Uber to Shut Down Drizly App
BOSTON — Uber plans to wind down operations of its Drizly app in March after only three years of ownership.
In an email sent to Chain Store Age, a sister publication to Convenience Store News, Pierre Dimitri Gore-Coty, senior vice president of delivery at Uber, confirmed reports that Drizly will be permanently shut down by its parent company, which acquired the app in October 2021 for $1.1 billion.
"After three years of Drizly operating independently within the Uber family, we've decided to close the business and focus on our core Uber Eats strategy of helping consumers get almost anything — from food to groceries to alcohol — all on a single app," Gore-Coty told Chain Store Age. "We're grateful to the Drizly team for their many contributions to the growth of the BevAlc delivery category as the original industry pioneer."
Consumers increasingly prefer to get multiple types of products delivered using the same app, and dividing services between Drizly and its primary Uber Eats app no longer made much sense, either for the company's finances or for consumers, according to Uber.
Drizly was founded in 2012 but hit its stride in 2020, with sales growing by approximately 350% at the height of the pandemic, according to reporting by the Washington Post. The news outlet cited that despite the service's success, the company struggled at times with data privacy, getting dinged by the Federal Trade Commission in 2018 for its failure to install safeguards to secure users' personal information.
[Read more: Drizly Reveals Top Beverage Trends to Watch]
Uber anticipates little disruption for Drizly consumers, most of whom also maintain Uber accounts as well. However, the future for Drizly employees is less certain, as the Post reported at least some jobs will be eliminated after the shut down, while other employees will possibly be offered positions under the Uber brand.
Drizly currently has a contract with Gopuff to provide on-demand delivery of alcoholic beverages from the latter's selection of beer, wine and spirits. As of now, there has been no word yet on whether this partnership will transfer to and continue with Uber Eats after March 2024.