Uber Eats doesn’t offer food from different restaurants in a single order, even though it recently misled South Africans into believing it does, ruled the country’s Advertising Regulatory Board (ARB).
By Luke Daniel – Business Insider
Meanwhile, users of a township delivery service founded in Hammanskraal have been enjoying multi-store deliveries over weekends.
Uber Eats recently aired a television advert which showed a group of friends wanting to order food. Each person in the group wanted something different, from sushi to a cheeseburger. When the Uber Eats delivery arrives, the food is handed over in a single packet.
That gave the impression that Uber Eats users can get food from multiple outlets delivered as part of a single order, said the ARB. In reality, Uber Eats only allows users to order from one outlet at a time. The food delivery platform was instructed to remove or amend its misleading television commercial.
And while one of the country’s leading food delivery services can’t fulfil – or even allude to – multi-store deliveries, a township delivery service has been offering food from multiple merchants as a single order for almost three months.
“You’ve obviously had the same dilemma at some point, where you want KFC and your partner or someone you’re with wants something else. And you’d just like to order and make one payment and get one delivery,” Godiragetse Mogajane, the founder of Delivery Ka Speed, told Business Insider SA.
“I looked at our app, and I saw a loophole that makes it possible for us to do this without any further development or changes to the current app.”
This multi-store delivery service was opened by bunching nearby restaurants and outlets – like those in the food court of a mall – into a single merchant. The Delivery Ka Speed app offers the top 20 most commonly sold items from each restaurant, allowing users to order from different outlets for a single delivery and single payment.
This service was started in September in Delivery Ka Speed’s birthplace of Hammanskraal in northern Gauteng. It was reserved for Fridays only.
“It was massive on the day, and I was shocked [realising] people were willing to pay a R15 service fee [for the multi-store delivery service]. We ran it for the whole month, including the other townships we operate in, we did the Friday combos in all those areas,” said Mogajane.
“And because of the demand, we’ve made it weekend combos. So, it’s no longer just on Fridays. And in December, we’re going to run it from the 16th all the way to the end of the year. Customers love it.”
Mogajane admits that the simplicity of Delivery Ka Speed’s mobile application and the agility of a start-up delivery service allowed it to make quick changes to suit customers’ needs, whereas big businesses like Mr D and Uber Eats would likely need to schedule extensive redevelopment to accomplish the same.
“You can’t do that on Uber Eats or Mr D… and I think it’s something that they will do in the future, it’s just that their tech is complicated,” said Mogajane
“But we’re doing it, and we’re doing it in the hood. So, it shows that innovation can literally come from the dusty streets of Hammanskraal.”
Delivery Ka Speed was officially launched at the end of July 2021. At the time, orders were placed via WhatsApp and delivered by a small team of local drivers using electric scooters. Within three months, Delivery Ka Speed had expanded to Soshanguve and completed nearly 2,500 deliveries.
Sixteen months later, the delivery service, with its own mobile app, is now available in 10 townships and has expanded beyond Gauteng into the North West, with plans to launch in Limpopo in 2023.
