Ecommerce
How will on demand services like Uber change eCommerce delivery?
- Written by Matt Warren
In today’s world of on-demand services like Netflix, Spotify and Just Eat, it’s a wonder we ever leave the house any more, with just about everything we need and more available at the tap of an app. Even more on-demand services are emerging to provide you with pretty much anything you need on the same day. Apps like these affect the world of ecommerce too. People want their goods ASAP, which has led to the rise of companies making use of local drivers who deliver goods on behalf of companies. As of today, Uber – the on-demand taxi service – is partnered up with Shopify to deliver online sellers’ products to customers, making reliable, same-day delivery possible for small retailers in New York, San Francisco and Chicago. Shopify sellers can now provide their customers with an option for UberRUSH delivery service. They can request an Uber pickup, and both the customer and seller can track the package’s exact location from pickup to drop-off via Shopify. The agreement with Uber is the latest in a series of major tie-ups announced by Canadian ecommerce giant Shopify. Last month, it agreed a deal with U.S. Postal Service, making it more attractive for smaller U.S. based retailers to use its software to power their e-commerce sites. This move also represents Uber’s aim to become a fully-fledged logistics company that will use its ever-expanding fleet of drivers and dedicated couriers to shift items (whether that’s inanimate objects or people) from one location to another. And how exactly will this affect ecommerce retailers? Well, cheaper, more on-demand delivery becoming widely available could result in bigger delivery companies reducing their shipping costs. If other companies like Uber are delivering goods quicker and at a potentially lower price, they will need to keep up with the competition. This partnership means a lot for ecommerce retailers. If you sell on Shopify, Amazon, eBay and other web stores such as WooCommerce, you can pull all your orders from the various marketplaces and web stores into Veeqo and ship your orders via Shopify with Uber. If they use Shopify’s Uber service in conjunction with an inventory management software like Veeqo, this makes selling even easier and less time consuming, and ultimately more likely to satisfy the end customer.
