A few weeks ago, Uber completed the acquisition of Cornershop, a Chilean supermarket order delivery application, with a presence in 19 cities throughout its country of origin, Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Mexico and Canada.
After taking this step, the Uber and Uber Eats applications have already implemented a supermarket shopping function, which is available in the countries where Cornershop operates, except in Mexico.
Extending the original coverage of Cornershop, Uber merged the services of its newly acquired app, to provide them through Uber Eats and also through its passenger transport application. Thus, the supermarket purchase order service is already operational in 90 cities in Latin America and Canada, with the inclusion of Mexico being postponed, where the acquisition of its local subsidiary is still in process.
In times marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, online shopping has been more present than ever. According to figures shared by Uber, since March the demand for this service has increased by 197%. Amid the dynamics behind the new normal, this acquisition comes at a good time to diversify Uber’s service offering.
Uber started with the premise that people can more easily get where they need to go. Since then, we have evolved to connect them with the food of their favorite restaurants and now, we are excited to bring our technological expertise to the whole world together with the Cornershop team.noted Eduardo Donnelly, Uber Eats CEO for Latin America.
For his part, Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, celebrated this step on his Twitter account.
Proud to see the Cornershop x Uber experience take shape with todays launch of grocery delivery on @Uber and @UberEats. Thrilled to partner with the @cornershopapp team to help get you what you need, when you need it. Lots more to come soon: https://t.co/5FhBFB5vsd pic.twitter.com/4V7Roj8NEe
dara khosrowshahi (@dkhos) July 7, 2020
Unlike most applications to order food, in which the delivery men are only responsible for taking a package from one point to another, in Cornershop each purchase has a shopper in charge of personally making the purchase and delivering the order within a maximum period of 90 minutes.
Regarding charges, Cornershop makes two charges, an initial one of 85% of the total order, which is complemented by the collection of the difference after completing the purchase. The service charge is previously applied in the product catalog, varying between 6% and 18%.
Created in 2015, this app which also operates through a web version experienced sustained growth, thanks to the novelty and effectiveness of its proposal in the territories under which it deployed its service.
As it was consolidated, this application of purchase and distribution of merchandise captured the interest of large companies such as Walmart for its acquisition. However, it was Uber who managed to get hold of it, for a figure close to $ 450 million dollars. The purchase was processed for six months, until May 29, when the Chilean National Economic Prosecutor authorized the takeover by the US company.
This move made Cornershop one of the most valuable startups in Latin America in recent years, given the price of the transaction and the implications of having aroused the interest of a leading company in its area. This assessment meant attracting greater attention internationally, even being highlighted by Forbes.
This is one more sign of the interest that Uber has in dominating food delivery, adding to its services the purchase of merchandise. Under similar dynamics, the purchase of Postmates was recently confirmed, to extend this option also to the United States.
