The Wall Street Journal

For DoorDash and Uber Eats, the future is ‘next-hour commerce’

Published: June 1, 2021 at 2:30 p.m. ET

By

Preetika Rana and

Jaewon Kang

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Food-delivery apps want to bring you more than your next meal

Apps say they can lower their delivery costs by bundling nonperishable goods with hot food, and drivers can handle multiple orders at a time without having to worry about orders getting cold.

Paul Frangipane/Bloomberg

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DoorDash Inc.’s DASH, -0.10% and Uber Eats’ UBER, +0.58% ambitions are bigger than your lunch.

They are after a whole new category of logistics and are increasingly billing their specialty not as food but as speed and convenience. Companies say that so-called next-hour commerce — which includes delivering everything from drugstore staples and alcohol to pet food on demand — is the prize that could sustain their growth and eventually help them turn a profit.

“Amazon AMZN, +0.05% powers next-day delivery. We’re going to power next-hour commerce,” said Raj Beri, Uber Technologies Inc.’s global head of grocery and new verticals.

Food-delivery apps need to hang onto consumers they won during pandemic lockdowns. A wider range of items available on demand gives consumers more reasons to keep coming back to the apps and executives are betting they will stick around once they are accustomed to the convenience.

An expanded version of this article appears on WSJ.com.

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