Uber Eats will allow the 1 million merchants on its platform to promote new dishes by following in the footsteps of TikTok, YouTube and Snapchat.
A new short-form video feed was designed to help "showcase dishes from top merchants," an Uber Eats spokesperson told USA TODAY. The feed will allow the merchants "to attract new consumers and tell a visual story of their meals, which currently isn’t available on other delivery platforms," according to the company.
The video feature is expected to receive a worldwide launch but is currently being tested in New York, San Francisco and Toronto, according to the Uber Eats spokesperson.
Uber Eats users can view the shorts in carousels placed throughout the app, including on the home screen, TechCrunch reported. Clicking the video preview will take the user to a vertical feed containing shorts that can be swiped through, according to the outlet. The content in the vertical feed will only include content from merchants close to the user.
“The early data shows people are much more confident trying new dishes and trying things that they otherwise wouldn’t have,” Awaneesh Verma, Uber Eats’ senior director of product, told TechCrunch. “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.”
The idea behind the feed is to replicate the in-person restaurant experience and encourage customers to try new foods by allowing them to see cooks or workers prepare them, according to Verma, TechCrunch reported.
The company is not charging its merchants for content placements, noting that the videos are not ads, the high-tech outlet said.
To continue the company's support of merchants, Uber has revamped its "Uber Eats Manager software," the spokesperson said. The app will now include growth recommendations, improved performance analytics and new reporting details for "merchants who love digging into the stats," according to the company.
Examples of the new software could be suggesting merchants run promotions for certain dishes or adding photos to menu listings to help their businesses, Verma said, TechCrunch reported.
Uber will launch a brand new app for merchants' managers in the summer that will help their overall productivity, according to TechCrunch. The app will be able to notify managers of their stores' issues and tell them that new ads may be needed to boost sales, the outlet said.
"All of the great functionality of Uber Eats Manager, but in an app for busy merchants who are on the go," the company's spokesperson said about the new app.
Uber now has a million merchants on its platform worldwide, across 11,000 cities in six continents, the company announced Monday.
"From the tens of thousands of restaurants experimenting with new menus and virtual concepts, to developing unique promotional concepts for delivery that mirror their brick and mortar strategies like happy hours and buy-one-get one efforts, we’ve worked hard to make sure our tech supports merchants’ growth," Uber said in a news release.