Uber acquires Cornershop and enters the crowded grocery delivery market

Uber the ride-haling company has moved into the highly competitive world of only grocery deliveries. It has acquired a startup called Cornershop for an undisclosed sum. The deal will help the company expand beyond its core ride-haling business..

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Cornershop

A recent article describes the delivery firm: "Cornershop, founded in 2015, is currently active in Chile, Peru, Mexico, and Canada, and it’s headquartered in Santiago. In a statement, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said the company would seek to “scale their vision, and look forward to working with them to bring grocery delivery to millions of consumers on the Uber platform.” That will mean eventually launching the service in the US, though the deal is still subject to regulatory approval."

The CEO and founder of Cornershop was optimistic about the deal:" “In 2015 we started Cornershop with primarily the Latin American market in mind and we couldn't be more excited to work with Uber to help us take that mission much further,” said Oskar Hjertonsson, Founder and CEO, Cornershop. “Uber is the perfect partner as we embark on our quest to bring our unique flavor of on-demand groceries from incredible retail partners to many more countries around the world.""

Cornershop will still operate under its current leadership but will report to a board where Uber has majority representation.

Uber will face stiff competition

Huge companies such as Amazon, Instacart and Postmates are all competing for market share in the area and are up against major grocery chain such as Kroger and Walmart. Online purchases are still only 3 percent of US grocery sales. According to a recent survey customers worry about being overcharged or experiencing late deliveries.

Uber launching second try at delivery service

The Cornershop deal will see Uber enter the delivery market for the second time. In 2014 Uber Rush was launched but it was never able to expand beyond the large cities New York, San Francisco, and Chicago. It shut down in 2018.

Uber wants to be considered as a market place

Uber wants to be an "operating system" for cities and grocery delivery seems a part of that. Recently CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in an interview: “I think we’re going to look at a lot of categories going forward and some of them we will fulfill through our own internal services. But I do think that you should think about Uber as a marketplace.”

Previously published in the Digital Journal