The "UBER Case" #6: Category Management reloaded
UBER DELIVERY SERVICE Vienna is also always good for a digital surprise. It is well known that this city is one of the world's top "smart cities". But that Uber also works there as a Red Bull home delivery service? Christoph Oggenfuss* investigated this phenomenon. FROM CHRISTOPH OGGENFUSS*I'm not saying I was waiting for exactly this offer. My annual Red Bull consumption tends towards zero. The innovation seems much more interesting to me from the perspective of Uber's business model, which is obviously very flexible and scales well; there is certainly an analogy to the online retailer Amazon, which started out selling books twenty years ago and now has over two million products in its range - including food in certain countries - and has thus become a serious competitor to Walmart. Who would have thought that after Amazon's first loss-making years? Whether Uber will write such a success story is still written in the stars - but the development of Amazon teaches us that many things are possible in the digital world.back to Vienna. From now on, I don't just choose between Uber X, Uber BLACK and Van - the same selection bar at the bottom of the app (image 1) shows "Red Bull" on the far right. With just a few clicks, I can now enter the delivery location and place my order. And now I can mentally replace Red Bull with any everyday product - products that I would like to have delivered. And as you know, the convenience of ordering with Uber is hard to beat. My credit card details are already on file and I get an indication of when the goods will arrive, so from now on Uber should not be reduced to taxi-type passenger transportation services - the underlying business model has a completely different scope. And a marginal cost analysis is also exciting - how quickly and with what limited effort an additional service category can be launched is impressive. (Image 2) Uber-Pool in San Francisco in early 2015 was one such example and I assume that the topic of category management at Uber is still in its infancy. So let's give free rein to our imagination as to what the next service categories will be.
The food category was added to the transport category bar at the bottom overnight.
"All cars are delivering" - the Red Bull offer is obviously very popular.
