Uber is gauging its drivers’ interest in providing TaskRabbit-like services for consumers and potentially other businesses, Recode has learned.
Uber is asking drivers if they want to provide other on-demand services
The company sent out an email to drivers asking how much they would want to be paid for tasks like health care, moving or customer services tasks.
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The $69 billion company sent out an email to drivers asking if they’d be willing to take on other on-demand jobs — such as cleaning, moving or food service.
The email, which came from the company’s research department, reads:
“We would like to ask about your interest in receiving requests from Uber to perform other types of tasks on a flexible basis. Task requests would be similar to ride requests from Uber. A request would be sent through the Uber app for a task. If interested, an Uber partner would accept the request and then travel to meet the request at the specified task location.”
The email then links to a survey which asks what would be the lowest hourly pay a driver would accept for the following tasks: Health care services, moving services, customer service, retail, cleaning services, clerical tasks, warehouse tasks, food service tasks.
Uber declined to comment for this story.
Based on the variety of jobs Uber presented to its drivers, the company appears to be exploring providing on-demand services for both consumers and other businesses.
This has been something that the company has discussed launching over the last year or so, a source familiar told Recode. Though it’s unclear how far along those discussions are.
Have more information or any tips? Johana Bhuiyan is the senior transportation editor at Recode and can be reached at johana@recode.net or on Signal, Confide, WeChat or Telegram at 516-233-8877. You can also find her on Twitter at @JmBooyah.
The company, which made its mark in on-demand transportation, has a booming food-delivery business which it first began its foray into in 2014. As of July, that business — called UberEats — was profitable in 27 of the 108 cities it was available in, according to the New York Times.
However, Uber had previously struggled to expand its business beyond ride-hail.
The ride-hail player shuttered its experimental product delivery service, UberEssentials, just five months after it launched it in Washington, D.C., in August 2014.
Both Uber and its rival Lyft see a big opportunity in B2B services. The companies have been expanding their enterprise businesses with new partnerships like Lyft’s partnership with Delta and Blue Cross Blue Shield — though even that has been largely focused on providing rides to other businesses.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated Uber shuttered its UberRush courier service, but the company only stopped operating its restaurant courier service because it was providing that with UberEats. UberRush is still being used by businesses other than restaurants.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
