UberEats launches food delivery service in Wellington's crowded market

Tuesday, 5 September 2017

Initially, UberEats will deliver to 19 suburbs around Wellington.

Competition is heating up in the food delivery services in Wellington, with UberEats launching in the capital on Wednesday.

UberEats, a subsidiary of ride-sharing app Uber, will come up against other food delivery services, such as Food Ninja, Delivereasy and Menulog.

Mike Egan, the owner of Monsoon Poon and president of the Restaurant Association of New Zealand, is looking forward to UberEats arrival in the capital.

UberEats New Zealand lead Emma Foley said she believed Wellington would be successful as it was 'culinary capital of New Zealand', and had more restaurants per capita than New York.

Foley said 70 Wellington restaurants had signed up to UberEats so far, with more expected to jump on board in the coming weeks.

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Some of the restaurants include Monsoon Poon, Louis Sergeant Sweet Couture, The Greek Food Truck, Chow and House of Dumplings. Food will be delivered by bicycle, scooter or car, and it will cost between $6 to $8.

The UberEats app allowed customers to track their order from start to finish, Foley said.

'You can see when restaurants are preparing your order, you can see when it's on its way, and I think people really love that.

'Also, before you order, you can see how long the food is going to take, so if you want food quickly, you can chose to order from a place that's closer,' she said.

Restaurant Association president Mike Egan was looking forward to the arrival of UberEats, but said food delivery services would not replace the traditional takeaway model.

'People are super busy, in their jobs and in their lives, and this is a chance to get restaurant-quality food out to customers, but it won't be for everyone.'

Egan, who owns Monsoon Poon, said signing up with a food delivery service meant he could expand his business for a small cost.

'This is just a way of adding a little bit more business for us without having to come up for an infrastructure for deliveries ourselves.'

Monsoon Poon had a limited menu through the UberEats app, as Egan wanted to be able to maintain a good level of service for the restaurant's in-house customers, he said.

'We are doing quite a limited menu, so that if things get super busy, we can still handle it, and it won't effect any of our service in the restaurant.'

Blair Kippenberger, director of rival Delivereasy, said the market was 'certainly heating up' but he believed the arrival of UberEats would make his company sharper.

'In other markets it's shown that UberEats makes the pie a lot bigger, so a lot more people will become aware of restaurant delivery, so for us it just means more awareness of our service.'

Delivereasy launched in May 2016 and have 50 restaurants who have signed up.