Tag: uber

Uber Opens UberRush API and Launches Scheduled Rides

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Uber just opened up its express delivery service UberRush by launching an API for brands and app developers to tap Uber’s army of drivers, bikers, and messengers to deliver goods on demand. The ride-hailing company stated in January that it had started testing the UberRush API in a private beta, and now the service’s API is publicly available to anyone who wishes to include a delivery option in their app.

Moreover, Uber has also introduced a Scheduled Rides feature that allows users to arrange a ride up to 30 days in advance. Scheduled Rides is rolling out in Seattle first, followed by other markets that Uber deems “top business travel cities.” Two weeks ago, Uber rival Lyft started testing scheduled rides in San Francisco, but only for 24 hours in advance.

What Brands Need To Do
Both announcements from Uber point to its determination to extend its service, which also brings new use cases for brands to leverage Uber’s service to improve customer experience. Retailers can take advantage of the public UberRush API to integrate on-demand delivery service into their mobile shopping experience. Although Scheduled Rides are limited to self-arranged pickups for now, it could certainly grow into a great tool for brands to reward their customers and incentivize them to visit stores or attend events.

 

Source: TechCrunch & The Verge

 

Walmart Partners With Uber And Lyft For On-Demand Grocery Delivery

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Walmart is partnering with Uber and Lyft to test an on-demand grocery delivery service  beginning within the next two weeks in Denver and Phoenix. Walmart will charge a $7 to $10 delivery fee when online orders are placed so customers don’t need to pay the Uber or Lyft drivers when their orders arrive. This new services puts Walmart in direct competition with Amazon, which offers similar services via Prime Now and AmazonFresh.

What Retailers Need To Do
Walmart has been taking measures to modernize its online retail experience in order to effectively compete with Amazon, including launching a mobile payment app in December and testing an online order pickup program. This new move marks a significant step in Walmart’s ecommerce expansion as the partnership with two leading ride-hailing services gives it a huge logistical boost to fight against Amazon. Retailers need to take a cue from the two retail giants and start testing similar on-demand programs to meet the growing consumer demand for convenience and instant gratification.

To learn more on what retailers can do to reach today’s connected shoppers across sales channels, check out the Boundless Retail section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: The Verge

How Amazon Is Working With Uber To Promote Its Shows In L.A.

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon has partnered with Uber for a campaign to promote its original shows in Los Angeles. From now till May 14th, Uber users in L.A. may see an “Amazon” option in their app, which, upon selection, will upgrade their rides to an UberLUX with no extra cost. During their rides, they will be given a Kindle Fire HD tablet to watch Amazon’s original shows with. The campaign is limited to L.A. as its goal is to generate some award buzz for the Amazon shows as we enter Emmy season.

What Brands Should Care
This campaign is illustrative of how Uber is positioned to capitalize on the idle attention of its users during rides. Previously, Uber launched Trip Experiences to offer a way for third-party services to integrate with the Uber app and grab the passengers’ attention. This Amazon campaign sets a precedent for more opportunities for brands to work with Uber – or Lyft for that matter – to vie for consumer attention in the backseat.

 

Source: The Verge

 

Brands Can Now Offer To Cover Your Next Uber Ride

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Brands will soon gain a new way to reach Uber passengers as the car-hailing app has started to roll out a new feature dubbed Uber Offers, which enables brands to provide Uber users with value offers during their rides via in-app ads. If a rider chooses to click on an ad and make a purchase with a Visa credit card associated with their Uber account, they will receive up to $20 in credit for their next Uber ride. Uber has been quietly testing the feature in select cities since late last year, but only started rolling out this feature nationwide this week for a Mother’s Day campaign from online flower retailer ProFlower. Previously, Uber also partnered with ProFlower for a Valentine’s Day campaign in 2014 to give out free roses along with ProFlower coupons to riders.

What Brands Need To Do
This is not the first time Uber has tried to incorporate brands into rides. The company launched “Trip Experiences” last January to allow third-party apps to serve up notifications and content via Uber’s app to keep riders entertained during their trips. This new Uber Offers product, however, certainly makes a stronger case for brands to partner with Uber so as to reach the highly receptive consumers staring at their phones while stuck in the backseat. For brands that wish to reach a captive mobile audience with a compelling value proposition that can directly convert them into new customers, Uber Offers should be an ad product worth looking into.

 

Source: TechCrunch

Google, Ford, And Uber Team Up To Lobby For Driverless Cars

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Google, Ford, Volvo, Uber, and Lyft announced on Tuesday that they are forming a coalition to speed up the introduction of self-driving cars to the market. The new lobbying group, named the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streets, aims to push for federal actions that accelerate the development of driverless cars and promises to “work with lawmakers, regulators, and the public to realize the safety and societal benefits of self-driving vehicles.”

In related news, reports surfaced today suggest that Google’s self-driving car is “close to graduating from X.” Basically, this means its parent company Alphabet no longer considers its driverless car program as an experimental moonshot project, but one that is about ready to transition into a standalone business. Meanwhile, Volvo is reportedly planning to test its driverless cars on some public streets in London next year.

Why Brands Should Care
The developments in driverless cars are an important market trend that The Lab has been keeping a close tab on (and included in the 2020 section of our Outlook 2016) due to the incredible amount of new media time it can potentially free up. If and when driverless cars hit the mainstream market, it would enable media owners and brand advertisers to visually connect with consumers on the go through in-car media such as digital video and video gaming.

