SOUTH AFRICA – UberEats SA has partnered with Game Stores, a subsidiary of South Africa’s retail giant Massmart Holdings, to deliver food and essential products to customers during the nation-wide level four lockdown.
The Uber Technologies-owned delivery service has signed an exclusive deal with Game, which allows customers to order Game essential products online, and have them delivered to their doorstep, reports ITWeb.
Game, which has its own delivery service, says it is experiencing significantly high volumes of online orders.
“The pandemic has made us rethink how we do business and encouraged us to create new norms,” says Andrew Stein, VP of Game Stores.
“This partnership is a step into the future, with companies having to be agile and adaptable to situations as they arise. We are doing everything we can to keep our customers stocked with everything they need, and our partnership with UberEats allows us to do that through an exciting channel.”
The new service will be launched in 21 Game stores in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg and Pretoria, with more to be rolled out over the next few weeks.
UberEats says it has taken several enhanced safety precautions with deliveries, including offering a contactless delivery option on checkout, which allows customers to request their delivery be “left at the door”.
With many local restaurants remaining closed during the lockdown, food delivery apps have continued to take a blow, forcing them to re-focus their business model to cater for customers’ essential needs during the lockdown.
Last month, food delivery app, Mr D Food partnered with FreshStop at Caltex to allow customers to order their food, snacks and drinks for delivery through the Mr D app.
This came after Checkers, a supermarket chain owned by Shoprite entered an exclusive partnership with Mr D Food for delivery of alcohol to customers’ homes as Pick n Pay Online, also partnered with alcohol delivery app, BOTTLES, to help the retailer meet the significant increase in online orders.
In South Africa’s neighbouring country Zimbabwe, VAYA Logistics, a virtual solution platform and marketplace has launched VAYA Express Shopper, a free personal shopping service.
According to VAYA Logistics, the free service will be available to customers in Harare and Bulawayo up to May 17, 2020 when the current lockdown is scheduled to end.
VAYA Logistics CEO Mr Lovemore Nyatsine said, “We are introducing VAYA Express Shopper as your own ‘personal shopper’ who will go out and buy your groceries for you, and you simply pay for the groceries from the comfort of your home, while the express shopper delivers it to you. It’s absolutely free, there is no delivery charge.”
The VAYA Express Shopper offer is also extended to all purchases made on the Ownai online Market Place.
