Uber Eats Embraces TikTok Wave with New Short-Form Video Discovery Tool

Uber Technologies, Inc’s UBER Uber Eats is introducing a TikTok-style short-form video feature to enhance food discovery and enable restaurants to highlight their offerings more vividly. 

This feature, which is currently undergoing testing in New York, San Francisco, and Toronto, represents Uber Eats’ foray into the burgeoning realm of short-form video content, aligning with a trend popularized by platforms like Meta Platforms Inc META Instagram, Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL YouTube, Snap Inc SNAP Snapchat, Netflix Inc NFLX, and recently Microsoft Corp MSFT LinkedIn. 

The feature showcases videos in a swipeable format, visible in carousels throughout the app, including the home screen, TechCrunch reports. 

Also Read: Uber Technologies Clocks Strong Q4 Performance, CEO Terms It ‘Profitable Growth At Scale’

These videos aim to give users a closer look at food preparation, textures, portion sizes, and dish compositions, ultimately boosting consumer confidence in trying new dishes. 

Notably, the content is offered to users based on the proximity of the restaurants, ensuring relevance and delivery feasibility.

Uber Eats’ approach differentiates from typical advertising; it doesn’t charge merchants for these video placements, offering a unique platform for restaurants to connect directly with potential customers. 

This move is particularly significant as many restaurants leverage social media to attract new patrons and showcase their culinary creations. 

Introducing this feature into the Uber Eats app aims to streamline the discovery process and encourage users to seek culinary inspiration within the app itself.

Uber Eats is also enhancing its support for merchants by revamping the Uber Eats Manager software with personalized growth recommendations and preparing to launch a new app for restaurant managers to facilitate on-the-go business management.

Prior reports indicated Microsoft’s LinkedIn testing a TikTok-like short-form video feed enabling users to interact with vertical short videos by liking, commenting, and sharing. This move by LinkedIn focuses on career-oriented and professional content.

Reports also suggested that Spotify Technology SA SPOT explore full-length music videos to appeal to the Gen Z audience. Meta expanded its short video offerings with the global launch of “Reels” in February 2022, while Google reported in June 2022 that YouTube “Shorts” had garnered over 1.5 billion logged-in monthly viewers. Amazon.Com Inc AMZN also entered the fray in August 2022, trialing a TikTok-like photo and video feed within its shopping app to facilitate product discovery.

Uber stock gained over 136% in the last 12 months. Investors can gain exposure to the stock via First Trust US Equity Opportunities ETF FPX and Global X Millennial Consumer ETF MILN.

Price Action: UBER shares traded lower by 0.05% at $75.00 on the last check Tuesday.

Also Read: Uber Freight Targets European Market For 10X Expansion Push By 2028

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons