Uber Shuts Down Drizly Alcohol Delivery, Three Years After $1B Acquisition

Uber Technologies Inc. gave up its Drizly online ordering and delivery platform, specializing in delivering alcohol products via its app or website. The San Francisco, California ride-hailing and delivery firm revealed it is shutting down Drizly, which has been operating as a standalone app.

CNN Business reported that Uber Technologies' decision to close its Drizly delivery service comes just three years after it purchased the company for $1.1 billion. The latter became the largest online-based marketplace for alcoholic beverages in North America after the COVID-19 pandemic boosted its services amid the at-home delivery boom in that period.

Future of Drizly Delivery Service

As Drizly is being operated separately, once the shutdown takes effect by the end of March, it will be integrated into Uber's food delivery app, Uber Eats. In explaining the decision to close the platform, the senior vice president of delivery at Uber, Pierre Dimitri Gore-Coty, said that they want to focus on the company's primary Uber Eats strategy of helping customers get anything via its delivery service - from food to groceries, to alcohol - everything in just one single app.

In other words, Uber is pushing to combine all its product delivery offerings and include them all in Uber Eats. In any case, the firm acquired Drizly when reorganizing the company to offer more to its users, especially during the pandemic when most people stayed home due to lockdowns.

Uber's Problem with Drizly

Meanwhile, although it was mentioned that Uber decided to close Drizly to focus on its leading delivery service, the company's cybersecurity issue with Drizly may have also played a role in the decision. It was reported that in 2020, the alcohol delivery platform was hacked, exposing data belonging to about 2.5 million customers.

"After three years of Drizly operating independently within the Uber family, we've decided to close the business," Gore-Coty said in a statement sent to Axios. "We are grateful to the Drizly team for their many contributions to the growth of the BevAlc delivery category as the original industry pioneer."

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