"Good morning, this is your Uber driver speaking, on today's ride you will be able to view the adverts as well as chose from multiple music channels. We also provide you with a selection of snacks that our rider attendant will offer you during the ride. I hope you have a pleasant ride and look forward to driving you again."
Yup, guess what? Uber will also make an emergency exit video and a quick animation explaining how to buckle up.
GetCargo box
Rideshare passengers get to order in-ride food, drink, and even gadgetry (lie an iPhone charger or ear buds) and drivers get to earn $1 per product sale and a 25% commission fee for every item sold. If the driver sells ten items a week, then he/she gains an extra $10 bonus. According to GetCargo, a good sales month will bring a driver $500 additional income.
Some of the products are free, such as Smartwater, which when given will earnt he driver $1 without the commission (what's 25% of 0). GetCargo will make sure the driver's boxes are always filled, so drivers taking on this new product will need to maintain them on a daily basis.
GetCargo
GetCargo is the product of Jeff Cripe and Jasper Wheeler and a team of talented young professionals. They are backed up by an impressive list of consultants and investors. Basically, GetCarGo developed a manual vending machine that sits in a car and helps the driver satisfy passengers with in ride nourishment that includes protein bars, soft drinks, water and various candies. They also include some gadgetry such as earbuds and USB connectors for mobile devices as well as OTC items such as Advil and beauty products.
The box, which is basically designed for easy storage and quick opening, as well as being refrigerated is backed up by an app. The GetCarGo app is a mobile menu which he passenger downloads onto their smartphone and then uses it to buy a product. The driver receives an order confirmation and then hands the product to the passenger.
Restocking is free, and the company tracks inventory through sales. They send drivers constant stock supplies as well as new products to try out when brands have been added.
GetCarGo is not only limited to Uber and Lyft, but they will also provide their products to anyone that wants to sign up. Currently, they work out of NYC and Atlanta, GA.
Since the company provides an extra outlet not yet reached in sales, GetCarGo provides an exciting new market for brands seeking to expand their reach. Coca Cola VP and GM for e-commerce, John Carroll told the media that "We're very excited to enter this new distribution channel in rideshare with GetCargo. GetCargo offers an innovative solution to helping Coca-Cola deliver refreshment to consumers in their moment of need in a space that was previously hard to reach that scale."
Customers of GetCarGo will be part of the company's data infrastructure and their spending habits as well as the selling habits of the drivers will be recorded and analyzed to create new informatics from a market source that has not yet been tried out.
The only reason that GetCarGo will take time to reach more sites is the restocking issue. This is a major supply chain initiative and needs to be coordinated properly. In a smaller market, such as one city, it is easy to handle restocking, even for thousands of clients. However, once you go national, you need to factor in logistics center handling (similar to Amazon) and have a constant supply of products that are all shelf life limited. Basically, GetCarGo has to emulate Walmart or Costco's as well as Amazon Flex and find a way to provide a seamless and efficient resupply system, where their logistics centers receive a constant supply of stock from their suppliers and where they can distribute the stock to drivers.
GetCarGo intends to expand along the West Coast during 2018 and intends to go national in the following year. As for global operations, that is in the pipeline as well, and they expect to reach over 25 million customers in around 20,000 vehicles during 2018.