UberRUSH is shutting down | Hacker News Reader

UberRUSH is shutting down

techcrunch.com

47 pointsdsr1218 comments

I know this concerns parcel delivery, and not food delivery, but for anyone interested, this was a great read on why the unit economy of (non-people) delivery is super rough:

>https://medium.com/@review/the-food-delivery-death-star-85f9...

Food delivery is dramatically more time sensitive than parcel delivery; after 10 minutes, the food quality begins to decline sharply, so even if I am okay waiting an hour or two for my food to arrive, "pooling" food is almost certainly out of the question, just 'cause you only have 10 minute before the food starts getting sadder.

Parcels, on the other hand, well, I can tell you it needs to be here at time X, and you can do as many deliveries as possible between now and time X. (I guess that's the same thing, except that for food, X is now +10 minutes.)

With UberEats its transparent when pooling is happening (they tell you the driver is completing another delivery first). It works pretty well.

UberEats is actually very expensive compared to GrubHub etc, so if anyone is making money its probably them.

my impression (and I've been using grubhub more often that uber eats) is that the uber eats pooling is more like the 'uber x' pooling, in that the driver is completing another delivery before it picks you (or your food) up. My impression is that the driver, once they pick up your food, heads straight to you. I could be wrong, as the last few months I've been using doordash.

Is this important? I'm not sure. I mean, it's certainly possible for kitchens to do things (heat lamps, not combining ingredients) to store cooked food longer, things that aren't done in cars, so it is possible that time spent waiting at the kitchen matters less than travel time.

In the field of delivery, driving is death. The less you drive between stops, on average, the higher your delivery rate and the more efficient your delivery service. Less fuel costs, less labor costs, per package.

Imagine five services competing over the same geographic area, each is suffering through a high average distance driver per stop. When one fails, the others each pick up some of its business and become more efficient. In reality, the best situation is if there is just one delivery service- the best for the delivery service of course, not necessarily the best for the customer.

UberRUSH is out? Well, every other delivery service will breath a sigh of relief. They're all still fighting a hard battle (just read that article yesterday about Amazon Prime/Fresh not being profitable) but at least they'll be able to improve with one less competitor.

Related question: Am I allowed to send a package via regular Uber?

I need to move t-shirt samples across LA regularly and end up driving myself, would happily send an Uber or a Lyft instead.

The drivers are independent contractors. They can choose to do whatever you'd like them to do.

You could try postmates

I once moved all my possessions from San Diego to Tucson using Craigslist Rideshare.

Payment occurred once they SMS'ed a photo of my boxes in my storage unit. I gave them a combination to my storage unit and hid the payment in various locations in the delivery boxes (e.g., page X of book Y in box Z, etc.).

Worked great but it took 3 drivers. I paid around $5 a box (in 2009 dollars).

I can confirm that drivers often are fine to do this. But someone needs to pick up the items, the driver should not be expected to make a delivery themselves.

You can certainly negotiate with the driver. With tipping, drivers are generally happy to do a little bit extra (e.g. make the delivery) in exchange for a reasonable tip.

Yeap. When I had to catch a train while carrying too many bags, I offered the driver an extra to carry one of them to the platform with me.

It's actually an interesting question for the future: a self-driving car won't be able to do this :)

have done it plenty of times. Just call the driver and ask if they mind having a package instead of a passanger (no one will care).

And yes make sure someone is ready to receive the items, then you are golden.

It will work in theory, until a driver gets caught up in a bust for (unknowingly) transporting concealed drugs, stolen property, etc.

Is it really that different? What happens if the driver helps the passenger put a bag in the trunk, then when they get stopped and searched, the passenger simply denies the bag being theirs?

I forgot my laptop charger in my hotel room and I was already at the airport. I called the hotel confirmed they had it. Booked a Lyft to arrive at the hotel. Called the driver and they were happy to oblige even though it was only going to be ~15 minute drive. I called the hotel explained the make and model and the deal clerk said she would walk it out. I met the Lyft driver outside. I tipped the Lyft driver $20 in cash, $5 on the app.

Lyft is cheaper than buying a new Apple charger.

This seems like a service where the unit economics might not work at the moment, but will become much more attractive once self driving cars are on the market.

It seems like with self driving cars, delivery just becomes even more commoditized than it already is. Not having to recruit drivers is just one less place for companies to have a competitive advantage.

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