 

Source: The Verge

Echo Gains Uber Integration As Amazon Readies Super Bowl Push

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Amazon took advantage of Uber’s API and integrated the on-demand car service into its smart speaker Echo. After enabling the Uber skill in the Echo app, users will be able to simply request an Uber ride simply by asking Alexa, the AI-powered virtual assistant embedded in Echo. You can also talk with Alexa to find out when your ride will be arriving or to cancel the ride.

Earlier this week, Echo also integrated Domino’s app to give Alexa the ability to order pizzas and track delivery, while adding support for streaming music (and ads for free-tier users) from Spotify. Amazon will be making its Super Bowl debut this Sunday with a celebrity-studded spot for Echo, and adding these useful skills certainly makes for a strong case as the company gets ready to push Echo into mainstream consumer market.

What Brands Need To Do
As Alexa’s list of skills continues to grow, Amazon Echo is becoming an increasingly business-friendly platform for brands to connect with consumers via a conversational interface. For brands, this kind of interface presents new challenges in discovery because they only give out limited options upon requests. Therefore, brands will need to be active in getting on board with those voice-activated devices via deep integrations or partnerships.

For more information on how brands can develop authentic brand voices and navigate the new rules of discovery, check out the Conversational Interfaces section in our Outlook 2016.

 

Source: The Verge

 

Header image courtesy of Amazon on YouTube

 

Uber Launches UberRUSH API For Express Delivery

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Uber continues its push into ecommerce delivery with the launch of a private API of UberRUSH, its on-demand express delivery service. With this new API, retailers such as Nordstrom and 1-800-Flowers can now easily integrate Uber’s one-hour delivery service directly into their digital products to speed up the sales cycle. Other businesses who plan on using this API include fashion rental service Rent the Runway, food delivery businesses like Olo and Eat Street, and logistics operators like Bergen Logistics and Trade Global, which are logistics providers for global retailers like Rebecca Minkoff and Cole Haan.

What Retailers Need To Do
UberRUSH’s API can help retailers, big and small, to drastically decrease the waiting time for shipping and better satisfy the growing consumer demand for instant gratification. Although only available in select cities at the moment, it seems reasonable to assume that Uber will be extending this service to more markets soon. As Uber continues to leverage its fleet of cars to compete with delivery services such as Postmates and Shyp, retail and fashion brands need to consider integrating with such on-demand services to modernize their customer experience.

 

Source: The Verge

Header image courtesy of UberRUSH

Uber To Allow Third-Party Apps To Entertain Riders

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Uber doesn’t want you to get bored during your ride, so it has tweaked its API to allow developers to plug their apps in to serve riders with games, news, and other entertainment content during the ride. Aptly named “Trip Experiences,” this new feature will essentially allow a third-party app, with the user’s permission, to serve up notifications and content via Uber’s app with notifications customized according to the lengths of the rides.

What Brands Need To Do
This marks Uber’s latest move in its continued quest to integrate third-party apps and services into its app via partnerships and deep-linking. Last year, for example, the ride-hailing app partnered with StubHub and Spotify to expand the functionality of its app. For brands, “Trip Experiences” offers a great window to get their content in front of a captive audience in the backseats of Uber cars. However, users will need to give permission before third-party apps can connect to Uber and access their trip details, so brands should be mindful about the content they serve to make sure it adds true value to Uber passengers.

 

Source: The Verge

You Can Now Get An Uber Ride On Facebook Messenger

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Facebook has partnered with Uber to allow users of its Messenger app to hail rides without leaving the chat app. Users simply need to tap an address in chat messages or select the new Transportation icon under the “More” menu to open a micro-app where they can log in with their existing Uber accounts or create a new one. Facebook is also letting users share updates of their rides with friends to prove they are indeed on the way. The feature started rolling out in the U.S. on Wednesday with plans to expand internationally.

Market Impact
Facebook continues to build out the functionality of its Messenger platform to lock down more users in its ecosystem while also luring more users to its messaging app by offering promotions (the first Uber ride ordered within Messenger is free).  On the other hand, Uber gets to broaden its reach and acquire new users through Facebook, further solidifying its leading position in the on-demand ride-hailing market.

Source: TechCrunch

UberHEALTH And Pager To Push Healthcare Into On-Demand Economy

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
Popular ride-hailing app Uber is expanding into new territory as it tested delivering flu-shots on demand. As part of its UberHEALTH project, the company started dispatching flu-shots with its fleet of Uber drivers in 35 cities – including New York, Chicago, and Boston – for 4 hours on Thursday, when “UberHEALTH” was listed as one of the options at the bottom of the Uber app. It offered Uber users a chance to get a wellness pack for $10, and a registered nurse will come along to give flu shots to up to 10 people. The wellness pack included several trinkets, such as a water bottle and hand sanitizer. Earlier this week, Uber announced a new partnership with Practo, an app that lets users in India and some Southeastern Asian markets book medical appointments and request an Uber to travel to them.

What Brands Need To Do
This is not the first time someone has tried to revolutionize the healthcare industry with an on-demand model. Pager, for example, is a mobile-based healthcare service connecting patients with healthcare professionals on demand. Launched in New York City in May, 2014, the startup recently expanded its service to San Francisco and inked a deal with Walgreens to reach more patients through Walgreen’s website. As more and more services become available through on-demand platforms, healthcare and pharmaceutical brands should consider moving into the space to make their services and products more easily accessible and readily available, through either developing their own on-demand services or partnering with existing services.

 

Source: BuzzFeed