Uber Eats opens up tipping option

Uber has opened up its Eats food delivery service for tipping and says it’ll chip in to match at-home diners gratuities.

Uber Eats says its opening up the option to give tips to help restaurants and cafes make it through the coronavirus downturn. Picture: Supplied.

Stay-at-homers will now be able to tip restaurants from the comfort of the couch after UberEats added the option on Friday and Deliveroo set to follow next week to help the hospitality industry through the lockdown.

UberEats has said it will match up to $3 per order in tips, to a limit of $1 million across the industry, with all of the tips to be distributed to restaurants.

An UberEats spokesman said the addition of tipping followed a whole series of other moves in response to the virus, including removing a requirement that the 22,000 restaurants on the app match the price of what they sell online to in-store.

“This new addition to the app has been designed to support the restaurant community at this unprecedented moment,” the spokesman said.

“We’ve already seen tips to delivery partners climb during the coronavirus pandemic. We will continue to monitor how this new restaurant tipping feature might impact tipping for delivery partners.”

Deliveroo has also committed to doing a deal for restaurants in Australia and from next week will match the first 10,000 tips up to a limit of 25 per cent of the value of the order.

Home deliver services have surged in recent weeks as Australians can’t get out to their favourite restaurant.

The industry has been slammed by the coronavirus, with tens of thousands of people losing their jobs in the sector as restrictions on trade have seen many close their doors.

Food delivery platforms are now for some the only way for those still in business to make sales.

Coretto Dee Why owner Kurtis Bosley.

Corretto Dee Why, in Sydney’s Northern beaches, has scrambled to respond to the crisis going almost overnight from sit-down cocktails and dinner on the beach to a takeaway restaurant.

Owner, Kurtis Bosley, welcomed the option to tip on UberEats, after his business shed 19 staff and the remaining five had seen their hours cut dramatically.

“We’re doing the same work that goes into the meals, so giving customers the option to tip, it’ll be really good,” the 28-year-old said.

“It allows me to get the guys who are working and doing the pieces in the kitchen something extra without the business folding.”

Deliveroo Australia chief executive Ed McManus, said the option to tip was an invitation “to support the local hospitality businesses” Australians love.

“Many Australians in the food and hospitality industry have been hurt by the COVID-19 crisis and our focus is on how best we can support our restaurant partners to adapt quickly during this time,” he said.

Both Deliveroo and UberEats have also moved to a daily distribution of payments to restaurants, rather than weekly, aimed at boosting cash flows during a period of extreme economic dislocation to the hospitality sector.

UberEats has said it will waive the $750 fee it charges new restaurants that join the platform, while the rise of the virus has seen no-contact delivery become standard practice.