Uber Eats Adds Live Location Sharing as Aggregators Compete to Reduce Friction

As on-demand delivery aggregators race to offer the most easy, seamless customer experience, Uber Eats is adding live location sharing for hard-to-find deliveries.

The aggregator announced Thursday (March 7) the launch of the feature for “meet outside” or “meet at door” orders, which shares customers’ live locations with the courier when their order is three minutes away and they are within 100 meters of the drop-off site. Consumers can choose to opt out.

The company noted that 10% of delivery orders are categorized as hard to find, and 1 in 5 customers say that within the previous three months, a courier has had a difficult time finding them. The feature is meant for delivery to places such as parks, sprawling apartment complexes and campuses, where a simple street address may not give enough information.

Uber Eats is not the only delivery provider to note the need for such a solution. Last June, Domino’s launched Pinpoint Delivery, enabling consumers to order delivery to pinned locations for similar occasions — parks, beaches, etc.

Back in 2019, convenience retail giant 7-Eleven announced the launch of 7NOW Pins on its 7NOW delivery app, a similar feature. The app’s latest Apple App Store description shows that the option is still available, implying that the capability has proven both to be effective and to meet sufficient demand.

Uber’s announcement comes as aggregators compete to offer the most frictionless ordering and fulfillment experiences for consumers. Over the summer, DoorDash, for its part, the United States’ leading aggregator, announced an app update that included new features such as a universal search bar, a browse tab, a grocery tab, a retail tab and the option to keep multiple carts going at once. These features are meant to make using the digital platform easier and more convenient for consumers.

Having easy-to-use digital platforms can be key to maintaining consumer loyalty, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence study “The Online Features Driving Consumers to Shop With Brands, Retailers or Marketplaces. The study, which drew from a survey of more than 3,500 U.S. consumers, revealed that 40% of consumers consider how easy to navigate a given merchant’s online store is when deciding where to shop.

The third-most popular U.S. aggregator Grubhub, for its part, has been less active in its pursuit of innovation as its parent company, Just Eat Takeaway, continues to look for buyers, but the company shared in its earnings report last week that it is looking to improve its competitive standing through means including a “a continued push in new verticals.”

The battle for aggregator customers’ loyalty is highly competitive, as 2023 research from PYMNTS Intelligence’s Connected Dining series found that just 1 in 20 restaurant orders is placed with a third-party delivery marketplace. The same series of reports found that as of June, 74% of aggregator customers reported having made purchases via DoorDash, 50% said the same of Uber Eats and 37% of Grubhub.

In a landscape where on-demand delivery aggregators strive to provide the most convenient experiences to drive loyalty and engagement, Uber Eats’ introduction of live location sharing marks the latest step toward enhancing customer satisfaction and boosting ease of use.