Harris Teeter, the grocery chain with the name most likely to make people of all ages giggle hysterically, is currently testing a delivery partnership with car-hailing service Uber. Yes, instead of ordering a ride to bring you home with your groceries, you can simply order a ride for your groceries, combining the store’s existing order-picking service with drivers who are already cruising around looking for fares.
The test site is the chain’s Constitution Square store in Washington, D.C., and drivers who are signed up to move items around for the company’s UberRUSH courier service will begin delivering orders from the pickup service.
Customers will place orders from Harris Teeter’s mobile app, not the Uber app, but will receive updates through the store app about the whereabouts of their groceries, just as Uber passengers do about an arriving car.
Mobile app users will have the option to choose between delivery and pickup, but delivery still isn’t an option for people ordering their groceries over the Web.
Like the many restaurants and retailers that have partnered with delivery service Postmates, this deal works well for Harris Teeter: they can use Uber’s existing network of local drivers who use their own vehicles instead of hiring and training their own drivers, and perhaps even supplying them with vehicles.
(via Supermarket News)
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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