Costco and Uber Eats go nationwide

Costco gets a bigger delivery lane

Costco is expanding nationwide delivery on Uber Eats, which is basically the retail equivalent of adding more lanes to a highway at rush hour. Instead of making you haul a cart full of giant peanut butter tubs and mystery bulk snacks home yourself, the orders can now flow through Uber’s delivery network.

Why Uber investors should care

For Uber, this is another reminder that the company wants to be more than just the thing you use after a late dinner. Every new retail partner helps fill the Uber Eats basket with more everyday transactions, and grocery-plus-big-box orders can be sticky if the experience is smooth enough.

The bigger picture

This also keeps Uber in the neighborhood of a very different kind of shopping habit: less ramen-on-a-Friday-night, more “I need 48 granola bars and I need them now.” That’s not flashy, but it can add useful volume to the platform and deepen Uber Eats’ role in the home-delivery ecosystem.

Big picture: if Uber can keep stacking partnerships like this, it’s slowly turning its app into a utility instead of just a convenience.