Costco has expanded Uber Eats delivery from 17 states to 47, covering nearly 600 warehouses with both on-demand and scheduled orders.
Shoppers who buy a Costco membership through Uber Eats get 30% off their first order, CNBC reports. Costco members separately get 50% off an annual Uber One membership for the first year and 20% off after that, with no delivery fee on eligible orders over $60.
Average US same-day delivery time is already under 45 minutes, CEO Ron Vachris said in May. “We are happy with the partners that we have,” he added, when asked about building a first-party delivery fleet.
“Costco is one of the largest and most trusted retailers in the country for good reason,” said Andrew Macdonald, Uber’s president and Chief Operating Officer.
Costco already runs same-day delivery through Instacart, a partnership that dates back several years. Uber is newer to the warehouse chain: the two piloted grocery delivery in 25 Texas locations back in 2021 before this nationwide expansion.
Online sales reached a record 17.1% of US retail sales in the second quarter, according to the Census Bureau.
Other retailers are making the opposite bet on how many delivery apps to run. Ace Hardware now delivers through Instacart, DoorDash and Uber Eats all at once. Foot Locker added Instacart as a delivery option last month. Walmart has gone the other way: it dropped DoorDash and now leans on its own Spark driver network instead.
Whether to rent delivery capacity from apps like Uber and Instacart or build a proprietary network, the way Walmart has with Spark, is becoming one of retail’s bigger strategic bets.
Costco reports fiscal fourth-quarter earnings September 24. Paid membership stood at 82.9 million last quarter, up 4.1% year over year.
