UberEATS arrives in Melbourne, helping restaurants reach more consumers, but can the ‘market place’ app bring more harm than good?

Melbourne recently became the first city in Australia to gain access to Uber’s diversification into food delivery services, UberEATS. UberEATS joins a highly competitive market of food delivery operators, taking on sector leaders Deliveroo and Foodora. General manager of UberEATS stated is hoping to leverage on Uber’s existing brand reputation as a user-friendly service, as their point of difference within the market.

With Melbourne’s heaving culinary culture, and receptivity to new culinary experiences, Melbourne seems like the perfect place within Australia to launch the service. The app has launched in collaboration with over 80 Melbourne local restaurants including Supernormal, Gazi, Pidapipo, Serotonin and Jimmy Grants. Launching with the hopes of enabling more consumers to access the city’s great food from top restaurants, in the comfort of their own homes.

UberEATS aims to offer people what they want to eat, when they want to eat, in the quickest time possible. The app provides top-tier restaurants, that may require reservations months in advance, the ability to deliver their food to more customers. UberEATS is currently offering to waive the delivery fee for a limited time, and will then have a flat rate delivery fee of $5.

While Melbournians are likely to embrace the food delivery service, restaurants should throw caution before signing up to be part of the hype. Aside from UberEATS endeavouring to connect more consumers to great food offerings, they are also likely to be vying to become the ‘go to’ app that consumers use to browse restaurants and their offerings before making a decision. Restaurants signing on to the food delivery app, are therefore effectively handing over their customers and their brand to the app.

Signing on to the delivery services results in the restaurants losing the ability to control the customer experience. Restaurants will be unaware of who their customers are, and their brand becomes aligned with the brand of the app. Consumers will integrate their judgements of the restaurant with their overall experience with UberEATS, which could negatively impact the consumer’s overall judgement of the restaurant.

In addition to being unable to control the customer experience, restaurants are placed next to their competitors when the consumers are making a decision. The customers will be able to make more informed decisions as they have greater knowledge about product offerings, pricing and variety. They will be able to choose from a wider variety of options, therefore increasing the competitiveness within an already competitive market.

UberEATS is a great service for restaurants to reach a wider consumer base, delivering more food to more people. However, the ‘market place’ application can negatively impact a restaurant’s brand as they are no longer in complete control, and as such should be more cautious before signing up.

Simon Wang
Strategy Intern 

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Image Credits: UberEATS, Business Insider & Imagecredits.com