Oracle and Uber (NYSE: UBER) today announced Collect and Receive, a new offering on the Oracle Retail platform connecting retailers and consumers to enhance and enrich last mile delivery.

Supported by the Oracle Retail Data Store and cloud platform technologies, retailers can now link to Uber Direct, the company’s white-label delivery solution, via pre-integrated APIs. This joint solution enables retailers to rebalance inventory while giving customers more choices, including same-day and scheduled delivery options, order pickup, and returns to the closest retail or postal location. The service is available today for Oracle Retail customers in the US and Canada. Learn more and schedule a demo here.

“At Uber, it’s crystal clear that on-demand delivery is a core expectation for consumers—and today’s retailers are taking note,” said Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber. “Every month, more than 3,500 brands use Uber Direct to power millions of same-day local deliveries. Together with Oracle, we can make it easier than ever for retailers to leverage on-demand delivery—and even returns—to delight consumers, streamline logistics, and ultimately boost loyalty and sales.”

This co-innovation builds on Uber’s recent seven-year strategic cloud partnership with Oracle to deliver new consumer experiences with last-mile logistics and drive increased profitability with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI).

“Oracle knows retail processes, and Uber knows delivery. Connecting the two platforms eliminates the gap between a sales transaction and customer service, and at the same time provides invaluable data to better serve the customer on their next experience and improve overall retail profitability,” said Pat Bohannon, vice president at Oracle Retail. “Together, we can improve the experiences and profitability of the retail industry by raising the bar to a new ‘premium delivery’ standard where the customer can determine where and when their delivery or return will occur. Combining Uber's ability to schedule deliveries in advance or on short notice is far superior to traditional last mile delivery.”

Going the extra delivery mile

New research commissioned by Uber shows that 75% of consumers expect express delivery as an option, and 72% are more likely to continue ordering from companies that offer this service.¹ With Collect and Receive, retailers can leverage the power of the Oracle Retail Data Store Cloud Service with Oracle Retail Store Inventory Operations Cloud Service (PDF), Oracle Retail Xstore Point of Service, or Oracle Retail Order Management Suite Cloud Services to quickly connect to Uber Direct through bundled APIs. Once connected, retailers can offer customers fast, reliable, and flexible local delivery while better managing delivery costs and closing the gap between order and delivery to create a more agile supply chain geared to move merchandise more efficiently across their ecosystem.

All transaction data is captured back into the Oracle retail cloud platform, enabling retailers to further analyze buying behaviors and preferences to refine and improve services and offers moving forward. This new connection will allow retailers to deliver on their brand promise through every interaction with the customer to drive true loyalty.

“With this partnership, Oracle is enabling retailers to easily extend the value of their Oracle retail applications with last-mile delivery services from Uber,” said Jordan K. Speer, Research Director of Worldwide Retail Product Sourcing, Fulfillment, and Sustainability Strategies at IDC Research. “This will lower the cost of last-mile deliveries of whatever sort—whether product delivery to home, store-to-store transfers of merchandise, product returns, and so forth. This bilateral communication between Uber and Oracle is a significant step forward in providing retailers a more valuable, intelligent, end-to-end supply chain process.”

¹ In March 2023, Edelman Data & Intelligence surveyed 5,754 global respondents that are 18 years or older on their views around on-demand delivery.