When you hear that your preferred fashion items are available for ordering and delivery on a food delivery app like Uber Eats, that’s when you can say things are getting weird. Fashion items on a food delivery app? Good thing it’s not a physical store!
But, Uber and Uber Eats are firm in staying this way. Ridesharingforum.com is witness to several fashion labels being available on food delivery apps not merely Uber Eats, but also DoorDash. It’s convenient, being able to order the clothes you want via Uber Eats.
Also however, this The Guardian correspondent Maggie Zhou isn’t liking this setup. In her recent opinion piece on the newspaper titled “Do we really need clothes delivered in under an hour? Target’s Uber Eats deal is convenience culture gone wild,” she criticized Uber Eats making available clothes and fashion items on the app, saying people don’t really need clothes to be delivered in under an hour only to throw them away after some uses.
“The time lag between ordering a meal and its packaging hitting your rubbish bin is ridiculously brief. Will items bought through this partnership be treated differently?” she started. “You can buy women’s heels, fashion jewellery, pyjamas and men’s suits, jocks and Christmas merch. You can buy homewares, baby goods, accessories, toys and beauty products, too. This sits side-by-side with Uber Eats’ main offerings of, well, things you can eat.”
She opened her take by recalling how Target became the first-ever fashion store in Australia to make its items available to order via Uber Eats, followed by Bunnings, Kmart, Big W, and more others.
She’s concerned about how these clothes are eventually being disposed of, instead of cherished and passed down, so she thinks that these fashion pieces do not deserve the delivery treatment that Uber Eats gives, like bringing it to your doorstep in under an hour upon ordering. Or, she might misunderstand things, but she got a point, right?
“Much of its fashion offerings are everyday pieces, such as underwear and activewear, items people most likely have at home already. So why the need for almost instantaneous delivery? Ostensibly because of a lack of planning – perhaps for a last-minute sleepover, swim or hike. What happened to good old-fashioned problem-solving? Turn your knickers inside out, borrow someone else’s bathers, make do with what you’re wearing, be okay with getting a bit clammy,” Zhou continued.
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Zhou did some clarifications before she ended her piece, saying that she isn’t, in any way, negating or disagreeing with how convenient deliveries are now, “particularly for those who might be disabled, time-poor or who live rurally.”
“Online delivery is vital for connecting so many to goods and services they need (though it’s worth noting this service is rolling out from Target’s “high-demand” locations),” she wrote.
But, do you know what worries her? The “speed of this on-demand delivery.” For more delivery news, keep it locked right here on RSF. ‘Til then, and Merry Christmas!