Uber and Uber Eats have launched a suite of holiday-themed features and offerings available throughout December, including store pickup services for time-strapped holiday shoppers and a Gift Hub.
With Store Pickup via Uber Connect, app users can arrange for an Uber courier to pick up and deliver prepaid items to themselves or a gift recipient. Users purchase an item from any local store, upload their receipt, and a courier will be assigned to pick up the item and drop it off at any designated location.
Store Pickup is live now across 1,700 U.S. cities and towns, including Austin, Texas; Boston; Chicago; Dallas; Houston; Las Vegas;; Los Angeles; Miami; Orange County/Orlando, Fla.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; San Antonio, Texas; San Francisco; and Tampa Bay, Fla., with rollout continuing to expand to additional locales.
Additionally, residents of Los Angeles, Miami or Fairfax, Va. may find themselves encountering Robot Reindeer on the streets. Throughout December in these three cities, Uber Eats robots have been given a dash of reindeer style to spread some cheer while they make food deliveries.
Advertisement
Some of those deliveries could very well come from the new Gift Hub in the Uber Eats app, which aims to make it easy to filter, find and send the perfect gift. Selections include everything from flowers and champagne to sweets, treats and holiday décor. The Hub also features a series of celebrity-curated collections with top gift picks from The Summer I Turned Pretty‘s Christopher Briney and The Real Housewives of New York’s Luann de Lesseps.
And while gift givers might not like to be reminded of the fact, returns are also an unavoidable part of the holiday season, so Uber also is touting its new Package Returns service, which debuted in October and is now available in more than 3,800 cities. With Package Returns via Uber Connect, a courier will pick up as many as five prepaid and sealed packages and take them to a post office, UPS or FedEx store. To celebrate the new offering, Uber One members will get free package returns through the first week of January 2024; the service will continue to cost $5 for non-members.
