{"id":519789,"date":"2023-12-19T06:55:14","date_gmt":"2023-12-19T04:55:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=519789"},"modified":"2023-12-19T06:58:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-19T04:58:09","slug":"load-shedding-hurting-small-restaurants-on-uber-eats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/energy\/519789-load-shedding-hurting-small-restaurants-on-uber-eats.html","title":{"rendered":"Load-shedding hurting small restaurants on Uber Eats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Load-shedding has a significant impact on food deliveries through Uber Eats, the company has told MyBroadband.<\/p>\n

Uber Eats’ restaurant partners that don’t have backup power during load-shedding are forced to go offline. However, this could soon change.<\/p>\n

Head of operations for Uber Eats’ sub-Saharan Africa region, Charles Mhango, spoke to MyBroadband about the impact Eskom’s rotational power cuts have on its service and partners.<\/p>\n

He indicated that although some restaurant partners have load-shedding backups, those who don’t see a significant negative impact on their sales.<\/p>\n

However, smaller restaurants without backup power suffer, so Uber Eats is looking into solutions to assist these businesses.<\/p>\n

“Uber Eats has become an integral part of many people’s lives, especially during load-shedding, as our data has shown a demand from customers, especially during the evenings from 6\u20139pm,” said Mhango.<\/p>\n

“Due to load-shedding, we have unfortunately seen a negative impact on restaurants that use the Uber Eats platform and do not have backup power which is why we are looking into solutions to help these businesses, particularly SMMEs.”<\/p>\n

“We have also been trying to mitigate the impact of load-shedding by making consumers aware of which merchants in their area are operational during load-shedding,” he added.<\/p>\n

Mhango said this gives Uber Eats more control over ordering during load-shedding bouts and added that the company continually engages with restaurants to see how it can offer them support.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Charles Mhango<\/p><\/div>\n

MyBroadband also asked Takealot-owned Mr D for comment, but it had not answered our questions by the time of publication.<\/p>\n

The problem of some smaller businesses being unable to operate during load-shedding isn’t new.<\/p>\n

In December 2022, Mhango said small and medium outlets that could not install expensive backup power were forced to stop trading<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0during load-shedding sessions.<\/p>\n

He described the impact of load-shedding on food deliveries as a “mixed bag”.<\/p>\n

“During the period of 18:00 to 21:00, we are seeing a surge of people placing orders on the app,” Mhango said.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got your larger restaurant base that can afford alternative power\u2026and those guys are able to stay afloat and are able to fulfil orders.”<\/p>\n

He added that connectivity issues during load-shedding present a significant challenge for restaurants and drivers.<\/p>\n

“When the Internet services go down, it’s harder for the delivery people to be able to find you, it’s harder for the delivery people to communicate with you,” Mhango stated.<\/p>\n

“We aim to deliver in under 30 minutes, but what we are seeing is that in cases where there is load-shedding, because there is a breakdown [of] in-app communication, [customers] might get their order in just a little over 30 minutes.”<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: Major load-shedding inverter company accused of breaking South African price laws<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While restaurants with backup power see sales surge during load-shedding, those without are forced to go offline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":503238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27995,49317],"tags":[78482,181,35,8487,64438,35236],"class_list":["post-519789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-it-services","tag-charles-mhango","tag-eskom","tag-headline","tag-load-shedding","tag-mr-d","tag-uber-eats"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519789"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519789"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":520159,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519789\/revisions\/520159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}