Uber Eats is launching a TikTok-like short-form video feed to spice up discovery and assist eating places showcase their dishes. Uber Eats’ senior director of Product, Awaneesh Verma, informed TechCrunch solely in an interview that the brand new feed is being examined in New York, San Francisco and Toronto. The corporate plans to launch the feed worldwide sooner or later.
With this launch, Uber Eats now joins quite a few different common apps which have launched their very own short-form video feeds following TikTok’s rise in recognition, together with Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Netflix to call a couple of. TechCrunch additionally not too long ago discovered that LinkedIn has started experimenting with its personal TikTok-like feed.
The brand new Uber Eats short-form movies are seen in carousels positioned throughout the app, together with the homescreen. When you click on on a video preview, you’ll enter right into a vertical feed of short-form content material which you can swipe by way of. You’ll solely see content material from eating places which can be shut sufficient to ship to you.
Verma says the feed is designed to copy the expertise of being in a restaurant in individual and seeing folks getting ready meals and being impressed to attempt one thing new. As you swipe by way of the feed, it’s possible you’ll come throughout a video of an ice cream store getting ready a Nutella milkshake, or a video of an Indian restaurant packing rice individually from curry so it doesn’t get soggy by the point it will get delivered to your home.
“The early data shows people are much more confident trying new dishes and trying things that they otherwise wouldn’t have,” Verma stated. “Even little things like being able to see texture, and the details of what a portion size looks like, or what’s in a dish, has been really inspiring for our users.”
Picture Credit: Uber Eats
Uber Eats notes that the movies aren’t advertisements, as the corporate isn’t charging retailers for the content material placements.
Many eating places run social media accounts on apps like Instagram and TikTok to succeed in new prospects and showcase their meals utilizing short-form movies. By permitting retailers to share short-form movies immediately within the Uber Eats app, the corporate helps eating places attain prospects immediately as they determine what to order. As for shoppers, many individuals already use social media to find new locations and dishes to attempt, so Uber Eats seemingly hopes that its new feed will encourage customers to attempt to discover inspiration immediately inside its personal app.
Some customers may not see the launch as a welcome addition to the app, as they could really feel overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of various short-form video feeds in common apps. Whereas it could make sense to have short-form video feeds in leisure and social media apps, the introduction of 1 in a food-delivery app might not be a good alternative for some.
Verma additionally shared that so as to additional help retailers, the corporate has revamped its Uber Eats Supervisor software program and added personalised progress suggestions. The software program is now able to encouraging eating places to develop their enterprise by doing issues like working a promotion on a sure dish or including pictures to menu listings.
As well as, the corporate goes to launch a completely new app for restaurant managers this summer time that’s designed to make it simpler for eating places to be extra proactive on the go. As an illustration, the app might alert a restaurant supervisor that their retailer is having points or that they could need to increase gross sales with new advertisements.
Uber Eats introduced on Monday that it now has greater than 1 million retailers around the globe on its platform, throughout 11,000 cities in six continents.
