Uber Eats, Japan convenience store Lawson form delivery tie-up

Lawson

27/08/2019 08:59

TOKYO, Aug 27 (Reuters) - Uber Eats and Japanese convenience
store chain Lawson  2651.T  on Tuesday announced a delivery
partnership in central Tokyo, seeking to capitalise on growing
demand for quick home delivery of food and everyday items.
    Lawson said it will start selling around 100 products
including bento boxes, fried chicken and tissue paper through
Uber Eats starting on Thursday, initially for users near its
stores in Shinjuku and Shinagawa before a later expansion.
    The country's third-biggest convenience store, which
currently does not offer an online delivery service, said the
next three months will be an experimental phase, during which it
will study sales data before considering a broader launch.
    Uber Eats' delivery bikes and scooters are an increasingly
common sight in Tokyo even as its parent Uber Technologies'
 UBER.N  ride-hailing service is still banned in Japan.
    Uber will not reveal user numbers, but says it now has
partnerships with 10,000 restaurants in Japan, including the
multiple stores of chains such as McDonald's  2702.T  and KFC
 9873.T , compared with 150 when it started in 2016.
    The move also comes as Lawson and bigger rivals 7-Eleven
 3382.T  and FamilyMart  8028.T  face a slowdown after years of
expansion, with analysts citing saturation, competition from
discount drugstores and a shrinking labour force  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL3N20O1IA.

 (Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; editing by Gopakumar Warrier)
 ((Ritsuko.Ando@reuters.com; +81 3 6441 1743;))