Postmates Moves Into Speedy Delivery (Your Move, Uber)

On Monday, Uber announced that it would be canceling Instant Delivery – the lunch-only, 10-minute curbside delivery feature in New York . The tricky logistics of the service had largely been offloaded to featured restaurants, who estimated how many of a given meal would sell each day and sent the prepackaged lunches to Uber’s midtown office to be picked up and driven or biked around the city. Even so, the delivery company admitted they may have overreached a bit, and have cancelled the service to focus on the core of the UberEats business.

Whether by coincidence or an impressively quick strategic move, Postmates has now stepped up to the ultra-fast delivery plate, rolling out their 15-minute delivery service (called Postmates Pop) in NYC at 11 am today. The service has been available for almost a year in San Francisco, and Postmates has said that it will work exactly the same way in New York (although only from 34th Street to Battery Park). To begin, you can order through the service from Fuku, Harry and Ida’s and S’MAC. It’s unclear how they’ll clear the hurdles that brought down Uber Instant, but we’re pretty sure contenders will keep stepping up until at least one nails it.

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