restaurants including Harpo’s, ISSO, Butter Boutique, Paan Paan, Café Nuga, Sushi Kai and Chocoholics at the click of a button from their homes. 

Uber Eats India and South Asia Head Bhavik Rathod stated, “You can browse a restaurant from home, a park, a hospital, wherever you are and the food will reach your doorstep in less than 35 minutes. Our promise to consumers, something we stick by, is making eating effortless at any time for anyone. UberEats is available at any time of the day till the restaurants are open.” 

“In December 2015, we launched Uber Eats in San Francisco. We spent most of 2016 expanding Uber Eats around the world starting with US and Canada, moving more east towards Europe and finally making its way to Asia. In 2017 we started optimising the app, and the app you see today is an evolved version of what we started off with. It understands your patterns, what your taste buds are, it understands your ordering behaviour and it personalises the app according to your own personal experience. It is like how you would be browsing movies on a movie app, you’ll be looking at thriller movies over the weekend and the app would know that you actually like thriller movies,” he elaborated. 

Additionally, from ordering to delivery, Uber Eats lets users track their order through every step of the process so they can have the confidence of their order being reliably delivered to their specific location. Users will be able to pick the items right away or schedule the order at their convenience while they are also able to pay through credit/debit card or cash on delivery. 

Uber Eats will also help local restaurants reach new customers and deliver their food fast, efficiently and reliably. The platform offers restaurants access to actionable data to help improve their business, and insights about their service quality, customer satisfaction, and sales helping them to make specific adjustments to improve their food and service. Uber Eats will further offer delivery partners a flexible and reliable income opportunity on a schedule that works for them. 

Harpo’s Cafés and Restaurant Founder Harpo Gooneratne speaking at the event stated that Uber Eats was a great opportunity for Sri Lanka by creating more employment, revenues and dividends for restaurant companies. 

Uber Eats Communications Lead Anusha Senoy explained the delivery process and the delivery radius for the services of Uber Eats. “The average delivery time is 35 minutes and it also includes the time that it takes to cook the food. To get the food delivered to your doorstep under 35 minutes, a smaller geographic radius helps us to optimise everything and then we will go wider across the city in about three weeks.”

“When you open the app, you will be getting a list of restaurants that have agreed for deliveries to be made to you. If you’re about a kilometre away from the restaurant or if you’re eight kilometres away from it, the restaurant will be available to you if they have agreed to deliver for you. If we’re at a high traffic point or a situation likewise, then your timing will change,” she added.

Pix by Daminda Harsha Perera