UberRush Expands To San Francisco And Chicago

Uber is now about a lot more than just giving you a ride. Giving you a ride is still what they are mostly about, but the company is branching out into other businesses. Recently they started testing a new service called UberRush which can be used to get stuff delivered from local businesses. The service was initially launched in New York City and I guess they liked what happened, because now it has been expanded to San Francisco and Chicago.

“If every local business delivered, we’d all save time and energy,” said Jason Droege, head of UberEverything in a statement provided to the media. It is a true statement too. The launch in San Francisco and Chicago also brings some new partners like Clover and Shopify, which will encourage more local businesses to use UberRush. It looks like they are onto something here and I don’t doubt that they will expand even further.

If you want something delivered using UberRush, it is as simple as hailing a ride through the app, the entire process takes just a few minutes with payments being handled within the app itself. It is super convenient for businesses.

Uber wants to apply its model to a variety of businesses. It also got into the businesses of delivering lunch and dinner from local restaurants in 11 cities recently.

Source Ubergizmo

Continuous evolution leads to a revolution

Amazon changed the way we buy things, Uber changed the way we go from one place to another and iPhone changed the way we use our mobile phones. These seem like revolutionary changes in consumer behaviour and as an entrepreneur, these stories inspire me to create my own revolution. Create a product that will change the way people live a core part of their lives. And by doing so, change the world. Sounds revolutionary? Here’s a little secret. If you create a consumer experience that is so revolutionary that it is nothing like anything users currently have, it will fail. For it to succeed, consumers must be able to relate it to a familiar experience in their life and then find your product better than that. The road to a revolution goes through several steps in evolution.

Before there was online shopping in the US, mail order shopping was a multi-billion dollar business. Consumers would receive catalogues in the mail, select the items they wanted to purchase, pay for shipping, mail a check or credit card information, and then wait for the products to be delivered at home. They would see the product for the first time a few weeks after the payment. Often times, popular products would run out before the order was received. If items did not meet expectations, they could be returned. Amazon made mail-ordering better: inventory was real-time, payments were online, paying for shipping was the norm and returns were entertained.

None of this existed in India. What we had was the concept of calling the local store and asking them to send stuff home – ghar bhijwa do. When the items showed up, consumers paid cash for what they kept and returned what they did not like. The purchasing decision was made at the doorstep after seeing the product. There was no question of charging for delivery. Online shopping needed free cash on delivery to survive. One of the earliest e-commerce websites of India during the late 90s was firstandsecond.com which used to offer cash on delivery. It was a necessary evil. Online shopping was an evolved way of saying ghar bhijwa do. It was okay to ask the delivery boy to come back if it was inconvenient. It was okay to send items back if you changed your mind. The consumer could not care less where the items came from.

Let’s take a look at another example – getting a limo in the US. Users would call the limo agency, provide the address and time, and the limo would show up. The driver knew that it was impolite to call and interrupt your privacy. Calling the user was the last resort. Users expected the driver to be there on the dot and they would. There were curbsides, driveways and demarcated places for limos to stop so the user knew where to look. Limo agencies kept credit cards on file and it was usual to put the ride on the card. It was either a fixed rate to airports or the user signed off on the metered charge. Uber let you do that through the app and then track the cab with an ETA to further improve the predictability that users had come to value. Of my hundreds of Uber rides in San Francisco, I do not remember ever talking to the driver on the phone before she arrived.

By contrast, calling a private taxi in India was a different experience. Users would call the agency and mention a time. There was no guarantee that the taxi would show up at that time. Users were advised to always have a backup plan. The way you would know that the taxi is going to arrive is when you would get a message with the phone number of the driver. You were expected to answer the phone call or call them proactively to give them last-mile directions. Addresses are harder to find in India and calling for directions is the norm. Culturally, interrupting conversations with countless phone calls is fair game too. Ordering an Ola was a better version of that experience. Drivers called the user as soon as they confirmed the ride, first to confirm that they were coming and second to get directions. First-time users used to call two cabs from different services and take the one that got there faster. In the early days, drivers would ask the user for their destination and then ask them to cancel the ride if they were not willing to go. Just as the user could reject a ride after it showed up, the driver could too. Users had a default expectation to pay by cash like their past behaviour with private taxis.

As I created and consumed early products in India and US, it was always interesting how the success of a product experience depended on its ability to map the existing consumer behaviour and then improve the key moments in the experience. Every time we took a blue sky or clean slate approach to conjecture how things should be, consumers rejected the solution. During testing, the uninitiated customers would say “oh, so this is like this” or “this is like that”. Consumers had a need to relate the new experience with something old and familiar. If the product makers did not pick the existing behaviour for consumers to relate to, consumers did it on their behalf while product makers were left shooting in the dark wondering who they were competing with.

Entrepreneurs trying to create a revolution should obsessively get consumers through a step in evolution, and then another step, and so on before they find themselves in a place that the world looks back at and finds revolutionary.

Courtesy : Yourstory.com

Ola Launches Social Ride Sharing Service ‘Ola Share’

Ola, India’s leading cab aggregation and rental mobile app today announced the launch of social ride-sharing offering on its app. Called Ola Share, the feature helps users to create and join Social groups who plan to travel on same route in real time.

OlaShare could be termed as a platform where users can come together and share rides by forming or joining groups.

In addition, an individual traveler can check out various groups on the Ola app and join the ones that are traveling on the route of their choice. Ola Share is currently available to Ola customers at an introductory fare of Rs 50 anywhere in Bangalore, for any number of rides.

If you open Ola mobile app, Ola Share will be shown as a separate category on the left hand menu.

Ishan Gupta, Head – Ola Share said, “At Ola, our goal is to build mobility for a billion Indians and this requires us to innovate constantly, for the future. With Share, we not only bring economy, convenience and comfort of travelling with people in your circles, but also increased inventory utilization of vehicles on the platform. This will also contribute towards significant reduction of traffic, congestion and pollution in our cities. Ola Share is a major step in the direction of sustainable transportation, allowing us to serve more people at a fraction of the cost, with driver-partners benefitting from increased revenue.”

How Ola Share Works

In Ola app, customer will need to first register themselves for Ola Share, which is available as separate category. The process involves either joining a public group or a private group (by invitation only). They can also create their own group, incase there is no group available that travels on the same route.

Alternatively, a the time of travel, customer can mention the drop location and Ola will use advanced algorithms to match users from common groups who are also looking for a cab on the same route in real time. Once additional user’s en-route is identified, the driver’s device gets an alert with navigation to their pickup location within minutes, to join the ride. A maximum of 3 people can share a cab together via Ola Share.

For Ola driver-partners, they get an option to log into the Share platform, getting instant access to increased revenue of up to 50%, through continuous fulfilment of booking requests.

Carpooling and Ride Sharing are increasingly becoming an important part of urban city travels – Not only do ride-sharing help with decreasing the ever increasing traffic, they also help with reducing pollution. Not to mention that they save money as well!

Give Ola Share a try and let us know what your experience…