Dive Brief:

• Uber Eats will roll out a revamped app and website in the coming weeks with an enhanced pickup map that contains more information about local spots, including user ratings of nearby restaurants, the company said in an email. New features like Hidden Gems will recommend restaurants based on past orders at other establishments while shortcuts will provide instant access to favorite cuisines and new merchants like grocery stores, butchers, flower shops and pet supply stores, according to a company blog post. 
• The features also include family favorites with food bundles, which allow users to order from multiple restaurants at the same time through a single order, and one that shows what other diners have ordered in their immediate area. 
• Uber Eats said that during consumer testing, it learned the delivery experience was fast, but users had a challenging time reaching the ordering stage. The delivery platform's features will help increase usability and benefit restaurants with more orders, the company said.

Dive Insight:

With demand for delivery and pickup increasing since the start of the pandemic, third-party delivery companies have been expanding their services and improving usability for both customers and restaurants. Uber's new features could make it easier for a diner to discover restaurants they haven't tried yet — for example, if a customer ordered pepperoni pizza from one restaurant, the platform would recommend pepperoni pizza from a different highly rated restaurant.

This latest revamp of Uber Eats’ platform also coincides with various services it rolled out for restaurants in July, which include online ordering capabilities for restaurants and customer insights to view consumer behavior and clicks to gain a better understanding of ordering patterns. Added onto these insights, Uber Eats said it expects its revamped user features to provide richer data back to its restaurant partners. Uber Eats also launched a contactless dine-in and pick-up order feature in September months after it debuted a pickup map allowing users to see restaurants offering takeout within walking distance. It also added a restaurant loyalty program and priority delivery option in June.

All of these features seem to be making a difference. Gross bookings were up 113% year-over-year globally during Q2 2020 and Uber Eats' restaurant partnerships surpassed 500,000 in June, growing 50% year-over-year. Uber Eats said it also had a 70% increase in orders in the U.S. and Canada across its website from February to June on top of increased usage of its app. 

With app usage up among its competitors as well, additional features will help set each of the third-party platforms apart. Grubhub partnered with Lyft in October to provide Lyft Pink members free access to Grubhub+, while DoorDash added customer tracking for pickup orders and turnkey digital storefronts, for example.