Free snacks in the backseat of your next Uber. What's going on. I'm rich Dmiro. This is rich on tech. Uber is partnering with a startup named Cargo to offer free and paid snacks in the backseat of cars. Cargo has been providing ride share drivers clear little boxes filled with all kinds of products that they strapped to their center consoles. They've been doing this for about a year now, but this new partnership is a big deal because it
will expand their reach. Passengers use their phones to scan a QR code on the box and shop for stuff inside. The driver then hands them their goods when it's safe. Recently I talked to Cargo co founder Jeff Kreipe. He explained how he came up with the idea.
Yeah, So the idea behind it was, you know, twenty fifteen, Uber was really starting to boom. Everybody was taking more ride chair vehicles. I personally was spending so much time in ride chair vehicles, and it just occurred to us that like, there, you know, that we hadn't really sort of innovated much on the experience of being in a car. Uber made it incredibly easy to hail a car, but the you know, the side of the you know, of the car. The cabin of the car hadn't really changed much.
So we said, what can we do to sort of provide a better experience to passengers, bring them arms length convenience and put things that they need on a daily basis at their fingertips while they're in transit, but do it in a way that actually drives incremental earnings for
drivers as well. So it's you know, it's essentially sort of like a mini like two sided marketplace inside the car, and it's away for passengers to get what they need, you know, easily affordably on the go, and for drivers to make you know, anywhere from uh, you know, I think one hundred dollars on average to our top drivers earning about three hundred dollars a month.
Each cargo box averages about ten different items, about seven or paid, three are free. I tried purchasing a few items and I love the selection. It's all very simple. There's no app to download, there's no sign up or log in. You use your mobile browser and mobile payment something like Apple pay, Google Pay, PayPal or Venmo to check out in seconds.
So we do have those daily essentials breath fresheners if you're going on a date, charge you know, if you've been out all day and your phone is dying. You know, energy energy drinks and things like that. If if you need sort of a pick up, we have all those things. But we also have early premium like electronics like earbuds if you're headed to the airport and forgot your earbuds. We have really cool beauty products in the car at now.
We actually have Patrology face masks for your face and lips so that you can actually like turn your Uber experience into a spaw experience while you're on the go. We have fun beauty products we have. We have other new sort of like snacking innovations that big companies like Mars regular Kelloggs will launch and hopefully get into your hands and have you fall in love with, as well as things from sort of like cool emerging snack companies like our x bar.
So what does this new partnership between Uber and Cargo mean for the company.
You know, we launched the business about thirteen months ago, and over the past thirteen months, we now have about seven thousand drivers on the platform. A little over we've distributed over a million products to passengers, and we've paid out our drivers over a million dollars and this is totally risk free and cost free for drivers. If you sign up, it doesn't cost you a thing. You don't buy products. So we've made that like a really nice
experience for drivers. And Uber, who we've been in contact with for the past couple of years, I think, has seen us to build the fleet, get into you know, seven of the top ten ride share markets in the country, and realize that this is really like an innovation that benefits both of their key customers, you know, writers who get better convenience and an upgraded in car experience and
drivers who are obviously earning more money with us. And you know, we kind of put our heads together and that said, you know, we feel like this is really the right time to launch a partnership, you know. So so today we're announcing a partnership with Uber, which is really exciting it, you know for me as you know, as a founder thinking about sort of the next stage of growth for our business. Obviously, Uber has access to tremendous you know amounts of drivers not only throughout the US,
but throughout the world. So this is a global exclusive deal with them, so you know are we're launching LA in San Francisco today with them UH. These boxes and sign up for drivers will now also be available in their green light hubs in San Francisco UH and in Los Angeles, which are areas where drivers can go in for support, for rest, bit, to pick up some coffee, and now to sign up for cargo.
I wondered about safety because these products are inside a box that only the driver can access. The driver has to open the box, retrieve the goods, and then hand them to the passengers. They're supposed to be stopped when they do this, but what if the passengers get the munchies and try to reach in and grab something themselves.
Take you know, precautions at every stage of our interaction with a driver, from the moment they sign up to you know, frequent communications we have with them, to communications in the text messages. That product should only be distributed when the car is safely parked. And I'm very proud to say that we've we've processed over five hundred thousand transactions and we've never literally had a single complaint from
a passenger about safety, which is terrific. But also you know, we have made this device really easy to take in
and out of the car. All you have to do is strap it down to the center of the center console with you know, strong straps that we provide and buckles that we provide that are attached to the box, so you can actually, you know, at night, if if you live in an area and you don't think you'd you know, you'd like to keep this in the car because there are headphones and other things people might want.
You can just toss this in your trunk or you know, bring it in at night and you know, put it back in the morning and twenty seconds or less.
There you have it. Expect to see some more snackage on your next Uber ride. And the free sample aspect is just brilliant because that makes people curious. They want to know what they can get for free, and that gets them comfortable interacting with the boxes. Because even to get the free stuff, you still have to scan the QR code and check out on the mobile browser. If you've ever been on Virgin America, it's kind of the
same thing. Even if you want to order something on the touch screen, even if it's free, you still have to order it and then the flight attendant brings it to you, and keep in mind this program is optional. Drivers are not required to sign up for it, so if they're worried about people making a mess in their car, they can just avoid it all together. Thanks so much for listening. I'd love it if you could spread the
word about my podcast. Just take a screenshot of you listening on your phone and then post it to your Instagram stories. That's a great way for other people to discover it, and be sure to tag me. I'm at rich on tech on Instagram. And by the way, if you're interested in seeing what the world's largest chevron looks like with ninety six pumps and a fifty thousand square foot convenience store, well it just opened outside Las Vegas and I did a road trip there to check it out.
You can see my blog post and video on my website. Just go to richon tech dot tv. I'm Richdemiro. I'll talk to you real soon.
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